AGNC's $280M Volume Ranks 394th as Stock Slumps 2.5% Amid Rate Uncertainty

On September 22, 2025, , ranking 394th among U.S. stocks. , underperforming broader market benchmarks as investors reassessed risk appetite amid shifting interest rate expectations.

Recent developments highlight renewed scrutiny over AGNC's capital structure and liquidity management. Analysts noted increased short-term borrowing costs have compressed net interest margins, with management signaling potential adjustments to leverage ratios in Q4 2025. The company's focus on expanding its agency mortgage-backed securities portfolio has raised concerns about amid a flattening yield curve.

Strategic positioning remains a key theme, . Market participants are closely monitoring execution pace as a potential catalyst for near-term volatility. , reflecting deep-value characteristics that attract income-focused investors.

To accurately back-test this strategy we need to generate, for every trading day from 1-Jan-2022 onward, the list of the 500 U.S. stocks with the highest share-trading volume and then compute their next-day performance (equal-weighted). Our toolset can do this, but it requires two inputs I’d like to confirm before proceeding: 1. Universe: • Do you want the full U.S. common-stock universe (NYSE + NASDAQ + AMEX) or a subset such as the S&P 1500 constituents? • ADRs, ETFs, and penny-stocks (< $5) – include or exclude? 2. Trading frictions: • Should we incorporate an estimated transaction cost / bid-ask spread for buying 500 names each day (e.g., 10 bps round-trip)? • Any slippage assumption? Once we have those details I can automatically retrieve the daily volume data, form the daily top-500 basket, and run the one-day-holding back-test from 2022-01-03 (first trading day of 2022) to the present.