U.S. equities sold off aggressively on February 27, 2026, as a hotter-than-expected inflation reading abruptly reset investor expectations around the path of monetary policy. All three major indexes finished sharply lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping more than 500 points, reflecting a decisive shift toward a risk-off posture. A risk-off session refers to periods when investors reduce exposure to assets perceived as risky, such as equities, in favor of cash or defensive assets, typically in response to adverse macroeconomic news.
The catalyst was inflation data that exceeded consensus forecasts, undermining the prevailing narrative that price pressures were steadily moderating. Inflation measures track the pace at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising, and they are central to central bank decision-making. When inflation runs hotter than expected, markets tend to reassess the likelihood that interest rates will remain higher for longer, or potentially rise further.
Why Inflation Data Moves Markets So Forcefully
Equity valuations are highly sensitive to interest rate expectations because future corporate earnings are discounted back to the present using a discount rate that is closely linked to prevailing bond yields. A higher expected policy rate increases that discount rate, mechanically reducing the present value of future cash flows, particularly for growth-oriented companies whose earnings are weighted further into the future. As a result, even modest upside surprises in inflation can trigger outsized equity market reactions.
The February inflation surprise also challenged recent confidence that the Federal Reserve was nearing a sustained easing phase. While policymakers emphasize data dependence, persistently elevated inflation narrows their flexibility to cut rates without risking renewed price instability. Markets responded by pricing in a more restrictive policy stance, pushing Treasury yields higher and equities lower in tandem.
Index-Level and Sector-Level Damage
Losses were broad-based across major indexes. The S&P 500 declined sharply as selling pressure extended across cyclical and defensive sectors alike, while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed due to its heavier concentration in interest-rate-sensitive technology and growth stocks. The Dow’s steep point decline underscored weakness in industrials and consumer-facing companies that are particularly exposed to higher borrowing costs and slowing demand.
At the sector level, rate-sensitive groups such as technology, real estate, and consumer discretionary led the downside. Financials also struggled, as concerns grew that prolonged restrictive policy could weigh on credit growth and economic activity. Energy stocks were among the few relative outperformers, supported by firm commodity prices, but even these pockets of resilience did little to offset the broader negative tone.
What the Selloff Signals About Market Psychology
The intensity of the reaction highlighted how finely balanced investor sentiment has become around inflation and central bank credibility. Markets are currently less tolerant of negative inflation surprises than positive ones, reflecting lingering anxiety that policy victory over inflation is not yet assured. This episode illustrates that, despite periods of calm, inflation data remains the dominant macro variable shaping short-term market direction and risk appetite.
The Inflation Surprise: What Came in Hotter, and Why Markets Were Caught Off Guard
The Data That Broke the Narrative
The inflation report at the center of the selloff showed broader and more persistent price pressures than markets had anticipated. While headline inflation accelerated, the more consequential development was renewed firmness in core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve. Core services inflation, particularly categories tied to labor costs, remained elevated rather than continuing the gradual cooling investors had expected.
Shelter inflation, a major component of consumer price indexes, also proved stickier than forecast. Despite earlier signs that slower rent growth would translate into lower reported inflation, the lagged nature of housing data kept shelter costs rising at a pace inconsistent with a rapid return to the Fed’s target. This combination challenged the prevailing assumption that underlying inflation momentum was decisively weakening.
Why Markets Misjudged the Inflation Path
Markets had entered the report positioned for a benign outcome, reflecting months of incremental disinflation and improving supply-side conditions. Recent data had encouraged the view that inflation would continue to cool organically, allowing the Fed to ease policy without reigniting price pressures. The hotter reading disrupted that narrative by showing that demand-driven inflation, particularly in services, remains resilient.
A key miscalculation was the belief that restrictive monetary policy had already done sufficient work. While higher interest rates have slowed certain interest-sensitive sectors, they have been less effective at easing labor-intensive service inflation. This divergence left markets vulnerable to disappointment when the data failed to validate expectations for a smooth glide path toward lower inflation.
