The Energy Refiner Squeeze: What a 131-Stock Factor Screen Is Telling Us (2026-09-14)

LaunchTower is an independent research desk. This is a methodology write-up, not investment advice.

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Every week I run the same screen on 131 US large and mid-cap stocks. Same data source (Yahoo Finance), same formulas, same percentile ranks. No fitted parameters, no look-ahead, no "this week's special tweak." The point is that the screen is boring enough to trust.

This week the output is not boring.

The setup

The composite score blends two legs:

• Momentum (60% weight): 0.25 × 1-month return + 0.75 × 6-month return. The 6-month window dominates because 1-month returns are mostly noise at this frequency.
• Quality (40% weight): 0.5 × inverse annualized volatility + 0.5 × proximity to the 52-week high. Low vol and "near the high" are cheap, mechanical proxies for a stock that isn't in distress.

Both legs are percentile-ranked across the universe, then combined. A stock scores high if it's moving well and isn't doing it on a rollercoaster.

What the board looks like today

Top 5: BAC · PSX · MPC · HPE · AAPL
Bottom 5: ORCL · COIN · ISRG · NKE · INTU

The top of the board is doing something unusual: three of the top six names are energy refiners — PSX, MPC, and VLO. All three are within 1% of their 52-week highs. All three have 6-month returns between +51% and +73%. That's not a single-stock story; that's a sector signal.

BAC sits at #1 not because of the biggest momentum (it's +34% over 6 months, solid but not spectacular) but because of the quality leg. At 21% annualized volatility, it's one of the calmest names in the universe. The model is essentially saying: steady momentum with low chaos beats wild momentum with high chaos.

The AI hardware trade: still alive, still expensive

DELL is +280% over 6 months. HPE is +190%. Both are at 52-week highs. And both are ranked #7 and #4 respectively — not #1, not #2. Why? Because their annualized volatilities are 75% and 56%. The quality leg is dragging them down.

This is the model doing its job. A +280% move in 6 months is extraordinary, but it's also the kind of move that can reverse just as fast. The screen isn't saying "don't own DELL." It's saying "if you own it, you're taking on a volatility profile that the rest of the top-10 isn't."

The bottom of the board is a different market

ORCL, COIN, ISRG, NKE, INTU. All five are 30–55% below their 52-week highs. All five have negative 6-month momentum. INTU is at the very bottom of the board — a stock that was a quality compounder a few years ago now scoring in the bottom decile on both legs.

This is the bifurcation I keep flagging: 6 stocks in the universe are at 52-week highs. 20 stocks are more than 30% below theirs. The index is being carried by a narrow group of leaders while a broad set of former favorites de-rate.

Why I publish this weekly

Because the screen is fixed, the week-over-week changes are real signal, not model drift. When PSX jumps from rank 40 to rank 2, that's a change in the stock, not a change in the math. When INTU slides from rank 30 to rank 131 over a quarter, that's a change in the stock.

The full dataset is free: github.com/pennypenguinapp-beep/launchtower-factor-datasets. The dated report with the full top-10 and bottom-5 tables is in the repo. The methodology is in the README.

If you want the full 131-stock CSV with all 12 columns (rank, ticker, last price, 1M/3M/6M returns, annualized vol, drawdown from high, momentum score, quality score, composite score), it's in the LaunchTower Factor Model Pack.

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LaunchTower is an independent research desk. Nothing here is investment advice, an offer, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Do your own research.