💡 Today's US market in three lines
① Today's three stocks: Coinbase · MARA Holdings · Semtech — a crypto exchange, a bitcoin miner, and an analog chipmaker, drawn from the only two groups that were working on a day when most of the market was not.
② On September 18, the S&P 500 closed +0.17% at 7,650.50 and the Nasdaq added 0.39% to 26,522.54, yet only 38 of the 129 ETFs in our universe finished higher and 9 of the 11 sector SPDRs closed red.
③ Blockchain equities rose +8.86% after the SEC cleared a path for tokenized stock trading, semiconductors added +2.69%, and almost everything else — nuclear, uranium, mining, sports betting — was sold into the largest options expiration of the year.
Today's Sector Relative Strength (RS)
- Friday was quadruple witching, and it was a big one. Roughly $7 trillion of notional options value expired at once, the second-largest September expiration on record, which means a meaningful share of Friday's volume came from positions closing themselves out. Underneath that noise the tape split cleanly in two. Digital assets and chips went up. Everything levered to the discount rate went down.
- The S&P 500 closed +0.17% at 7,650.50, the Nasdaq +0.39% at 26,522.54, and the Dow -0.18% at 51,682.64. Growth beat value again — the Russell 1000 Growth fund (IWF) rose +0.59% against -0.44% for the Russell 1000 Value fund (IWD), and the Nasdaq-100 fund (QQQ) added +0.63% — while the equal-weight S&P 500 (RSP) fell -0.48% and small caps (IWM) -0.47%. The index beat the average stock by a wide margin, which is what a two-sector rally looks like from the top. Of the eleven sector SPDRs only technology (+0.82%) and industrials (+0.44%) advanced; utilities and materials both fell -1.42%.
- Breadth was worse than the index suggests: 91 of the 129 funds in our universe closed lower. One technical note belongs here. SPY finished -0.12% while the index it tracks rose +0.17%, because the fund traded ex-dividend on Friday, as index funds typically do on the third Friday of a quarter-end month. Several other funds carry the same quarterly adjustment, so a fraction of Friday's negative breadth is calendar mechanics.
- The day's engine was regulatory. The SEC introduced a five-year exemption permitting certain platforms to facilitate trading in tokenized stocks, with the condition that digital versions of listed shares give investors rights comparable to the real thing, including voting and dividends. The CFTC sent its own crypto market rulemaking to the White House budget office for review the same week. Bitcoin responded by clearing $80,000, closing +6.29% at $81,212, with ether +7.38% at $2,627. The 10-year Treasury yield, meanwhile, closed at 5.00%, up from 4.95% — and that number explains almost every red column on the map.
Today's Leading Sectors TOP 5
- Basis: top 5 by 1-month RS rank on the 'Sector RS (US)' sheet — 129-ETF universe, September 18, 2026. Daily moves are measured from Yahoo closing prices. Trend columns compare price to its 1-month, 1-quarter, and 1-year moving averages.
| ETF | 1-Day | RS Rank 1M | Short-Term | Mid-Term | Long-Term |
| United States Oil Fund (USO) | -0.96% | 100 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| Global X Blockchain (BKCH) | +8.86% | 99 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| VanEck Digital Transformation (DAPP) | +8.17% | 99 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| SonicShares Global Shipping (BOAT) | -0.41% | 98 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| VanEck Onchain Economy (NODE) | +6.22% | 96 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
- The table has changed character in a week. Oil still holds the top rank on the strength of a month that returned +17.50%, but three of the five slots now belong to digital assets, and all three of them arrived this week. Every fund in the top five trades above its 1-month, 1-quarter, and 1-year moving averages, which is rare on a day when two-thirds of the universe fell. Genomics, which entered this table for the first time on Thursday, has already dropped out.