How Inflation Feeds Directly Into Rate Expectations
Inflation data exerts immediate influence on interest rate expectations because it shapes how long policy rates are likely to remain restrictive. When inflation runs hotter than expected, markets adjust by pushing out the timing of rate cuts or by pricing in a higher terminal rate, meaning the peak level at which policy rates are expected to settle. These adjustments are rapidly reflected in Treasury yields, particularly at the short and intermediate maturities most sensitive to monetary policy.
Higher yields increase the discount rate used to value future cash flows, which disproportionately impacts equities with earnings expected further in the future. This mechanical repricing helps explain why growth-oriented segments of the market reacted so sharply, even though the inflation data itself was macroeconomic rather than company-specific.
Why the Reaction Was So Broad-Based
The selloff extended across indexes and sectors because the inflation surprise affected the foundational assumptions underpinning equity valuations. Elevated inflation implies tighter financial conditions, slower real economic growth, and increased uncertainty around corporate margins. Even sectors traditionally viewed as defensive struggled, as higher yields reduce the relative appeal of dividend-paying stocks compared to risk-free assets.
This episode underscores how compressed the margin for error has become. With valuations elevated and policy expectations finely tuned, markets are highly sensitive to any data that suggests inflation is not yet fully contained. Rather than reacting to inflation in isolation, investors responded to what the data implied about the durability of restrictive monetary policy and the risk of policy staying tight longer than previously assumed.
From CPI to Rates: How Inflation Data Repriced Fed Policy Expectations in Real Time
The hotter-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading forced an immediate reassessment of the expected path of U.S. monetary policy. Because CPI directly informs whether inflation is converging toward the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target, any upside surprise challenges assumptions that policy restraint is already sufficient. Markets responded by rapidly recalibrating expectations for how long interest rates would need to remain restrictive.
The Transmission Mechanism: CPI to Fed Funds Futures
The fastest repricing occurred in fed funds futures, contracts that reflect market expectations for the Federal Reserve’s policy rate at future meetings. Following the CPI release, these contracts shifted to imply fewer rate cuts in 2026 and a higher probability that policy rates would remain near current levels well into the second half of the year. This adjustment reflected the view that persistent inflation reduces the Fed’s flexibility to ease without risking a reacceleration in prices.
Closely related overnight index swaps, which are used to hedge or speculate on short-term interest rates, reinforced this shift by embedding a higher expected average policy rate over the next several quarters. Together, these instruments signaled that markets were no longer confident inflation was cooling fast enough to justify imminent or aggressive easing.
Why Treasury Yields Moved Sharply Higher
Repriced policy expectations fed directly into Treasury yields, particularly at the front and belly of the yield curve. The yield curve plots interest rates across different maturities, and shorter-dated yields are most sensitive to expected changes in the federal funds rate. Two- and five-year Treasury yields rose sharply, reflecting both delayed rate cuts and a modest increase in the expected terminal rate.
Longer-dated yields also moved higher, though for a different reason. Persistent inflation raises concerns about the credibility of future disinflation, increasing the term premium, which is the extra yield investors demand for holding longer-maturity bonds amid uncertainty. This combination pushed real yields, or inflation-adjusted yields, to levels that materially tightened overall financial conditions.
How Higher Rates Translated Into Equity Repricing
Higher yields immediately altered equity valuation assumptions by increasing the discount rate applied to future earnings. A discount rate represents the required return investors demand, and when risk-free yields rise, all other assets must reprice to remain competitive. This dynamic disproportionately affects companies whose expected cash flows lie further in the future, explaining the outsized pressure on technology and other growth-oriented sectors.
At the index level, this mechanism weighed heavily on benchmarks with higher duration, meaning greater sensitivity to changes in interest rates. The Nasdaq and S&P 500, both more growth-tilted, underperformed as valuation multiples compressed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, while more value-oriented, still suffered significant losses due to its exposure to economically sensitive industries and the broad reassessment of growth prospects.
What the Speed of the Reaction Reveals About Market Fragility
The immediacy of the repricing underscores how tightly market valuations are anchored to inflation and policy expectations. With rate cuts already partially priced in, the CPI surprise left little room for reinterpretation without meaningful price adjustments. This sensitivity reflects an environment in which macroeconomic data carries disproportionate influence because policy uncertainty remains high.
Rather than signaling panic, the sharp selloff illustrated a rational but abrupt recalibration of assumptions. Inflation data no longer merely informs the economic backdrop; it directly dictates asset prices by reshaping expectations for monetary policy, discount rates, and the tolerance for risk across financial markets.
