For a long stretch, a small group of the largest technology companies carried the American stock market, lifting the index while the typical company lagged behind. Now, in late October 2026, that arrangement has quietly reversed: a selloff in chip stocks has left the giants trailing the average company in the S&P 500, and the rest of the market has come roaring back. Whether this is a passing correction or the early turn of a longer tide, commentators are already looking backward to 2008 for a sense of what it might mean.
Big Tech Slips Behind the Average Stock as Equal-Weight S&P 500 Surges on Chip Selloff
The average stock is now beating the giants that carried the market
Mark
So what actually happened here?
Mimi
Big Tech stocks, which had been beating the average S&P 500 stock, started lagging it. A chip selloff is the cited cause.
Mark
Why does the equal-weight index matter?
Mimi
It gives every company the same weight, so it shows how the typical stock is doing, not just the giants.
Luke
Worth noting the two claims here differ. One source says sharpest one-month comeback since 1990, another says best outperformance since 2009. They may measure different things.
Mark
And the 2008 comparison?
Mimi
Reuters Breakingviews says tech sounds an uncomfortable 2008 echo. That is a commentary framing.
Luke
Right, and all we have is the headline. We don't know what the argument actually is, so I wouldn't lean on it.
Mark
Do we know how far chips fell?
Luke
No. No percentages, no company names, no size of the gap. The direction is clear but the magnitude isn't in what we have.
Mimi
So the thing to watch is whether the broad market keeps leading or the giants take it back.
El Pulso
- Big Tech, which had been crushing the average stock, now finds itself losing to it.
- A chip selloff has jolted the market, sending the equal-weight S&P 500 on its sharpest one-month rebound since 1990.
- Investors are weighing whether broader market breadth can hold or whether mega-cap leadership will snap back.
- Commentators are drawing uneasy comparisons to the 2008 selloff, and the next few weeks of chip trading will decide which story wins.
For a long stretch, a small group of the largest technology companies carried the American stock market, lifting the index while the typical company lagged behind. Now, in late October 2026, that arrangement has quietly reversed: a selloff in chip stocks has left the giants trailing the average company in the S&P 500, and the rest of the market has come roaring back. Whether this is a passing correction or the early turn of a longer tide, commentators are already looking backward to 2008 for a sense of what it might mean.
Across several headlines gathered under one Google News item, the same shift shows up: the biggest technology companies, which had long outpaced the typical S&P 500 stock, have begun to trail it. Yahoo Finance called it a reversal, a moment when Big Tech went from crushing the average stock to losing to it. MarketWatch described the broader market leaving the giants behind, a comeback belonging to the rest of the field.
The trigger, according to the coverage cited, was a selloff in chip stocks. BigGo Finance reported that it gave the equal-weight S&P 500 its sharpest one-month comeback since 1990. That index gives every company the same weight, so it tracks the average stock, while the standard index is weighted by size and can be pulled around by a few giants. When those giants fall and everyone else holds steady, the equal-weight version pulls ahead. TradingView added that the index was on track for its best outperformance against the weighted version since 2009.
Reuters ran a Breakingviews commentary whose headline warned that tech stocks were sounding an uncomfortable 2008 echo. Only the headline is available, so the details of that comparison remain unclear, but it signals that at least one observer sees this as more than a routine rotation.
The material is thin: headlines without article text, so how far chips fell, which names led the drop, and how wide the gap has grown all remain unknown. The direction is clear, though. A market once narrowed by a few mega-cap names is now one where the average company is doing better than the largest. Whether that breadth holds, or mega-cap technology recovers and the episode proves a brief interruption, will shape how this moment is remembered.
The headlines collected under this Google News item all say the same thing from different angles: the biggest technology companies, which spent a long stretch beating the typical stock in the S&P 500, have started trailing it.
Yahoo Finance framed it as a reversal in its Chart of the Day. Big Tech, it said, went from crushing the average stock to losing to it. MarketWatch described the rest of the market as leaving Big Tech behind, and it called the shift a historic comeback, meaning the comeback belongs to the broader market rather than to the giants.
The trigger, according to the coverage cited, was a selloff in chip stocks. BigGo Finance reported that the selloff gave the equal-weight S&P 500 its sharpest one-month comeback since 1990. The equal-weight index gives every company in the S&P 500 the same influence, so it tracks the average stock. The standard index is weighted by company size, which means a handful of giants can dominate its movements. When the giants fall and the rest hold up or rise, the equal-weight version pulls ahead.
TradingView offered a second measure of the same move. It said the S&P 500 Equal Weight index was on track for its best weighted-index outperformance since 2009. The two benchmarks differ: one points to 1990 for a one-month comeback, the other to 2009 for outperformance. Both place the moment among the most lopsided of recent decades.
The fourth item, from Reuters, was a Breakingviews commentary. Its headline said tech stocks were sounding an uncomfortable 2008 echo. The material available gives only that headline, so the specifics of the comparison are not laid out here. It does show that at least one commentator sees the current turn as carrying echoes of the 2008 period, not as a routine rotation.
The source material is thin. It consists of headlines and no article text, so it does not say how far chip stocks fell, which companies led the decline, or how large the gap between the two indexes has become. What it does establish is the direction. A market that was narrow, carried by a few mega-cap names, has become one where the average company is doing better than the largest ones.
What to watch next is whether that breadth holds. If the equal-weight index keeps beating the size-weighted one, the leadership change may be more than a single month's swing. If mega-cap technology recovers, the episode may look like a sharp but brief interruption. Commentators are already reaching for the 2008 comparison, so the next few weeks of chip-sector trading will matter.
Citas Notables
Tech stocks sound an uncomfortable 2008 echo.— Reuters Breakingviews commentary headline
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Economy & Finance