CrowdStrike, AMD among the rare S&P 500 gainers in a sea of red

By Tomi Kilgore

Technology was the weakest of the S&P 500's sectors Monday, but it also had the most gainers

To say that the stock market's breadth was bad, on a day the S&P 500 index had its worst day in a year, would be an understatement.

Of the nearly 2,900 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange, 91.8% lost ground Monday, according to FactSet data, while 83.7% of the roughly 4,500 Nasdaq stocks closed in the red.

Within that sea of red, the benchmark S&P 500 SPX sank 3%, to suffer its biggest selloff since it dropped 3.4% on Aug. 26, 2022. All of the SPDR ETFs tracking the S&P 500's 11 key sectors fell, amid growing concerns over an economic slowdown and a global market selloff.

And within the S&P 500, only 23 stocks, or fewer than 5% of the components, closed higher.

Interestingly, the sector ETF with the most number of stocks that made that short list, with five, was the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF XLK, which also happened to be the weakest of the 11 sector trackers.

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.'s stock (CRWD) rose 1.9% to be the S&P 500's third-best performer. The cybersecurity software company's stock had been tumbling in recent weeks since a bug in its software-validation process triggered a global technology outage.

But on Monday, the stock bounced off a nine-month low after a letter sent by CrowdStrike to Delta Air Lines Inc., which reported was seeking damages from CrowdStrike for the outage, said any liability by CrowdStrike would be capped in the "single-digit millions."

Semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s stock (AMD) climbed 1.8% to be the S&P 500's fourth-best performer, as a reported delay in the release of rival Nvidia Corp.'s (NVDA) new Blackwell chip lineup helped AMD's stock buck the tech-sector selloff.

The sector ETFs tied for second, with four stocks rising, were the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF XLP, which makes some sense given the sector's defensive characteristics, and the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF XLY, which can be counterintuitive given that the sector's performance tends to be tied to economic growth.

The following is a list of all 23 of the S&P 500's gainers, in order of the their stocks' gains on Monday, and the sectors they belong to:

Kellanova's stock K climbed 16.2% after Reuters reported that branded foods company Mars was exploring an acquisition of the cereal and convenience foods company (consumer staples).Tyson Foods Inc. shares TSN were up 2.1% after the meat-production company reported fiscal third-quarter profit and revenue that beat expectations (consumer staples).CrowdStrike (technology).AMD, up 1.8% (technology).Constellation Energy Corp. CEG (utilities).Booking Holdings Inc. BKNG (consumer discretionary).On Semiconductor Corp. ON (technology).Church & Dwight Co. Inc. CHD (consumer staples).Tractor Supply Co. TSCO (consumer discretionary).CBOE Global Market Inc.'s stock CBOE rose 1.3% after it was upgraded at J.P. Morgan, which said the rise in market volatility should benefit the options and futures exchange.Ametek Inc. AME (industrial).Dollar General Corp. DG (consumer staples).KLA Corp. KLAC (technology).Lam Research Corp. LRCX(technology).Royal Caribbean Group RCL (consumer staples).West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. WST (health care).DexCom Inc. DXCM(health care).EOG Resources Inc. EOG (energy).Steel Dynamics Inc. STLD (materials).C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. CHRW (industrials).Domino's Pizza Inc. DPZ (consumer discretionary).Applied Materials Inc. AMAT (technology).

The S&P 500's biggest decliners were shares of Caesars Entertainment Inc. (CZR), from the consumer discretionary sector; Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (WBA), from consumer staples; and Etsy Inc. (ETSY), from consumer discretionary. The next worse were shares of Nvidia and Intel Corp. (INTC), both from the technology sector.

-Tomi Kilgore

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08-05-24 1838ET

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