Bollcoin, October 23 — A rare internal split is emerging in the U.S. stock market: on one side, the AI and semiconductor stocks that had previously led a four-year bull market are pulling back sharply; on the other, consumer staples, small- and mid-cap stocks and a large number of traditional industry shares are strengthening. Capital is not simply exiting the stock market but switching at high speed between the two camps, making major indices and the performance of most individual stocks increasingly disconnected. On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2%, its worst single-day performance since July, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.6%; yet at the same time, more than 300 S&P 500 constituents actually closed higher. The Dow and the Russell 2000 even closed slightly up. This phenomenon is not common. Dow Jones Market Data statistics show that the last similar extreme divergence, when the S&P 500 fell notably but most constituents rose, dates back to January 2025.