I don't have a total answer for you, but something "funny" happened yesterday afternoon.
At 3:45pm, AMAT was selling for 19.07. By the close, 15 minutes later, it closed at 19.80, a swing of 3.8 percent. In other words, AMAT closed at a very high value compared to where it was trading just before the close.
NVLS, on the other hand, did not have that type of action prior to the close. It had been drifting down in the afternoon, just like AMAT, but it did not have the closing rush like AMAT.
Therefore, one could make the argument, all other things being equal(which of course they are not<g>), that NVLS should have traded about 4 percent higher than AMAT today. Actually, NVLS did about 7.5 percent better than AMAT today, but about 4 percent of that could be "cancelled out" in terms of an overall difference in performance.
Another way to look at it is to compare the last 2 days. NVLS is down 1.6 percent while AMAT is down 4.4 percent. AMAT came out on the short end, but probably well within the volatile nature of these 2 stocks.
Don |
