The index sits near its high, yet about one in three of its stocks is down 20% or more. Here is the count as of Oct 23, 2026, by sector and for the largest companies, and how it compares with every month since 2017.
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As of the Oct 23, 2026 close, 159 of 497 S&P 500 stocks, about 1 in 3, were 20% or more below their 52‑week highs, while the index itself was only 2.5% below its high. That is Exent’s count on dividend‑adjusted daily closes for the current members that have a full year of trading history.
The damage goes deeper than the headline count. 82 members were down 30% or more and 17 were down by half or more. The median member sat 12.4% below its own high, which is a correction for the typical stock. Only 115 stocks, fewer than 1 in 4, were within 5% of their 52‑week high.
| Oct 23, 2026 close | Stocks | Share of 497 |
|---|---|---|
| Within 5% of 52-week high | 115 | 23.1% |
| 10% or more below high | 288 | 57.9% |
| 20% or more below high (bear market) | 159 | 32.0% |
| 30% or more below high | 82 | 16.5% |
| 50% or more below high | 17 | 3.4% |
| Median member | −12.4% | |
| S&P 500 ETF (SPY) | −2.45% | |
| Equal-weight S&P 500 ETF (RSP) | −2.43% |
Because an index’s high is the high of the whole basket, not of each stock in it. Two things combine to hide a lot of individual damage.
Weighting. The S&P 500 weights companies by market value, so a few giants move it most. On Oct 23 several of them were at or near their highs: Apple was 0.1% below, Berkshire Hathaway 0.9%, Eli Lilly 2.5% and Microsoft 3.5%. How much this concentration matters over time is in equal‑weight vs cap‑weight S&P 500.
Dispersion. Weighting is only part of it. The equal‑weight S&P 500 ETF (RSP), which gives each company about the same slice, was 2.43% below its high, almost the same as SPY at 2.45%. So the average stock, held as a basket, was near a high too. The gap comes from how far apart the members are. Some stocks were at or near new highs while others were 30%, 50% or more below theirs, and different stocks peaked at different times over the past year. Gains in one group offset losses in another, so the basket stayed close to its high while a third of its parts sat in their own bear markets.
For a portfolio of individual stocks, this means the index is a poor guide to how your holdings feel. If they lean toward the sectors below, a 2.5% dip in the index can sit beside 20% to 40% losses in single names.
Communication services and technology. More than half of communication services members and exactly half of technology members were 20% or more below their highs on Oct 23. Industrials and consumer cyclical stocks were not far behind. Energy, real estate and consumer defensive stocks had the fewest.
| Sector | Members | In bear market | Share | Median distance from high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication Services | 16 | 9 | 56.2% | −21.3% |
| Technology | 88 | 44 | 50.0% | −20.0% |
| Industrials | 72 | 34 | 47.2% | −18.3% |
| Consumer Cyclical | 51 | 22 | 43.1% | −16.4% |
| Basic Materials | 22 | 7 | 31.8% | −14.3% |
| Financial Services | 71 | 14 | 19.7% | −11.3% |
| Healthcare | 59 | 10 | 16.9% | −5.5% |
| Utilities | 31 | 5 | 16.1% | −9.5% |
| Consumer Defensive | 32 | 5 | 15.6% | −8.8% |
| Real Estate | 29 | 4 | 13.8% | −13.1% |
| Energy | 22 | 3 | 13.6% | −3.7% |
As of Oct 23, 2026 close. Four members without a sector label are left out of this table but counted in the totals above. Sectors use Exent’s labels, which differ from the official S&P sector classification.
Some are. Of the 20 largest members, six were 20% or more below their 52‑week highs on Oct 23: Intel, Broadcom, Micron, Tesla, Alphabet and AMD. Nvidia was 11.8% below its high. Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Exxon Mobil, AbbVie, Visa and Mastercard sat at or within 2% of theirs.
| Company | From 52-week high | Company | From 52-week high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | −11.8% | Micron | −27.7% |
| Apple | −0.1% | Walmart | −10.4% |
| Alphabet | −20.4% | AMD | −20.4% |
| Microsoft | −3.5% | JPMorgan Chase | −8.7% |
| Amazon | −12.7% | Visa | −1.5% |
| Meta Platforms | −17.4% | Exxon Mobil | 0.0% |
| Broadcom | −33.0% | Johnson & Johnson | −5.3% |
| Tesla | −24.0% | Mastercard | −1.5% |
| Eli Lilly | −2.5% | AbbVie | −1.2% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | −0.9% | Intel | −38.3% |
The deepest falls were further down the list. AppLovin was 64.5% below its 52‑week high, Fiserv 60.6%, Insulet 57.0%, CoStar Group 56.6%, Boston Scientific 56.5%, Charter Communications 56.4%, Albemarle 56.3%, Fair Isaac 55.8%, Oracle 54.9% and Coinbase 54.5%. A deep fall says what already happened. It does not say whether a stock is cheap or will recover; big long‑term winners also went through falls like these, as the drawdowns of big winners shows. The full member list is on the S&P 500 stocks page.