Why They're Strong — Sector Issues
· Oil (USO) — The fund slipped -0.96% and keeps rank 100. The front-month WTI quote looks alarming at $95.47 against Thursday's $101.91, but the oil funds did not move anything like that: USO -0.96%, the Brent fund (BNO) -0.56%, and the energy SPDR (XLE) -0.26%. What that gap describes is a contract roll into a curve that is steeply backwardated, not a collapse in the barrel. Refiners (CRAK, -1.61%) and exploration (IEO) both hold ranks above 90 for the same reason the crude complex does — a month of supply disruption that has not been repaired yet.
· Shipping (BOAT) — Down -0.41% on the day and still at rank 98, with a month of +9.19% behind it. Tanker owners get paid by the voyage, so the rerouting that has kept routes long has kept day rates high even as the crude curve flips. This is now the quietest leadership in the table: BOAT has not had a headline day all week, and it has not needed one.
1-Month RS Trend
- The 45-day chart tracks five of today's RRG heroes. Onchain economy (NODE) is the vertical line on the right, climbing from rank 10 at the start of the window to 98 on Friday — the steepest rank recovery on the chart. Copper (CPER) ends at 81 after a round trip through the 20s in late August, and semiconductors (SOXX) reached 84 from a low of 3 in early August, which is two months of repair work. The two lines falling away are the ones that led in August: nuclear power (NLR) ended at 12 after peaking above 90, and sports betting (BETZ) at 29 after touching 83.
RS Breakdown Warnings (big 5-day drops)
· Sports betting (BETZ) lost -54 points in five trading days, the steepest fall in the universe. Oil equipment and services (IEZ) dropped -52 points, oil services (OIH) -44, fintech (FINX) -35, residential REITs (REZ) -31, and brokers and exchanges (IAI) -30.
· Two separate things are breaking. The betting complex is losing share to prediction markets — DraftKings fell -3.20% and Flutter -3.18% on Friday, and DraftKings is down roughly 28% for the year as Kalshi and Polymarket absorb the volume. The rest of the list is the rate trade: anything that funds itself or pays a yield gets marked down when the 10-year sits at 5.00%.
RS Rebound Signals (sharp bounces off the bottom)
· Cybersecurity (BUG) rebounded +76 points in five sessions, the largest recovery in the universe. First Trust Cybersecurity (CIBR) gained +69 points and iShares Cybersecurity (IHAK) +66.
· The odd part is that all three fell on Friday — BUG -2.16%, CIBR -1.76%, IHAK -1.64% — after a five-day run of +10.74%, +5.79%, and +7.20%. A rank that improves while the price gives back a day is the signature of a group that outran the market rather than one that is still accelerating. Meme stocks (MEME) added +59 rank points on the same pattern.
Today's Top Rising Sectors TOP 5 (by 1-day %)
- Basis: top 5 by September 18 closing move — 38 of 129 rose on the day. RS ranks from the 'Sector RS (US)' sheet.
| ETF | 1-Day | RS Rank 1M | Short-Term | Mid-Term | Long-Term |
| Global X Blockchain (BKCH) | +8.86% | 99 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| VanEck Digital Transformation (DAPP) | +8.17% | 99 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| VanEck Onchain Economy (NODE) | +6.22% | 96 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| Amplify Blockchain (BLOK) | +4.58% | 92 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
| Roundhill Meme Stock (MEME) | +2.71% | 62 | 🔺 | 🔺 | 🔺 |
- Four of the top five are the same trade expressed four ways, and the fifth is the highest-beta retail basket in the universe. That is a narrow list, and narrowness is the point: on a day when 91 funds fell, the money that moved went to one theme and then to whatever else sits furthest out on the risk curve. Semiconductors finished sixth at +2.69%, two basis points behind meme stocks.
Why They Rose — Sector Issues
· Blockchain and digital assets (BKCH · DAPP · NODE · BLOK) — Blockchain equities gained +8.86%, digital transformation +8.17%, onchain economy +6.22%, and the Amplify fund +4.58%. The SEC's tokenization exemption is a revenue event for the venues that would list those tokens, and the market priced it that way: Strategy +16.39%, MARA +13.75%, Coinbase +11.66%, Galaxy Digital +10.82%, Robinhood +9.12%, Riot +8.55%, Circle +7.86%. Bitcoin's own +6.29% to $81,212 was the smaller move — the equities carried two to three times the beta, as they usually do when the catalyst comes from a regulator.
