Period 5 Review: The First All-Red Week — and the Week Quality Growth's Lead Over the Market Held While CANSLIM's Didn't

Period 5 covers May 10 to May 17, 2026 — seven calendar days. For the first time across all five periods, every single strategy produced a negative return. The S&P 500 added just +0.13% and the NASDAQ slipped −0.08%, making this one of the flattest market weeks in this journal. The losses cannot be attributed to a broad market selloff — they reflect idiosyncratic moves within each screen's holdings.

The cumulative scoreboard tells two separate stories this period. Quality Growth's total return closed the week at +11.71%, extending its lead over the S&P 500's +9.25% cumulative gain to +2.46 percentage points — a lead that has now held for two consecutive periods, anchored by a genuine, split-adjusted Period 1 gain in Piper Sandler (PIPR) that continues to compound through the total even though the position was closed in Period 1. CANSLIM Rocket's trajectory runs the other way: its total return fell to +8.28%, now trailing the S&P 500 for the first time in this journal. Through four periods, CANSLIM had held pace with or slightly ahead of the index; Period 5's −0.85% result, against a flat market, closed that gap. One lead widened this week, and one disappeared.

Period 5 Returns: Nowhere to Hide

Quality Growth was the closest to flat at −0.41%, followed by CANSLIM at −0.85%. Both screens held a core of large-cap, high-quality names — ANET, FICO, NBIX, LLY, AVGO, NVDA — that absorbed the week's pressure better than the value and commodity-oriented screens. The spread between best and worst (3.36 percentage points) is the narrowest of any single period, but that is cold comfort when all seven screens land below zero.

The Burry Value Screen's −3.77% was driven primarily by a single holding: Doximity (DOCS) collapsed from $25.98 to $18.97 — a −26.98% move in seven days. One stock carrying 1/36 of the portfolio can move the needle by roughly 0.75 percentage points, and DOCS did exactly that. Beyond DOCS, Fortuna Mining (FSM) fell −11.25% and IPAR dropped −8.81%, making this a bruising week for a screen that had held up across Periods 3 and 4. The loss on DOCS alone accounts for the majority of the underperformance relative to other screens.

Magic Formula shed −3.40% with 100% retention — the same portfolio it held in Period 4. DRD Gold fell −13.17%, International Seaways (INSW) dropped −7.68%, and DHT Holdings lost −7.16%. The gold and shipping names that rescued the screen in Period 4 gave back ground in Period 5. The screen's returns remain driven by the same sector concentration that created its prior volatility.

CANSLIM's −0.85% is the best outcome a screen with this level of volatility could hope for against a flat market. Fabrinet (FN) jumped +16.22% on strong earnings, and Eli Lilly (LLY) added +5.95%, NVDA +4.70%, and HALO +4.68%. Without FN's result, the screen would have landed much closer to the other value-oriented screens. One name absorbing most of the damage was DRD Gold (−13.17%), which appears in both CANSLIM and Magic Formula — the same cross-screen holding punishing both simultaneously.

When a flat market week produces losses across every screen, the culprit is not macro — it is name-specific volatility in concentrated positions. The week reveals how much single-stock risk each strategy carries.

Retention: A Broad Improvement

Period 5 shows a notable shift in portfolio stability: every single strategy posted higher retention than in Period 4 — a first across all five periods. Magic Formula returned to 100%, holding all ten positions unchanged despite ongoing commodity-sector volatility. Piotroski F-Score recovered sharply from its 68.8% reshuffling in Period 4 to 91.7%, retaining 11 of 12 positions. CANSLIM and Burry Value both held at 94.4%. Even Quality Growth, which had the lowest retention at 77.8%, improved from 60% last period.

The across-the-board retention improvement is a meaningful signal. Higher retention means the screens are selecting more stable sets of names — the underlying filters are not cycling through positions on a weekly basis. Whether this stability translates into better performance in the periods ahead, or simply means the screens are holding onto names as they fall, is the open question. Piotroski's recovery from 68.8% to 91.7% in a single period is particularly notable: INR (Infinity Natural Resources) was the only exit, replaced by LEGH and SCSC returning to the screen.

Cumulative Scoreboard: Quality Growth Extends Its Lead as CANSLIM Slips Behind the Market

Five periods in, Quality Growth (+11.71%) is the clear cumulative leader among the seven tracked strategies, sitting +2.46 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500's +9.25% cumulative gain. That lead traces back to a genuine, split-adjusted +26.8% Period 1 return in Piper Sandler — a position closed at the end of Period 1 that is still compounding through the total — and it has now held for two consecutive periods despite an ordinary −0.41% result this week. CANSLIM Rocket tells the opposite story: at +8.28%, it has slipped 97 basis points behind the index, the first time in this journal that CANSLIM has trailed the S&P 500 cumulatively. The index added +0.13% in Period 5 while CANSLIM shed −0.85%, and that seven-day window was enough to flip the relative standing.

