August 21, 2026
Ten Weeks on Income & Growth: The Microsoft Stress Test
Microsoft sat on the Income & Growth screener through an 11.7% drawdown and came out 20.4% higher ten weeks later. What fundamental lists are actually for.
Technical screeners get tested by volatility. Fundamental screeners get tested by patience. The Income & Growth screener, which filters for dividend reliability combined with growth fundamentals, just ran the second kind of test on its most prominent constituent, and the ten-week record is worth documenting precisely because the middle of it looked bad.
A list that would not let go
Microsoft (MSFT) has appeared on the Income & Growth list on every single list date in our data from June 10 through August 20, more than fifty consecutive appearances. The screener's filters are fundamental: revenue growth, cash flow, dividend coverage. Nothing in them reacts to price. That indifference to price is usually described as a weakness of fundamental screens. This summer it was the feature.
The ten-week path
| Date | Event | Close | Change since Jun 15 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 15 | Review starting point | $399.76 | 0.0% |
| Jun 25 | Worst close of the window | $352.83 | -11.7% |
| Jul 27 | Still below the starting point | $389.10 | -2.7% |
| Aug 10 | Best close of the window | $506.06 | +26.6% |
| Aug 20 | Latest close in this review | $481.15 | +20.4% |
Look at the June 25 row. Ten days into the window, Microsoft had lost 11.7% on a closing basis, caught in the same late-June washout that flooded our RSI Oversold list with 145 names. Through all of it, the stock stayed on the Income & Growth list, because quarterly revenue and cash flow do not reprice at market speed. Six weeks later the drawdown had not merely closed; the stock stood 26.6% above the mid-June reference at its August 10 peak, and 20.4% above it as of August 20.
The rest of the list held the same shape
Microsoft was the extreme case, but the pattern repeated across the list's mega-cap core in milder form. Visa, a fellow permanent resident of the list in this window, gained 13.1% from June 15 through late July with a maximum closing drawdown of essentially zero. Coca-Cola added 7.3% through early August with a worst close 1.9% under its mid-June reference. Different sectors, same profile: shallow drawdowns, steady accumulation, no drama worth a headline.
What a fundamental list is for
The honest reading of this data is not that fundamental screeners predicted the rebound; they predicted nothing. It is that they filtered by criteria that were unaffected by the June selling, which meant the list kept stating a fact that the price temporarily disagreed with: this company's revenue, cash flow and dividend coverage still pass every threshold. Whether the price or the fundamentals turn out to be right in any given episode is never guaranteed. In this ten-week episode, the fundamentals were right by 20.4%, and the whole disagreement is preserved in the platform's daily list history for anyone who wants to audit it.
Related Resources
- Income & Growth Screener for the current list.
- Solid Fundamentals Screener for the growth-focused sibling.
- Visa: Anatomy of a Quiet Uptrend for the companion case study.
This article is a retrospective review of historical data for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, no outcome shown here is a promise of future results, and screener appearances are data points, not recommendations.