The Bespoke Report — Equity Market Pros and Cons — Q1 2024
This week’s Bespoke Report is an updated version of our “Pros and Cons” edition for Q1 2024.
With this report, you’re able to get a complete picture of the bull and bear case for US stocks right now. It’s heavy on graphics and light on text, but we let the charts and tables do the talking!
On page three of the report, you’ll see a full list of the pros and cons that we lay out. Slides for each topic are then provided on page four and beyond.
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The Bespoke 50 Growth Stocks — 2/1/24
The “Bespoke 50” is a basket of noteworthy growth stocks in the Russell 3,000. To make the list, a stock must have strong earnings growth prospects along with an attractive price chart based on Bespoke’s analysis. There were 21 changes to the list this week.
The Bespoke 50 is available with a Bespoke Premium subscription or a Bespoke Institutional subscription. With Bespoke Premium, you’ll receive a number of daily market updates from us along with our weekly newsletter and a portion of our investor tools. With Bespoke Institutional, you’ll receive everything that’s included with Premium plus additional daily macro analysis and more stock-specific research.
To see all 50 stocks that currently make up the Bespoke 50, simply start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional.
The Bespoke 50 performance chart shown does not represent actual investment results. The Bespoke 50 is updated weekly on Thursday unless otherwise noted. Performance is based on equally weighting each of the 50 stocks (2% each) and is calculated using each stock’s opening price as of Friday morning each week. Entry prices and exit prices used for stocks that are added or removed from the Bespoke 50 are based on Friday’s opening price. Any potential commissions, brokerage fees, or dividends are not included in the Bespoke 50 performance calculation, but the performance shown is net of a hypothetical annual advisory fee of 0.85%. Performance tracking for the Bespoke 50 and the Russell 3,000 total return index begins on March 5th, 2012 when the Bespoke 50 was first published. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The Bespoke 50 is meant to be an idea generator for investors and not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities. It is not personalized advice because it in no way takes into account an investor’s individual needs. As always, investors should conduct their own research when buying or selling individual securities. Click here to read our full disclosure on hypothetical performance tracking. Bespoke representatives or wealth management clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.
High Share Prices vs. Low Share Prices
It shouldn’t matter, but we saw a huge disparity in the performance of stocks with high versus low share prices in January. Here are the numbers:
As shown below, in the large-cap Russell 1,000, the 100 stocks that began 2024 with the lowest share prices fell an average of 7.4% in January, while the 100 stocks that began the year with the highest share prices rose an average of 2%.
There are 25 stocks in the Russell 1,000 that began 2024 with a sub-$10 share price, and these stocks fell an average of 11% in January. Conversely, the 41 stocks in the Russell 1,000 that began the year with a share price of more than $500 rose an average of 3.2% during the month.
What gives?
January 2024 Key ETF Performance
The first month of 2024 is already complete, and below is a look at the performance of various asset classes during January using key ETFs that we track closely. The S&P 500 (SPY) finished the month up 1.59% even though the average stock in the index was down 0.84%. While large-cap ETFs like SPY and QQQ finished the month higher, the small-cap Russell 2,000 (IWM) was down 3.9%.
At the sector level, Real Estate (XLRE) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY) both fell 4%+, while Communication Services (XLC) saw the biggest move to the upside at 4.4%. International equity ETFs were all over the place in January with India (PIN) and Japan (EWJ) solidly higher and China (ASHR) and Hong Kong (EWH) sharply lower. Oil (USO) was actually the best performing area of the entire matrix in January with a gain of 6.4%. On the flip side, natural gas (UNG) and silver (SLV) both fell 3%+.
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