9 Red Days In A Row: Lam Research Stock Is Down 20%
Shares of Lam Research (LRCX) have closed lower in each of the last 9 sessions, a cumulative decline of 20.2%. That erased about $87.6 billion from the company’s market value, which now stands at about $347.2 billion. The stock closed at $277.46 on Thursday, October 15, 35.9% below its 52-week high of $432.87 and 99.7% above its low of $138.95.
How The Streak Stacks Up Against The S&P 500
Returns for LRCX and the S&P 500 over the streak and the periods around it, all ending Thursday, October 15 and including dividends:
| Return Period | LRCX | S&P 500 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Day | -3.3% | 0.3% |
| 9 Days (Current Streak) | -20.2% | 0.3% |
| 1 Month (21 Trading Days) | 3.2% | 2.6% |
| 3 Months (63 Trading Days) | -11.3% | 4.1% |
| Year To Date | 62.6% | 14.2% |
| 1 Year (252 Trading Days) | 101.5% | 17.9% |
Is This Move About Lam Research Or The Market?
Over the same 9 trading days, the S&P 500 returned +0.3% including dividends, so the slide is mostly Lam Research’s own story rather than the market’s. 1 other S&P 500 stock is currently on losing streaks of 9 days or longer. Over the past three months the stock is down 11.3%, a window that includes the streak; over the other 54 sessions of that window it was up 11.0%.
What The Numbers Say About The Slide
On the fundamentals, revenue grew 26.0% over the last twelve months, against a median of 17.9% for S&P 500 Information Technology stocks; its operating margin is 35.3%, versus a median of 21.6%; and the stock trades at 47.8 times trailing earnings against a median of 35.6. The read is mixed.
A slide like this raises an obvious follow-up: which marked-down stocks are actually worth buying? Our Buy the Dip screen runs that test every day, flagging beaten-down names whose fundamentals still hold up.
Prefer the theme to the single name? A semiconductor ETF like SMH holds the whole group, not just this stock. It is still a concentrated bet on one theme, which is the gap the portfolio below is built to close.
Weakness In One Name Should Be Noise, Not News
For a diversified holder, a streak like this is a data point. For a concentrated one, it is a hole in the plan. The difference is never the stock; it is the portfolio built around it.
Building that portfolio is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does: roughly 30 businesses with the cash generation and balance-sheet strength to absorb a bad month, selected and rebalanced by rules. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, the S&P MidCap 400, and the Russell 2000. Make the next streak, in either direction, someone else’s drama.