Equity Valuations Under Pressure: Why Higher-for-Longer Rates Hit Stocks So Hard
As the inflation surprise forced markets to reprice the path of monetary policy, the consequences for equity valuations were swift and mechanical. A hotter-than-expected inflation reading reduces confidence that policy rates will fall in the near term, reinforcing a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. That shift directly undermines the valuation framework supporting elevated equity prices.
The Discount Rate Effect: The Core Valuation Mechanism
Equity valuations are fundamentally based on the present value of expected future cash flows. The discount rate used in this calculation incorporates the risk-free rate, typically proxied by Treasury yields, plus an equity risk premium, which compensates investors for holding stocks instead of bonds. When inflation pushes Treasury yields higher, the entire discount rate rises, lowering the present value of future earnings even if profit forecasts remain unchanged.
This effect is mathematically non-linear, meaning valuation declines accelerate as rates move higher. Stocks with cash flows expected far in the future experience the largest valuation compression, because those distant earnings are discounted more aggressively. This explains why growth-oriented sectors reacted so sharply following the inflation release.
Why Valuation Multiples Compressed Across the Market
Price-to-earnings multiples, a common valuation metric, tend to move inversely with interest rates. When rates rise, investors demand lower multiples to compensate for the increased opportunity cost of holding equities relative to safer fixed-income assets. The inflation data effectively forced markets to reassess how much they were willing to pay for each dollar of earnings.
This dynamic does not require an imminent recession or earnings collapse to take hold. Even stable or improving fundamentals can coexist with falling stock prices when the valuation framework itself is reset. The selloff reflected multiple compression rather than a sudden deterioration in corporate profitability.
Sector-Level Pressure: Growth, Cyclicals, and Defensive Limits
Technology and other growth-heavy sectors bore the brunt of the decline because their valuations are most sensitive to changes in long-term interest rates. Elevated real yields erode the relative attractiveness of companies whose investment thesis depends on sustained future growth rather than near-term cash generation. As a result, these sectors experienced outsized losses despite no immediate change in underlying business conditions.
More cyclical sectors, including industrials and financials, also came under pressure as higher inflation reduced confidence in a smooth economic landing. While banks can benefit from higher nominal rates, persistently high inflation increases the risk of tighter financial conditions and slower credit growth. Defensive sectors provided only limited insulation, reflecting the broad nature of the valuation reset.
Index-Level Impact and the Role of Market Composition
At the index level, the selloff revealed stark differences in interest rate sensitivity. The Nasdaq and S&P 500, with higher exposure to long-duration equities, declined more sharply as valuation assumptions were recalibrated. Their heavier weighting toward technology amplified the effect of rising real yields.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, though more value-oriented, still suffered substantial losses. Many Dow components are economically sensitive and vulnerable to slower growth if tighter monetary policy persists. This underscores that higher-for-longer rates exert pressure not only through valuation mechanics but also through expectations for future demand.
What This Episode Signals About Market Dependence on Inflation Data
The intensity of the reaction highlights how narrowly equity valuations are tethered to inflation and policy expectations. With markets previously positioned for eventual rate cuts, even modest upside surprises in inflation now carry outsized consequences. Each data release effectively recalibrates the assumed terminal rate and duration of restrictive policy.
This environment leaves little margin for error in economic data. Inflation has become the primary variable dictating asset prices, not because growth has collapsed, but because valuations remain highly sensitive to the level and persistence of interest rates. As long as inflation uncertainty remains elevated, equity markets are likely to remain prone to sharp, data-driven repricing events.
Index-Level Damage: Dow’s 500-Point Drop vs. Nasdaq and S&P 500 Performance
Following the inflation surprise, losses broadened across all major U.S. equity benchmarks, but the magnitude and drivers of the declines varied meaningfully by index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 500 points, reflecting both absolute price pressure and a rotation away from economically sensitive large-cap names. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 declined by smaller point totals but suffered sharper percentage losses in rate-sensitive segments.
