Hunch. Oil hit $117.80 a barrel on 29 October because of the war with Iran, and the one past fall that still ended the quarter lower also had war pushing oil above $110.
The year-end market resolves YES if the S&P 500 closes above 7,720.39 on 31 December 2026, the last trading day of the year, and NO if it closes at 7,720.39 or lower. It settles on the official close from S&P Dow Jones Indices, checked against Guardian and Independent market reports, and those two reports decide if the S&P page is closed.
We looked for cases where results from one of the ten biggest US companies sent its shares down at least 5% in a day, and the S&P 500 fell with them, less than two months after a record close. We kept the days when the fall was blamed on spending on a new technology growing faster than the money it brings in. We found five such days since October 2016. Four times the index ended that quarter above its close on the day of the fall, but only twice by more than 3.6%, the rise it needed from the 29 October close to reach 8,000.