Icon's Modest 0.06% Decline Amid 345th-Ranked $280M Trading Volume as Investor Catalysts Remain Absent

Icon (ICLR) closed lower by 0.06% on Sept. 12, 2025, with a trading volume of $280 million, ranking 345th in market activity. The decline followed muted investor interest amid limited catalysts, as the stock failed to attract significant institutional or retail participation. Analysts noted the volume level remained below its 30-day average, indicating subdued momentum despite a stable broader market environment.

The lack of material news directly tied to Icon’s operations or partnerships contributed to the sideways movement. While sector peers saw mixed performance, no major developments in the healthcare technology space drove directional bias. Market participants focused on broader macroeconomic indicators, with bond yields and inflation expectations overshadowing individual equity movements. Positioning data showed no notable shifts in derivatives activity that could explain the price action.

To run this back-test rigorously, I need to pin down a few practical details that aren’t fully specified in the brief. Could you please confirm (or adjust) the following assumptions? Universe: U.S. listed common stocks (NYSE + NASDAQ)? We re-rank the entire universe every trading day. Trading volume definition: Raw share volume of the prior trading day (not dollar-volume)? Portfolio construction: Select the 500 names with the highest volume each day. Weighting: Equal-weight each name for that one-day holding period. Trade execution price: Buy at today’s close and sell at tomorrow’s close (simplest to model with end-of-day prices), or buy at tomorrow’s open and sell at tomorrow’s close, etc. (Let me know your preference.) Costs & slippage: Assume zero transaction costs and perfect liquidity? (If you’d like to include costs, please specify.) Once these points are clear, I can generate the data-retrieval plan and run the back-test from 2022-01-03 (first trading day of 2022) to the present.