These differences underscore how index composition shapes market outcomes during periods of inflation-driven repricing. While all three indexes responded to tighter expected monetary conditions, the transmission channels differed across growth exposure, sector weights, and valuation sensitivity.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: Cyclical Exposure Amplifies Growth Fears
The Dow’s decline was notable for its breadth rather than its concentration. As a price-weighted index, meaning higher-priced stocks exert greater influence regardless of market capitalization, declines in industrial, financial, and consumer-linked components drove much of the point loss. Many of these firms are directly exposed to economic momentum, making them vulnerable when inflation raises the probability of restrictive policy persisting longer than expected.
The hotter inflation reading increased concerns that higher interest rates could slow capital spending, dampen credit demand, and pressure corporate margins. Even without extreme valuation multiples, Dow constituents are sensitive to earnings risk if economic growth cools under tighter financial conditions. This explains why a traditionally “value-oriented” index still experienced a sharp drawdown.
S&P 500: Broad Repricing Through Valuation Channels
The S&P 500 declined less dramatically in point terms but reflected a more uniform valuation reset across sectors. With its market-cap-weighted structure, the index transmitted losses from both mega-cap growth stocks and cyclical industries simultaneously. Technology, communication services, and consumer discretionary sectors weighed heavily as higher expected real interest rates reduced the present value of future cash flows.
Real interest rates, defined as nominal rates adjusted for inflation expectations, play a critical role in equity valuation models. When inflation comes in hotter, markets often assume policy rates will stay higher for longer, lifting real yields and compressing equity multiples. The S&P 500’s performance illustrated how inflation affects not only growth stocks but also the broader earnings base of the market.
Nasdaq Composite: Long-Duration Equities Bear the Brunt
The Nasdaq Composite underperformed on a percentage basis, reflecting its heavy concentration in long-duration equities. Long-duration stocks derive a larger share of their valuation from earnings expected far in the future, making them particularly sensitive to changes in discount rates. As expectations for rate cuts were pushed further out, these stocks faced an immediate and disproportionate repricing.
The selloff was less about company-specific fundamentals and more about macro valuation mechanics. Even firms with strong balance sheets and secular growth prospects saw declines as the inflation data forced a reassessment of how long restrictive policy might persist. This dynamic highlights the Nasdaq’s role as the most direct equity proxy for interest rate expectations.
What the Index Divergence Reveals About Market Structure
Taken together, the index-level performance reveals a market highly conditioned to inflation outcomes and central bank signaling. The Dow’s point-heavy decline reflected rising growth risks, while the Nasdaq’s percentage drop captured the valuation impact of higher discount rates. The S&P 500 sat at the intersection, transmitting both effects across a diversified earnings base.
This episode demonstrates that inflation surprises now propagate through multiple channels simultaneously: growth expectations, policy assumptions, and valuation frameworks. Index composition determines how those forces manifest, but none of the major benchmarks are insulated when inflation challenges the narrative of easing financial conditions.
Sector Fallout: Why Rate-Sensitive and High-Multiple Stocks Led the Selloff
As inflation expectations repriced at the index level, the adjustment quickly became more granular across sectors. The inflation surprise translated into higher expected policy rates and elevated real yields, exerting uneven pressure depending on each sector’s sensitivity to financing costs, valuation duration, and earnings cyclicality. The result was a pronounced rotation away from areas most exposed to tighter financial conditions.
Technology and Communication Services: Valuation Duration Takes Center Stage
Technology and communication services stocks were among the weakest performers, reflecting their elevated valuation multiples and long earnings horizons. High-multiple stocks trade at price-to-earnings ratios that embed optimistic assumptions about future growth, making them highly sensitive to the discount rate used in valuation models. When inflation pushes expected interest rates higher, the present value of those future cash flows declines disproportionately.
This dynamic operates independently of near-term earnings strength. Even companies delivering solid revenue growth faced selling pressure as investors recalibrated how much they are willing to pay for growth in an environment where capital is no longer expected to become cheaper in the near term.
Real Estate and Utilities: Direct Exposure to Higher Rates
Rate-sensitive defensive sectors such as real estate and utilities also came under pressure, though for different reasons. These sectors rely heavily on debt financing and are often valued for their stable income streams, which compete directly with bond yields. As Treasury yields rose following the inflation data, the relative attractiveness of these equity income substitutes diminished.
