The Materials sector is set to battle tough seasonality. September is its weakest month of the year, underperforming the S&P 500 index by an average of 1.4% since 1990.

The Materials sector is the second smallest of all the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 index. At just a 2.5% weighting, it’s worth less than each Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Alphabet.

It’s tough to spend much time delving deeply into a group with so few constituents – especially when most are underperforming. Check out the equally weighted Materials sector compared the the equally weighted S&P 500. The ratio is stuck in a technical downtrend beneath last year’s lows.

At this point, we’re not even sure why Materials is its own sector. It comprises just 2.5% of the S&P 500, and a quarter of that is attributable to one stock. Until the powers that be decide to merge the constituents with the Energy or Industrials sector, though, we’ll just have to stifle our complaints.

The Materials sector is the second smallest of all the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 index. At just a 2.5% weighting, it’s worth less than each Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Alphabet. And if you stripped out the Materials’ largest component, which makes up one-fifth of the 29 member sector, you’d be left with a group that’s setting new multi-year lows when compared to the rest of the large-cap equity market.

There’s a little something for everyone in the Materials sector.