Note – the monthly percentages noted below are through 9/25/26.
Information Technology and Communication Services were the places to be in September. The strength of those two sectors was enough to put the S&P 500 in the green during the month. The index returned a little over 1%, with only those two sectors posting a positive return.
With my Portfolio underweight those two sectors, my September performance thus left a little to be desired. My Portfolio lost about 3% during September, dragged down by my Financial and Industrial sectors.
Seven of the eleven S&P 500 sectors lost more than 4%, with the interest-rate-sensitive sectors (Utilities, Real Estate, Financials & Consumer Discretionary) getting hit even harder, as they were all down more than 5.5%.
Over the past two months, my Portfolio has gone from outpacing the S&P 500 performance by 1%, to now trailing the index by about 6%. That’s quite the swing.
Year-To-Date (YTD), the Energy sector continues to lead the S&P 500 with a little more than a 38.4% gain, but Information Technology is making up ground quickly, now up 28.4% on the year. These are the only two sectors ahead of the S&P 500 index itself.
Through September, the S&P 500 has a solid 13.1% gain for 2026, or 14.1% once we include reinvested dividends.
After a bad month, the Consumer Discretionary sector has joined Utilities as the only two sectors in the red for 2026. Consumer Discretionary is down about 5.0%, while Utilities have sunk 7.4%.
Half of my Top 10 holdings were in the green this month, which is a much stronger showing than my overall Portfolio had (as you’ll see shortly).
I’ll cover my usual items in this month’s Portfolio Thoughts post…
- Price Movement – I’ll look at my top advancers and decliners in my Portfolio during the past month.
- Top 10 Review – I’ll update my Top 10 Portfolio stocks and how they changed rank this past month.
- Weightings – I’ll examine the sector weightings within my Portfolio and let you know where I’ve made progress with regard to getting into my preferred weighting ranges.
- Watch List – I’ll share which stocks I’m looking at for possible purchase or sale in the event I decide to shuffle up my holdings.
Here are my Portfolio Thoughts for September 2026…
Price Movement
Note – my price changes cover closing prices from 8/28/26 to 9/25/26.
My individual Portfolio stocks recorded a rather depressing gainer/decliner ratio in September. The ratio ended up falling just shy of 1:3. Gains were not easily found, but declines were. Stocks in the red overwhelmed those in the green… not only in quantity, but in magnitude. It was my worst month in quite a while. Of my 57 holdings, just 14 holdings ascended in price, while the remaining 43 descended.
Here were the stocks with the biggest moves to the upside and downside…
Of my 14 stocks that rose in price in September, a couple of them stood out. One popped better than 30% – wow! Another stock managed to gain in excess of 20% as well. After that, there wasn’t much to get excited about, as no other stocks surpassed 10% (the usual threshold I monitor for), and only one stock gained at least 5%. The positive contributions were few and far between.
My top gainers in September were:
- Meta Platforms (META), surging 30.04%
- Qualcomm (QCOM), jumping 23.01%
- Texas Instruments (TXN), rising 7.51%
- AbbVie (ABBV), ascending 3.47%
- NVIDIA (NVDA), climbing 3.46%
Despite having four Tech stocks in my top gainers last month, and three more this month, there were no repeat winners in my top gainers for September.
The Tech stocks that did appear this month were all semiconductor stocks (QCOM, TXN, NVDA), while the ones from August were software stocks (MSFT, ACN, INTU, DOX).
META was my top gainer in September, posting a stellar 30.04% gain. The company powered higher thanks to its Muse AI agent gaining strong customer adoption. Investors seem to feel this provides some validation/relief that META’s massive AI spending can actually translate into a popular consumer product that can be monetized.
Optimism surrounding QCOM’s data center deal with Amazon (AMZN) this month triggered an upward price movement. Renewal of their patent-license agreement with Apple (AAPL) brought some clarity to their licensing relationship as well. QCOM gained 23.01% during the month.
Gains proved to be much more modest with my other top gainers. TXN didn’t really have any single events drive its price up 7.51% this month, but better pricing power (from price hikes), broad-based demand for its products, and analyst support helped the stock price move up.
My lone non-tech stock to appear in my top gainers was ABBV. This Healthcare name returned to the green in September with a 3.47% gain, ending the brief 1-month retreat it experienced in August. ABBV has thus far slightly out-performed the S&P 500 in 2026.
My last top gainer for September is NVDA, posting a 3.46% advance. NVDA’s CEO has signaled confidence in long-term AI infrastructure demand and late in the month announced a $150 billion share repurchase plan. Excellent earnings have pushed NVDA’s forward valuation multiples down, to their lowest levels in years, which has made its stock look inexpensive compared to its rapid growth.
