The chemicals complex held up while airlines and cruise lines cratered this scan — no name broke down, and RSI stayed in the neutral-to-strong band across the board. The sector's one apparent casualty is hiding behind a short-term trend tag: DuPont ($DD) flipped from strong-up to weak-down on the week, but it's still up 47.88% over the past year and above its 200-day, the sector's best long-horizon performer by a wide margin — a pullback, not a breakdown. The bigger tell is a cluster of names carrying "strong-up" or "up" short-trend reads that are actually flat-to-down over the full year: Sherwin-Williams ($SHW), Air Products ($APD), Linde ($LIN), Ecolab ($ECL), and PPG ($PPG) are all lagging the market by 18-26 points of one-year alpha even as their weekly and 30-day numbers look constructive.

Data as-of the 2026-08-21 close (Friday's settled tape, scanned Monday 2026-08-22) for all eight tickers. All numbers from the pre-computed chemicals summary. Comparison scan: the August 14, 2026 close — no 2026-08-21-dated chemicals scan exists to compare against, so this covers an eight-day gap, not a single scan cycle.

None of the eight tracked chemicals names broke down this scan the way airlines and cruise lines did over the same window. RSI stayed in the 44.8-65.7 range across the board — every name still sits in the neutral-to-strong (40+) band, with none dropping into oversold territory. Dow and LyondellBasell, which had just reversed from being the sector's weakest names into its strongest upgrades on 08-14, held that strength: Dow's RSI firmed further to 59.4 and LyondellBasell's to 65.7, both still trending up with one-year gains above 20%. DuPont is the exception on trend: it broke from strong-up to weak-down this scan, RSI dropping from 60.5 to 44.8 and its 30-day change swinging from +8.45% to -0.94% — on the week's price action alone, that reads as the sector's worst move.

The year-long data tells a different story on DuPont, and it flags a set of names the trend column alone would miss. DuPont is still up 47.88% over the past year, 1.8% above its 200-day, and carries the sector's best alpha (+26.07) — its short-term break is a pullback inside a strong secular trend, not a breakdown. The real laggards are the names still tagged "strong-up" or "up" on the short window: Sherwin-Williams is down 4.75% over the past year despite a "strong-up" trend read, lagging the market by 26.56 points of alpha; Air Products is up only 3.95% over the year and lagging by 17.87 points; Linde is roughly flat (+1.43%) and lagging by 20.39 points; Ecolab is down 0.51% over the year and lagging by 22.32 points; PPG, already flagged weak-down on the short window, is up just 1.85% over the year and lagging by 19.97 points. Dow (+36.56% over the year, +14.74 alpha) and LyondellBasell (+21.74% over the year, roughly flat alpha) are the two names where the short and long windows actually agree the trend is healthy.

This is the clearest disagreement in this scan's three-sector read. Airlines and travel-leisure's cruise names both deteriorated sharply and broadly this scan — Delta, United, JETS, Southwest, American, and Alaska all lost ground, and Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line both flipped to strong-down with confirmed death crosses. Chemicals, the industrial-input side of this read-through, shows none of that: no broken trends, no RSI collapse, nothing that reads as a broad demand rollover. Cause unknown from this data — nothing in the tape says whether that's because industrial chemicals demand simply doesn't track discretionary travel spending, or because the airline/cruise move is specific to those businesses rather than a broader consumer pullback. What chemicals does share with the weaker pockets of the other two sectors is the horizon-mismatch pattern itself: several names here carry healthy-looking short-trend tags while quietly lagging the market by 18-26 points over the full year, the same trap that shows up in travel-leisure's Booking Holdings this scan.

