Feb 2, 2026
Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.
Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we lead off with commentary regarding today’s volatility across assets in addition to the damage that has been done to some technical pictures given these moves (pages 1 and 2). Next, we review the odd bear market for software stocks (pages 2 and 3). We follow up with earnings recaps and a quick review of today’s economic data (pages 4 and 5),
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Feb 2, 2026
Please click the image below to view our February 2026 market calendar. This calendar includes the S&P 500’s historical average percentage change and average intraday chart pattern for each trading day during the upcoming month. It also includes market holidays and options expiration dates plus the dates of key economic indicator releases.Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options.
Jan 29, 2026
Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.
Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we lead off with commentary regarding today’s volatility across assets in addition to the damage that has been done to some technical pictures given these moves (pages 1 and 2). Next, we review the odd bear market for software stocks (pages 2 and 3). We follow up with earnings recaps and a quick review of today’s economic data (pages 4 and 5),
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Jan 29, 2026
One week ago, we discussed the grim run for software stocks, and flash forward seven days, the picture has only gotten worse. Thursday has been a historically brutal session for the S&P 500’s Software & Services industry as it is currently down 8.5% due in no small part to a 12% decline in the industry’s (and one of the market’s) largest stock: Microsoft (MSFT). Given the steep decline today, the software group is now trading at fresh local lows and has officially surpassed the 20% threshold from the October high to mark a new bear market.
Again, the weakness in MSFT is a key reason for the huge decline given that the S&P 500 is a market-cap weighted index. With that said, though, it is far from the only decliner nor should it receive all of the blame. As shown below, aside from a few names like IBM rallying on the day, most stocks in the group fell 5-10%.
To put today’s drop into historical perspective, below we show the daily change in the industry group for each day going back to the start of our data in September 1989. Today is the single worst decline since the midst of the COVID crash when it fell 9.3% on March 12th and 13.7% on March 16th, 2020. The next big declines as large as today date back to the Financial Crisis and the Dot Com years before that.
Even more notable is today’s decline for software in the context of the broader market. Given Microsoft’s (MSFT) huge weight in addition to other heavy hitters such as Oracle (ORCL), Palantir (PLTR), and Salesforce (CRM) to name a few, this industry alone accounts for about a tenth of total S&P 500 weighting. As a result, this group usually moves in the same direction as the rest of the market, especially in the past couple of decades. Today marks a historic disconnect though. The Software & Services industry is underperforming the broader S&P 500 by almost 8 percentage points. There have only been five other days on record with that degree of underperformance. The most recent of those: March 2001.