Note – no sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the green this month (that’s 2 months straight now).
Of my 43 stocks that retreated in price in September, many of them declined significantly. One sank by more than 20%, while another seven fell by more than 10%. Even worse, a whopping twenty-one stocks gave up more than 5% during the month. Losses were widespread in September.
My worst decliners in September were…
- Intuit (INTU), tumbling 22.98%
- Omnicom Group (OMC), sliding 13.74%
- Starbucks (SBUX), dropping 12.04%
- Nexstar Media Group (NXST), falling 11.58%
- General Dynamics (GD), slipping 11.23%
There were no repeat offenders on my top decliners list this month.
One stock went from my top gainers list last month to my top decliners list this month… and that was INTU. INTU gave up all its gains from August, and another $20/share on top of that by dropping 22.98%. AI disruption fears continue to weigh on INTU, among other software stocks.
OMC is experiencing its own AI displacement concerns with its marketing, advertising, and corporate communications business. A leadership change for the CEO of its advertising division was a bit of a surprise announcement early in September as well. OMC fell 13.74% in September, and it’s now down about 5% for 2026.
Another Communication Services stock that lost ground in September was NXST. It was down 11.58% over the past month. The unresolved issues keeping the TEGNA acquisition from progressing are hurting the company. Delays are causing operational inefficiencies resulting in financial losses. Non-political ad demand has been soft recently, too. NXST finished September at its lowest monthly closing price of 2026.
Dropping 12.04% during the past month was SBUX. A mix of planned store closures in North America, some restructuring charges, a broad selloff in the restaurant sector, and an elevated price-to-earnings ratio (P/E of 50) were all headwinds for the stock. Despite the decline, SBUX is still up over 10% for the year.
Lastly, I have GD retreating 11.23%. Capital seems to be flowing out of defense contractors the past 6-8 weeks, including GD, which hit a 52-week high near $400 in early August. Revenue and earnings forecasts remain intact, and order backlogs are at record levels, so there doesn’t seem to be operational issues.
Note – five sectors in my Portfolio had all of their holdings in the red this month. This included Financials (6), Consumer Discretionary (3), Materials (3), Real Estate (3) & Utilities (3). Each of my holdings in Consumer Discretionary and Real Estate declined more than 9%.
Top 10 Review
Once again, the same stocks were in the Top 10 this month compared to last month. They just changed final locations a bit.
More than half of my Top 10 was on the move in September. Six stocks changed position during the month.
The largest move up was four spots (a healthy jump), while the largest move down was two spots.
Half of my Top 10 posted a gain in September (avg. gain of 6.33% thanks to QCOM), with the other half posting a loss (avg. loss of -4.25%). Despite this decent performance within my Top 10, the rest of my Portfolio struggled with performance this month.
As expected, Broadcom (AVGO) held down its #1 spot in my rankings, despite a minor 4.33% fall in September. AVGO is close to 2.4x times as big as my next largest holding.
Rising four spots in my rankings to secure the #2 spot, QCOM had an awesome return in September, bolting higher by 23.01%. This month’s gain stopped a streak of 3 consecutive months with declines.
AbbVie (ABBV) was able to hold onto the #3 spot while gaining 3.47% during the month. ABBV has been hovering around $260/share for most of the past couple of months.
With a modest 2.40% drop this month, Aflac (AFL) tumbled two spots in my rankings to #4. AFL has fallen in price each of the past two months after gaining for four straight months.
Slipping one spot to #5, despite a monthly gain of 2.67%, was Caterpillar (CAT). This month’s gain put an end to its two months of significant price declines.
After a 3.73% decline in price this month, Visa (V) fell one spot in my Top 10 rankings to lay claim to the #6 spot. This September pull back ended the stock’s 5-month string of gains.
Fastenal (FAST) managed a 1.31% gain this month, allowing it to hold steady in the #7 spot. The gain pushed FAST to its highest monthly closing price in 2026.
Swapping spots at #8 and #9 were JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and BlackRock (BLK). JPM finished with the higher ranking due to losing less this month compared to BLK (-4.07% vs. -6.71%).
Once again anchored in my rankings in the #10 spot was Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). JNJ gained 1.19%, extending its gain streak to 5 consecutive months. JNJ has risen about 30% in 2026.
Just outside my Top 10, but behind by a significant dollar amount, are RPM International (RPM) and Union Pacific (UNP). Both RPM and UNP were in the red in September, putting the Top 10 further out of reach for both.
From the table above, my Top 10 holdings now comprise 44.74% of my Portfolio value. This is an increase of 1.33 percentage points compared to last month. Stocks in my Top 10 performed better than my Portfolio overall, accounting for the weighting gain. All of my Top 10 stocks are now solidly above a 3% weighting.
