Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTRob IsbittsSat, June 20, 2026 at 3:00 PM GMT+2 5 min readThe financial industry routinely uses the headline S&P 500 Index ($SPX), as tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), to paint a picture of enduring market health. The mainstream narrative suggests that as long as the main averages hold near high ground, the broader equity market is functioning perfectly. I think that’s faulty logic.I pulled up this chart of 20 of the biggest stocks in the U.S. market. I’ve excluded rookie SpaceX (SPCX), since the goal here is to see how much performance breadth there is among these established public companies.More News from BarchartMark Cuban Says the Stock Market Makes Guys Like Elon Musk ‘Insanely Rich’ — But Eliminating Billionaires Would Trigger the ‘Worst Depression’ Ever SeenDear MicroStrategy Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for July 4From ‘Hold’ to ‘Buy’: Here Is Why Truist Just Changed Its Mind on DDOG StockStop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now!www.barchart.comHere is what I’m looking at across the trailing time frames listed across the top: How many of these 20 stocks are up versus down?I’ll explain why after I show you the summary figures.Read more from Barchart: AI is “one of the largest industries ever” ...and it’s already disrupting this $1T market.The next AI wave won’t look like chatbots. It will look like this.How many stocks on this list are up?The past 52 weeks? 14.Year to date? 13.The past 3 months? 11.The past 1 month? 7I see where this is going. Do you?I do not think this is simply some quantitative trick. It is one of many indicators that signal to me that the S&P 500’s leaders are not well. That matters because since the AI-fueled rally started in late 2022, the market has been dominated by the very largest stocks. And like a baby bird breaking through an egg with its beak, so too is the market cracking before our eyes.This could be as simple as a shift in leadership, but I do not think that’s happening. Not based on what I found after charting every stock in the S&P 500 earlier this week.There are some positive chart patterns. But not enough of them, and not in the stocks that count. Namely, these 20, which make up nearly 50% of the full S&P 500 Index by weight. If nearly two-thirds of these giants are steadily fading, the math just does not work.For a while now, market breadth has been severely deteriorating below the surface, with nearly half of the largest U.S. equities failing to outperform simple cash proxies over a multi-year period.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info