Schloss Dividend (+1.91%) and Lunch (+1.61%) hold third and fourth place among strategies, both posting positive cumulative returns despite a difficult Period 5. Burry Value (−0.80%) crossed into red territory this period after DOCS's collapse erased its cumulative buffer. Piotroski F-Score (−4.61%) and Magic Formula (−6.59%) round out the bottom of the table, both still working through the aftermath of earlier sharp reversals.

Even the top screen has not caught the growth index. The NASDAQ's +15.54% cumulative gain stands 3.83 percentage points above Quality Growth, the best-performing strategy tracked here. CANSLIM Rocket, built from many of the same semiconductor and hardware names driving the NASDAQ higher — AVGO, NVDA, MU, LRCX — trails by a wider 7.26 points. Owning growth-adjacent stocks through an equal-weighted screen is not the same as owning the index itself, and both of this journal's more growth-tilted strategies illustrate that gap from different distances.

Overlap: Two New Signals, One Departure

The May 17 snapshot shows seven stocks appearing in two or more screens — the same total as Period 3, though with new composition. Two new overlaps appeared: APPF (AppFolio) entered the Burry Value Screen this period and was already present in Quality Growth, creating a new cross-screen pairing. HALO (Halozyme Therapeutics) entered Quality Growth after appearing in CANSLIM for several periods, making it a new healthcare cross-screen signal. Meanwhile, AUPH (Aurinia Pharmaceuticals) dropped out of the Burry Value Screen, ending three consecutive periods in the Burry/Quality Growth overlap.

DRD Gold has now appeared in the Magic Formula / CANSLIM overlap for four consecutive periods — the longest unbroken cross-screen streak in this journal. The same stock that bounced +12.88% in Period 4 within Magic Formula and now sits down −13.17% in Period 5 illustrates how a persistent cross-screen signal is not the same as a stable one. Overlap indicates that multiple filters select the same name; it does not mean the name will hold its value. LUXE has similarly persisted in the Piotroski / CANSLIM overlap for multiple periods while declining steadily, down from $9.00 at the start of Period 4 to $7.59 at the close of Period 5.

What Five Periods Tell You

Quality Growth is the real cumulative leader, and its lead is holding. At +11.71%, it sits 2.46 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500 — a gap that traces to a single split-adjusted gain in Piper Sandler during Period 1 and has now held through four periods of otherwise unremarkable performance since. CANSLIM Rocket has gone the other way: from a razor-thin lead over the index in Period 4 to a 97 basis point deficit in Period 5. Systematic stock selection — even with a momentum tilt — has not outpaced passive indexing for CANSLIM over this stretch. That is not a verdict at five periods, but it is a fact worth sitting with.

Magic Formula needs another period before any conclusions can be drawn. The screen has now alternated sharply: a −5.50% collapse in Period 3, a +4.59% bounce in Period 4, and now −3.40% in Period 5 with 100% retention. The gold and commodity names it holds are driving the entire return distribution. This is not diversification — it is concentrated sector exposure that happens to pass a value screen. At −6.59% cumulatively, the screen is 15.84 percentage points behind the S&P 500.

DOCS is a reminder of what a single-stock event does in a concentrated portfolio. Burry Value Screen holds 36 positions. One stock collapsing −26.98% in a week costs approximately 75 basis points of portfolio return — and that is exactly what happened. The screen's cumulative return flipped from positive to negative (+3.08% to −0.80%) in a single period, entirely because of one earnings-related move. Diversification within a screen of 30–40 names is not the same as diversification across sectors or market caps.

Piotroski's stabilisation deserves recognition. After being rebuilt from scratch in Period 1, the screen has now posted 91.7% retention and held a stable core of names for two consecutive periods. The period return of −2.47% is not the result of chaotic reshuffling this time — it reflects genuine price declines in held positions. That is a different kind of underperformance, and a more interpretable one.

The all-red period is a data point, not a disaster. Seven screens posting negative returns in a flat-market week is unusual, but the losses are small enough — ranging from −0.41% to −3.77% — that no single period is structurally significant. What matters more is which cumulative leads are durable: Quality Growth's has now survived two periods of ordinary weekly results, while CANSLIM's evaporated in one. Period 6 will tell us whether the screens can recover, or whether the gap with passive benchmarks continues to widen.