In real estate investment trusts, higher expected rates raise borrowing costs and can pressure property valuations by increasing capitalization rates, a metric that links asset prices to income and interest rates. Utilities faced a similar valuation headwind, as higher yields reduce the premium investors are willing to pay for regulated, slow-growing cash flows.
Consumer Discretionary: Inflation Rekindles Margin and Demand Concerns
Consumer discretionary stocks reflected a different transmission channel of inflation risk. Persistent price pressures raise concerns about household purchasing power, particularly if wage growth fails to keep pace with rising costs. For companies dependent on discretionary spending, this raises the risk of demand softening later in the economic cycle.
Higher rates compound the issue by increasing borrowing costs for consumers, especially for big-ticket items financed through credit. The sector’s underperformance signaled that markets are once again factoring in the possibility that restrictive monetary policy could weigh on both volumes and margins.
Relative Resilience in Energy and Select Value-Oriented Sectors
Not all sectors participated equally in the selloff. Energy stocks showed relative resilience, supported by their direct linkage to commodity prices and cash flows that tend to perform better in inflationary environments. Financials also held up better than the broader market, as higher interest rates can support net interest margins, the spread between what banks earn on loans and pay on deposits.
However, this relative strength should not be mistaken for insulation. The broader takeaway is that sector performance is increasingly dictated by how inflation reshapes policy expectations, rather than by traditional defensive or cyclical classifications alone.
What Sector-Level Moves Reveal About Market Sensitivity
The sector fallout underscores how finely tuned markets have become to inflation data and central bank signaling. Rather than a generalized risk-off move, the selloff reflected a targeted repricing of assets most vulnerable to higher-for-longer interest rates. Valuation duration, balance sheet structure, and exposure to consumer demand now matter as much as headline growth narratives.
This pattern reinforces a central feature of the current market regime: inflation surprises propagate rapidly through sector-level valuations, amplifying volatility and narrowing the margin for policy misinterpretation. As long as inflation remains the dominant macro variable, sector leadership is likely to remain highly reactive to each new data point.
Bond Yields, the Dollar, and Financial Conditions: The Cross-Asset Transmission Mechanism
The sector-level repricing unfolded alongside a rapid adjustment across key macro-financial variables, most notably Treasury yields and the U.S. dollar. These cross-asset moves help explain why a single inflation data point was sufficient to drive a broad and forceful equity selloff. Inflation does not affect stocks in isolation; it transmits through bond markets, currency markets, and ultimately overall financial conditions.
Understanding this transmission mechanism is essential to interpreting the scale of the market reaction, particularly on days when equity price declines appear disproportionate to the headline data surprise.
Treasury Yields and the Repricing of the Risk-Free Rate
Following the hotter-than-expected inflation reading, Treasury yields rose sharply across the curve, with notable increases in intermediate and long-dated maturities. Treasury yields represent the risk-free rate, the baseline return investors can earn without taking credit risk. When this rate rises, the discount rate applied to future corporate cash flows increases, mechanically reducing equity valuations.
Higher yields also signal that markets expect tighter monetary policy for longer. Even if the Federal Reserve does not immediately hike rates, persistent inflation raises the probability that policy will remain restrictive, pushing yields higher through expectations rather than action. This dynamic explains why equity markets often react more to inflation surprises than to actual policy decisions.
The U.S. Dollar as a Financial Tightening Channel
At the same time, the U.S. dollar strengthened as higher yields increased the relative attractiveness of dollar-denominated assets. A stronger dollar is a classic byproduct of rising interest rate differentials, as global capital flows toward higher-yielding markets. While beneficial for import price containment, dollar strength acts as a tightening force for risk assets.
For multinational companies, a stronger dollar reduces the value of overseas earnings when translated back into U.S. currency. This currency effect compounds valuation pressure, particularly for large-cap indexes with significant international revenue exposure. The result is an additional headwind for equities precisely when higher rates are already compressing multiples.
Financial Conditions and the Feedback Loop to Equities
Rising yields and a stronger dollar jointly contribute to tighter financial conditions, a broad measure encompassing borrowing costs, credit availability, asset prices, and liquidity. Tighter financial conditions make it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow, invest, and spend, even before any formal policy tightening occurs. Markets internalize this tightening quickly, repricing growth expectations downward.
