Dec 18, 2023
Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.
Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin tonight with a note on the upcoming central bank decisions as well as a look into the dollar’s selloff (page 1). We then check in on trucking stocks and geopolitics (page 2) before previewing this week’s Treasury auctions (page 3). We then dive into the latest positioning data (pages 4 -7).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Dec 15, 2023
At the start of 2022, the seven largest S&P 500 stocks by market cap (which have begun to colloquially be called the Magnificent Seven) possessed a combined market cap of $11.78 trillion. However, severe losses throughout 2022 meant that by the end of the year these stocks were down 47.7% on average. In terms of the combined market cap, that dropped the total down to just $6.9 trillion. In 2023, those same seven stocks have averaged a gain of 106.6%. While not all of these stocks have fully recovered—for example, Telsa (TSLA), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) all have lower market caps than at the start of 2022—the strong performance this year on the whole has meant the combined market cap has made a round trip. Now back to square one, what’s next?
Dec 15, 2023
Both the NYSE FAANG+ Index and Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO) have put in place fresh 52-week highs in the past couple of days, however, zooming out, those fresh highs are on different planets. The NYSE FAANG+ index—comprised of many mega cap Tech stocks—is not only at a 52-week high, but it’s trading at record highs. Since the pre-COVID market high in February 2020, the FANG+ group is now up 120.1%. As for the IPO ETF, this week’s 52-week high only leaves the group at the highest levels since April 2022. Contrary to the all-time high for FAANG+, IPO is still down 51.7% from its February 2021 high and is up a meager 4.7% since pre-COVID. As you can see below, these two traded closely inline with each other in the early days of the post-COVID rally, but FANG+ has left IPO in the dust since the start of 2022.
