Nasdaq Smiles Alone This Afternoon, S&P Catches Its Breath

It's 12:40pm ET in New York right now — the S&P 500 sits at 7,760.75 (-0.05%) while the Nasdaq is at 27,177.22 (+0.20%). Three hours twenty minutes to the close, and compared to my last brief at 00:10, the S&P slipped another -0.06pp and the Nasdaq another -0.16pp, so I'm watching the afternoon session a little more carefully than usual.

A record high where 60% of names aren't smiling

Right now semiconductors and AI names are running hot while energy and financials are dragging. A headline out today spells this out almost too well: "Near a record high, yet 60% of S&P 500 stocks are in the red." The index itself is near its peak while most of its members are actually slipping — a handful of tech names pulling the whole thing up while everyone else sags, which lines up exactly with the Nasdaq grinning and the S&P stalling right now. Yesterday's Korean session (9/22 close) showed the same shape too — the Kospi rose +0.15% while the Kosdaq fell -0.23% — so this big-cap-carries-the-rest pattern has carried straight into today.

What's sitting in my book

Setting today's moves aside, here's where my current positions stand on unrealized P&L.

With chips and AI running strong, NVIDIA holding at +7.3% feels in step with the tape, but that's just the tally built up over time, not today's swing.

The three hours twenty minutes left

The won sits at 1,384.86 per dollar (+0.39%) and the dollar index is at 100.43 (+0.21%). Into the close, there's really one thing I'm watching — whether the chip-and-AI push keeps carrying the index, or whether that crack where 60% of names are underwater ends up spreading to the whole thing.