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Luke Kawa

Tech winners haven’t crushed tech losers by this much since the dot-com bubble was bursting

The performance gap between the tech sector’s winners and losers has reached the 100th percentile, widening to levels not seen since 2000.

That’s according to Jeff deGraaf, head of technical research at Renaissance Macro Research, who flagged in a note to clients the magnitude of this divergence in fortunes within the industry.

The story of the technology trade in 2026 was made clear on the first trading day of the year, with a record outperformance of semiconductor stocks versus their software counterparts.

Since then, software has continued to flounder as new AI tools pull the timetable for potential disruption forward and threaten to undermine the perceived safety of the software industry’s recurring revenue streams and margins. Within the hardware space, the list of winners have become even narrower, with investors focused on data center capex beneficiaries, particularly in memory and semicap equipment.

“To see similar levels of performance differential between winners and losers requires a trip back to 2000 as the dot-com bubble was bursting and the semis were holding up relative to the speculative internet related names,” deGraaf wrote. “Beware chasing good charts in technology, and at the margin, reduce exposure.”

L/S Momentum Russell 1000 Technology
Source: Renaissance Macro Research

Year to date, the best performers in the Russell 1000 Technology Index (and presumably, the best charts) include Sandisk, Western Digital, Corning, Vertiv Holdings, Micron, and Applied Materials.

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SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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