Rarely. Among month‑ends since 2017 when the index was within 3% of its high, only September 2026 (37.6%) and July 2020 (34.0%) were higher than Oct 23. Across 115 month‑ends from March 2017 to September 2026, plus Oct 23, 2026, the median share of members in their own bear market was about 20%. The share runs high in real index sell‑offs: 79.6% in March 2020 and 71.0% in September 2022. It drops to a few percent in calm, broad rallies, such as 2.9% in June 2021.
| Month-end | Share of members 20%+ below high | SPY below its 52-week high |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 2017 | 4.9% | −0.5% |
| Dec 2018 | 49.7% | −14.0% |
| Dec 2019 | 7.0% | −0.3% |
| Mar 2020 | 79.6% | −23.4% |
| Dec 2020 | 14.0% | 0.0% |
| Jun 2021 | 2.9% | 0.0% |
| Dec 2021 | 10.8% | −0.5% |
| Jun 2022 | 68.7% | −20.4% |
| Sep 2022 | 71.0% | −24.4% |
| Dec 2022 | 46.7% | −18.6% |
| Oct 2023 | 37.0% | −8.3% |
| Dec 2023 | 10.7% | −0.3% |
| Dec 2024 | 22.4% | −3.3% |
| Apr 2025 | 44.0% | −9.3% |
| Dec 2025 | 23.7% | −1.2% |
| Mar 2026 | 35.6% | −6.2% |
| Jun 2026 | 31.9% | −1.4% |
| Sep 2026 | 37.6% | −1.7% |
| Oct 23, 2026 | 32.0% | −2.5% |
The unusual part of 2026 is the gap between the two columns. In past sell‑offs a high share of fallen stocks came with a falling index. At the month‑ends from March to September 2026, and on Oct 23, the share was between 28% and 38%, while SPY was within 2% of its high at eight of the nine month‑ends of 2026. Among the 68 month‑ends (plus Oct 23) when SPY was within 3% of its high, these had the highest shares:
| Month-end with SPY within 3% of high | Share 20%+ below high | SPY below high |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | 37.6% | −1.7% |
| Jul 2020 | 34.0% | −2.5% |
| Oct 23, 2026 | 32.0% | −2.5% |
| Jun 2026 | 31.9% | −1.4% |
| May 2023 | 31.2% | −1.5% |
| Aug 2020 | 31.1% | −0.4% |
In 2026 the equal‑weight basket is near its high as well, which points to wide gaps between groups of stocks rather than to a handful of giants alone. A different lens, how many stocks beat the index over the past year, is in is the stock market rally too narrow. How investors read the wider backdrop, and why the 20% rule describes the past, is in are we in a bull or bear market.
Mostly, that the index return is not your return. A hypothetical example: if every stock in a $500,000 portfolio sat as far below its own high as the median member (12.4%), that is about $62,000 below the holdings’ peak values, while the S&P 500 ETF is only 2.5% below its high. Some checks investors often find useful (education, not advice):
Analysts’ price targets on fallen stocks are often quoted as a reason to hold; how reliable those targets were in the past is in are analyst price targets accurate. What held up when the index itself fell is in what goes up when stocks go down.
A stock counts as in a bear market when its close is 20% or more below its highest close of the past 252 trading days (52 weeks), using dividend‑adjusted daily closes. Members are the 503 current S&P 500 securities as of Oct 20, 2026; 497 had a full 52 weeks of history and are counted. SPY and RSP are measured the same way.
The history uses today’s members at every month‑end from March 2017. Companies that left the index are not in it, and companies count before they joined, so the sample is shaped by today’s membership (460 to 497 stocks per month‑end). These figures describe the past. They are not a forecast of where stocks or the index go next.
That is the question this count leaves open, and the answer is locked inside Gems: $1.95 for a 3-day trial.
A common rule is a fall of 20% or more from a recent high. This count uses a close at least 20% below the stock’s highest close of the past 52 weeks, on dividend-adjusted prices.
As of the Oct 23, 2026 close, 115 of 497 S&P 500 stocks were within 5% of their 52-week highs. 288 were 10% or more below, and 159 were 20% or more below.
On Oct 23, 2026, 56% of communication services members and 50% of technology members were 20% or more below their 52-week highs, followed by industrials at 47%. Energy and real estate had about 14% each.
No. On Oct 23, 2026 the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) was 2.45% below its 52-week high, far from the 20% fall that defines a bear market. About a third of its stocks were in their own bear markets.
Since 2017, the share of members in their own bear market has been higher, up to 79.6% in March 2020, in index sell-offs. Counting today’s members, among month-ends when the index was within 3% of its high, Sep 30, 2026 had the highest share at 37.6%.
The data does not say that. It describes how far stocks have already fallen, and past patterns do not predict what the market does next.
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Educational content, not investment advice. Examples are illustrative; past performance does not guarantee future results.