· Semiconductors (SOXX · SMH · SMHX) — Chips rose +2.69%, VanEck's fund +2.21%, and fabless +1.81%, the second consecutive session of gains built on memory pricing. SanDisk led at +10.99%, though that move carries an index event — the stock joins the S&P 100 on September 21 — so treat that one as index flow. Micron's +3.92% is the cleaner signal, and AMD added +2.70%. SOXX now holds rank 56 against a low of 3 in early August, which makes this the longest repair job on the board.
Leading Sectors: Blockchain, Oil, Semiconductors
- ① Friday was a regulatory rally, not a liquidity one. The 10-year yield rose to 5.00% and the equal-weight index fell -0.48%, so there was no broad bid to explain the move. One agency published a rule and one asset class repriced. When the catalyst is that specific, the follow-through depends on implementation detail rather than on sentiment.
- ② The RS table now holds two unrelated leaderships at once. Oil and shipping sit at ranks 100 and 98 on a month of supply dislocation, and digital assets hold 99, 99, and 96 on a rule published this week. Nothing connects them. That is worth watching, because a table without a common theme usually means the market has not settled on what the next regime is.
- ③ The damage is concentrated in the same place it has been all month. Nuclear power fell -2.60%, uranium -2.41%, metals and mining -2.37%, and utilities -1.42%, while NLR's rank has gone from above 90 to 12. Every one of those groups either borrows to build or competes with a 5% risk-free rate. Until the long end stops rising, their rank readings measure the bond market rather than their own businesses.
- ④ The last report covered the September 17 close. Its three picks, measured from that close to Friday: Tempus AI -3.14%, Caris Life Sciences -3.04%, and Intel -0.18%. The S&P 500 returned +0.17% over the same session, so all three lagged the index and two of them fell more than three percent. The genomics pair gave back a piece of Thursday's surge as the money that bought diagnostics on Thursday bought digital assets on Friday. Recorded as is.
Today's Three Stocks — Coinbase · MARA Holdings · Semtech Stock Forecast
- Selection: from the 1,167 stocks held by the universe's ETFs — RS 1D≥60 & 5D≥75 & 1M≥85, with all three moving averages aligned (▲▲▲)
Coinbase (COIN) — 1-Month RS 97: The Venue the New Rule Needs
| RS 1D | RS 5D | RS 1M | 1M Return | Held By |
| 99 | 98 | 97 | +21.3% | Global X Blockchain · VanEck Digital Transformation · Global X FinTech |
- Up +11.66% to $194.25, and the largest holding in BKCH at 12.8% of the fund. Coinbase is the most direct listed beneficiary of an exemption that lets regulated platforms trade tokenized equities, because it already runs the custody, matching, and compliance layers that such a product needs. The financials are more complicated than the share price. Second-quarter revenue fell 19% from a year earlier to $1.22 billion, missing estimates, and the company posted a net loss of $359 million, or $1.36 per share, as lower crypto prices and thinner volatility cut trading activity. What improved were the structural lines: its share of global spot volume reached a record 10.3%, a third consecutive quarterly gain, average USDC balances hit $20 billion, and prediction markets revenue more than doubled sequentially to pass a $100 million annualized run rate. The Coinbase stock forecast rests on whether tokenized equities become a real product line before the trading business recovers, because the trading business is currently shrinking.