Equities sit at the end of this feedback loop. As financial conditions tighten, risk premiums rise, valuations compress, and volatility increases. The sharp decline in major indexes reflects not just concern about current inflation, but a reassessment of the entire macro environment that inflation implies.
Why Cross-Asset Moves Amplified the Index-Level Decline
The simultaneous rise in yields, strengthening of the dollar, and tightening of financial conditions created a synchronized headwind for equities. Indexes with higher duration exposure, meaning a greater reliance on future earnings, were especially vulnerable to this convergence. This helps explain why the selloff was broad-based and severe, rather than confined to a narrow set of inflation-sensitive sectors.
More broadly, this episode highlights how inflation data now serves as a catalyst for cross-asset repricing rather than a standalone economic indicator. Markets are responding less to what inflation says about current growth and more to what it implies for the path of monetary policy, financial conditions, and valuation frameworks across asset classes.
What This Episode Signals About Market Fragility and the Inflation–Policy Nexus Going Forward
The market reaction to the hotter-than-expected inflation reading underscores a key structural reality: equity valuations remain highly dependent on the assumed path of monetary policy. When inflation data challenges that path, repricing can be swift and indiscriminate. This episode reflects not a single data-point shock, but a broader vulnerability embedded in current market assumptions.
Elevated Sensitivity to Marginal Inflation Surprises
Markets have entered a regime in which marginal inflation surprises carry outsized consequences. With policy rates already restrictive, any evidence that inflation is proving sticky raises the probability that rates will remain higher for longer, or potentially move higher still. That shift forces investors to reassess discount rates, growth expectations, and risk premiums simultaneously.
This sensitivity reflects compressed valuation buffers. When equity multiples are elevated relative to long-term averages, even small changes in rate expectations can produce large price adjustments. The sharp selloff illustrates how little tolerance markets currently have for upside inflation risk.
The Inflation–Policy Transmission Mechanism in Real Time
The episode provides a clear example of how inflation data transmits through markets. Higher inflation readings feed directly into expectations for policy rates, which push bond yields higher. Higher yields, in turn, increase the discount rate applied to future corporate earnings, reducing the present value of equities.
This mechanism operates most forcefully on long-duration assets, defined as those whose valuations depend more heavily on earnings far in the future. Growth-oriented sectors and large-cap indexes with extended cash-flow profiles therefore experienced disproportionate pressure. The result was a broad index-level decline rather than a rotation confined to a few inflation-sensitive industries.
Policy Uncertainty as a Source of Market Fragility
Beyond the level of rates, uncertainty about the policy reaction function itself has become a source of fragility. When inflation outcomes diverge from expectations, markets must rapidly recalibrate not only the timing of future rate moves, but the central bank’s tolerance for economic slowdown. This uncertainty increases volatility and raises the equity risk premium demanded by investors.
In this environment, markets are less focused on whether growth remains adequate and more focused on whether policy constraints will tighten further. That shift helps explain why equity declines can occur even when underlying economic data outside inflation remains relatively stable.
Implications for Cross-Asset and Sector Dynamics
The broad-based nature of the decline highlights how inflation-driven repricing now cuts across sectors and asset classes. Defensive sectors provided limited insulation, as higher yields reduce the relative appeal of stable dividends compared with risk-free returns. Cyclical sectors, meanwhile, faced pressure from the prospect of tighter financial conditions weighing on future demand.
At the index level, benchmarks with heavier exposure to technology, communication services, and multinational firms were particularly affected. These indexes combine high duration characteristics with sensitivity to both interest rates and currency movements, amplifying the impact of inflation surprises.
A Market Defined by Policy Dependency
Ultimately, this episode reinforces that markets are operating in a policy-dependent equilibrium. Inflation data is no longer interpreted primarily as a signal about economic health, but as a determinant of how restrictive financial conditions may become. As long as inflation remains above target and policy credibility hinges on containing it, markets are likely to remain highly reactive to each data release.
The sharp decline serves as a reminder that the current market structure leaves little margin for error. Until inflation demonstrates a clear and sustained path lower, equity markets are likely to remain fragile, with valuation levels tightly tethered to evolving expectations for monetary policy rather than to near-term earnings performance alone.