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“When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.” – Walter Payton
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Futures are sitting on modest gains as the S&P 500 looks to close out the week with a 1% gain. The S&P 500 has traded higher every day this week, and the number of record closing highs is starting to pile up with 13 on the year so far. That’s nowhere near last year’s total of over 50, but considering where the market was three months ago, it’s impressive to say the least.
While US equity futures hang onto positive territory, Asian stocks finished in the red even as the Nikkei started off the session at new highs. The reversal stemmed from concerns over a more aggressive BoJ. European stocks are also firmly in negative territory, with the STOXX 600 down about 0.5%. Outside of equities, energy commodities are modestly higher, while metals prices are lower across the board. In crypto, Bitcoin and Ethereum are both lower. It’s also worth pointing out that Bitcoin is now down near $116,000 after hitting a high of $123,000 eleven days ago.
The pace of earnings so far this month has been positive, economic data has been hanging in there, and we’re even starting to get some sense of clarity on tariffs, so you can’t fault investors for being optimistic. Today, we’ll get a bit of a break from the data, though, as the earnings and economic calendars are relatively light, but you never know when the President will drop a tariff-related headline.
While there’s not a lot of economic data today, we wanted to take a moment to look back at yesterday’s initial jobless claims report, which came in weaker than expected and declined on a week-over-week basis for the sixth time in a row. As shown in the chart below, this was just the 11th streak of six or more weekly declines. Of those prior ten streaks, only four were longer, with just one stretching more than seven weeks. That record was the 13-week stretch coming out of the Covid lockdowns. We also included shading to indicate recessions, and you typically don’t see these kinds of streaks leading up to the onset of a recession.
The market has been treading a steady path higher over the last several weeks, and one place the lack of volatility has shown up is in the VIX. This week, it dropped below 16 to its lowest levels since 2/19. That was right at the peak before the tariff-takedown, so it’s only natural to wonder if there’s a sense of complacency setting in.