MARA Holdings (MARA) — 1-Month RS 99: Maximum Beta to a $81,000 Bitcoin
| RS 1D | RS 5D | RS 1M | 1M Return | Held By |
| 100 | 97 | 99 | +37.2% | Global X Blockchain · VanEck Digital Transformation · VanEck Onchain Economy |
- Up +13.75% to $13.24, more than twice bitcoin's own move, and up +37.2% over the past month. MARA is the largest listed bitcoin miner, holding roughly 8% of network hashrate, and its energized capacity rose 22% over the year to 70.3 exahash per second while management leans the fleet toward AI infrastructure work. The second quarter was ugly: a $611 million net loss, with bitcoin holdings down 29% to about 35,577 coins. That combination is the whole thesis in one line — an operator whose earnings depend on a price it cannot influence, trading at three times the volatility of the asset itself. The MARA Holdings stock forecast is therefore a bitcoin forecast with leverage attached, and Friday's +13.75% on a +6.29% coin is the cleanest recent measure of that multiple. The one company-specific variable worth tracking is whether the AI hosting pivot produces revenue that does not move with the coin.
Semtech (SMTC) — 1-Month RS 100: Optical Parts for the Data Center Build
| RS 1D | RS 5D | RS 1M | 1M Return | Held By |
| 95 | 97 | 100 | +47.6% | VanEck Fabless Semiconductor |
- Up +3.82% to $185.00, the highest 1-month RS rank of any stock that cleared the screen, and the one pick here that is not a crypto proxy. Semtech makes analog and mixed-signal parts, and the piece that matters now is optical interconnect for AI data centers. Second-quarter revenue set a record at $341.9 million, up 33% from a year earlier and 17% sequentially, with earnings of $0.71 per share against a $0.61 consensus. Guidance did the real work: $405 to $415 million of revenue and $1.02 to $1.08 per share for the third quarter, both well above prior expectations, with data center and LoRa revenue guided to grow 120% year over year and approach 60% of the mix. The company is shipping 224G optical parts into the same build-out that lifted memory pricing this week. The Semtech stock forecast depends on whether that 120% growth line holds for more than two quarters, because a stock up 47.6% in a month has already priced the first two.
Coinbase · MARA Holdings · Semtech Stock Forecast Checkpoints
· Coinbase stock forecast — The rally is priced on a rule the company has yet to earn a dollar from. Watch whether third-quarter transaction revenue stops falling. Tokenized listings will take quarters to matter; the trading line reports in weeks.
· MARA Holdings stock forecast — The stock moved twice as far as bitcoin did on Friday. Watch whether AI hosting revenue appears as a separate reported line. Until it does, this is a leveraged coin position with a mining cost structure.
· Semtech stock forecast — Guidance, not results, drove the rerating. Watch whether data center revenue clears $200 million in a single quarter. That is the threshold management has pointed at, and the multiple assumes it arrives early.
What to Watch on Next Week's Calendar
- Treasury auctions, Tuesday through Thursday, September 22 to 24 (2:00 a.m. KST the following day). Two-year, five-year, and seven-year notes come to market with the 10-year yield sitting exactly at 5.00%. Friday's breakdown list — nuclear, uranium, utilities, residential REITs, brokers — is one long bet against that number going higher. Weak auction demand extends those declines; firm demand is the only realistic path to a rank recovery for the rate-sensitive half of the map.
- US September flash PMI, Wednesday September 23, 9:45 a.m. ET (10:45 p.m. KST). Industrials were one of only two sector SPDRs to rise on Friday, at +0.44%, despite a 1-month RS rank of 16. A firm manufacturing print would give that advance something to stand on. A soft one leaves Friday's industrial gain looking like expiration flow.
- Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, September 22 to 24, and Meta Connect, September 23 to 24. Both land inside a semiconductor repair that is still incomplete — SOXX sits at rank 56 after two strong sessions. Roadmap detail on on-device AI from Qualcomm and hardware news from Meta would broaden a chip bid that currently rests almost entirely on memory pricing. Metaverse funds (METV) already hold rank 94 going in.
- US–China summit at the White House, Thursday September 24. President Xi Jinping's visit has AI development pace, AI security, semiconductors, and rare earths on the agenda. Three of those four map directly onto groups in today's tables, and the fourth — rare earths — sits next to the metals and mining complex that just fell -2.37%. This is the largest scheduled risk to the sector map between now and the end of the month.
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