• Dow: RSI 54.1→59.4 (firmed), trend "up" unchanged, price $31.07→$32.35, 7D +5.90%→+4.09% (decelerated but still positive), 30D +4.61%→+3.52% (decelerated), 52-week-high gap -28.97%→-24.31% (narrowed); a death-cross flag remains active in the underlying data.
• LyondellBasell: RSI 58.2→65.7 (firmed further), trend strong-up unchanged, price $63.76→$67.53, 7D +7.00%→+5.93% (decelerated but still strong), 30D +9.93%→+8.36% (decelerated), 52-week-high gap -25.66%→-19.55% (narrowed).
• Sherwin-Williams: RSI 57.7→49.1 (eased), trend strong-up unchanged, price $359.10→$346.59, 7D -2.88%→-3.48% (worsened), 30D +8.07%→+8.34% (roughly flat), 52-week-high gap -4.77%→-8.71% (widened).
• Air Products: RSI 61.8→55.7 (eased), trend strong-up unchanged, price $308.97→$305.10, 7D +1.82%→-1.22% (reversed negative), 30D +5.20%→+2.73% (decelerated), 52-week-high gap -2.97%→-3.10% (roughly flat, still the sector's tightest).
• Linde: RSI 38.0→45.6 (recovered above 40), trend weak-down unchanged, price $482.74→$487.57, 7D -1.48%→+0.97% (reversed positive), 30D -6.11%→-4.15% (improved, still negative), 52-week-high gap -12.77%→-11.06% (narrowed).
• Ecolab: RSI 48.7→54.4 (firmed), trend strong-up unchanged, price $276.11→$281.63, 7D -3.18%→+2.00% (reversed positive), 30D +2.17%→+5.53% (accelerated), 52-week-high gap -10.67%→-8.94% (narrowed).
• PPG: RSI 47.5→46.5 (roughly flat), trend weak-down unchanged, price $114.11→$113.63, 7D -4.09%→-0.44% (improved), 30D -0.43%→-3.20% (worsened), 52-week-high gap -14.01%→-14.84% (widened slightly).
• DuPont: RSI 60.5→44.8 (eased sharply), trend strong-up→weak-down (downgraded), price $146.26→$138.33, 7D +2.66%→-5.46% (reversed negative), 30D +8.45%→-0.94% (swung negative), 52-week-high gap -8.79%→-12.44% (widened).

RSI (Relative Strength Index) gauges how aggressively a stock has been bought or sold over roughly the past two weeks, on a 0-100 scale — under 30 signals an oversold, potentially undervalued stretch; over 70 signals overbought, extended risk; readings in between are neutral. Trend reflects a stock's structural direction based on its moving averages over the past several weeks — it is a short-window read, not a verdict on the multi-year story. vs SMA shows how far price sits above or below its 20-day average. The one-year change and the distance from the 200-day average are the longer-horizon check: a stock trading above its 200-day with a solidly positive one-year gain is in an intact multi-year uptrend even during a rough week; a stock that's flat-to-negative on the year despite a healthy short-trend tag is quietly lagging, not actually strong.

RSI < 25 (Oversold): None this scan.

RSI 25-40 (Approaching Oversold): None this scan — the whole sector sits at RSI 44.8 or higher.

RSI 40+ (Neutral-to-Strong) — the whole sector: All eight names sit here, but the one-year window splits them into three groups. Dow (59.4, +36.56% 1Y) and LyondellBasell (65.7, +21.74% 1Y) are healthy on both windows. DuPont (44.8) broke its short-term trend to weak-down but remains the sector's best long-horizon performer (+47.88% 1Y, +26.07 alpha) — a pullback, not a breakdown. Sherwin-Williams (49.1), Air Products (55.7), Linde (45.6), Ecolab (54.4), and PPG (46.5) all carry constructive-to-neutral short readings but are flat-to-negative over the full year with 18-26 points of negative alpha — the sector's quiet laggards.

Does DuPont's short-term break persist into an actual trend change, or does the year-long strength reassert itself? Do the five quiet laggards — Sherwin-Williams, Air Products, Linde, Ecolab, and PPG — ever close their alpha gap, or does the sector's headline strength keep masking them? And does chemicals keep decoupling from airlines and cruise lines, or does the discretionary-travel weakness eventually show up on the industrial-input side too?

• Tape data (price/RSI/SMA/returns): pre-computed summaries as of the 2026-08-21 close — chemicals.
• Comparison figures: 2026-08-14-chemicals (2026-08-14 close; no 2026-08-21-dated chemicals scan exists).
• Cross-sector read: airlines, travel-leisure (same 2026-08-21 close).