As for the dividend weighting of my Top 10, it now stands at 26.32%. This is a decrease of 0.39 percentage points compared to last month. Now that my Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) sale proceeds were reinvested in my Portfolio in September (but not in any of the Top 10 stocks), the dividend weighting of my Top 10 stocks declined across the board.
Sector Weightings
In general, for Sector Diversification, I target being within +/-3 percentage points of the sector weightings of the S&P 500. For SuperSector Diversification, I target being within +/-5 percentage points.
The “Weight Diff.” column shows which sectors sit outside my preferred weighting ranges. If I’m overweight a sector, it’s shaded green. If I’m underweight a sector, it’s shaded red. If I’m within my target weighting range, then no shading exists.
For months now there’s been no change to the number of sectors outside my preferred weighting range. It’s still at 6. This includes 3 overweight sectors and 3 underweight sectors in my Portfolio. Industrials remains my most overweight sector and Information Technology remains my most underweight sector.
Most of these 6 sectors are now farther off from getting into my preferred weighting range than when the month started. Only my underweight Consumer Discretionary sector got better (due to my out-performance relative to the same sector within the S&P 500).
With regard to my other underweight sectors, the weighting difference in Communication Services got worse due to a trim I had in the sector (which I’ve yet to post about), and Information Technology got worse, despite the Tech purchases I made this month that added to the weighting.
As for my overweight sectors, they are all more overweight this month… but for a good reason. In Financials, Healthcare and Industrials, I outperformed the corresponding sectors within the S&P 500, leading to a larger weighting difference.
The sector in which the weighting difference expanded the most was Communication Services (from -3.37% to -4.45%), and that was due to the trim I just mentioned above.
As for dividend weightings, the biggest change was in Information Technology (from -11.88% to -13.67%), and that was due to the purchases I made in that sector this month. I now have four sectors that provide between 12% and 16% of my total dividend income. These include Healthcare, Financials, Information Technology & Industrials. Both Energy & Real Estate now provide less than 4% of my dividend income, but only by a small margin.
As always, I’ll keep all my sector weightings in mind as I continue to adjust my Portfolio, and my watchlist.
Watch List
Since my Portfolio dividends are now used for living expenses (since I’m no longer working), I don’t expect to purchase stocks very often. Yet, I could choose to sell an under-performing stock and invest in a potentially better one. Thus, I plan to keep looking for opportunities and keeping my watchlist up-to-date.
I made several additions to my Portfolio in September. A couple of the additions were stocks I highlighted in last month’s Portfolio Thoughts (VICI & INTU). My list came in handy once again.
Within my Portfolio, here are a few stocks that I’m watching for possible additions…
Intuit (INTU) remains my 2nd-smallest position. I added a couple shares at $315 on 9/9, but the stock now trades under $270. The stock has had some wild swings this year. I may add again.
Last month I wanted to add some Hershey Co. (HSY) below $170 and it now trades under $162. I’ll see if I can get something done. HSY is currently my 6th smallest position.
NNN REIT (NNN) is my 7th smallest position and I’d consider adding some below $40. It currently trade a little over $41 after coming down from nearly $50 over the past two months.
Nike (NKE) keeps sinking and I keep watching. NKE now trades under $36. If the stock could find a floor and get a couple of quarters of growth under its belt, I might be inclined to add.
I was interested in NextEra Energy (NEE) last month around $82. With interest rates on the rise and interest-rate-sensitive stocks like NEE getting punished, the stock now trades below $76.
I bought some Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) in September at $60, but the price continued to drop and now hovers a bit north of $57. Adding more of this stock is a possibility.
Considering stocks I might sell…
T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) is still ripe for a trim above $129 for me, but it’s not trading close to that level right now.
I’d consider eliminating my UGI Corp. (UGI) position if the price could get back to the $40 level it touched earlier in the year. However, if UGI can figure out how to start raising its dividend again, I might reconsider the idea.
I’ve thought about trimming some of my Fastenal (FAST) position now that it’s looking a bit overvalued at $50, and its payout ratios (both earnings and free cash flow) are elevated. I’d consider investing the sales proceeds in a new Portfolio holding (noted below).
As for non-Portfolio stocks that I’m watching…
Waste Management (WM) has come onto my radar. I’ve watched this stock for quite some time. The stock is beginning to look slightly undervalued around $206. I’d like to establish a position under $200. I can’t say I need another Industrials stock in my Portfolio, but if I use FAST trim proceeds to make the buy, I wouldn’t be increasing my Industrials weighting in my Portfolio.
Thoughts?
Are you starting to see value in interest-rate-sensitive sectors such as Utilities, Real Estate, Financials & Consumer Discretionary? Or does it seem too early to pick through those stocks? Please share your thoughts!