Apr 17, 2025
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“Had it not been for the recent uncertainty from global tariffs and their downstream impacts, we would have raised our expectations for 2025.” – Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
It’s still early in the Q1 earnings season, but one of the most significant quotes we have heard in an earnings conference call came from Prologis (PLD) CFO Tim Arndt where he noted that business fundamentals were improving to close out the first quarter to the point where the company was planning to raise expectations. Then the President appeared with the Reciprocal tariffs on April 2nd, and that moment changed everything. That ceremony forced corporate America to reassess everything as we enter one of the most uncertain operating environments in at least a generation.
In addition to a trickle of earnings news this morning, we got updates on Housing Starts and Building Permits for March at 8:30, along with jobless claims, and the April Philly Fed report. Housing Starts were a big miss, but Building Permits came in stronger than expected. Initial Jobless Claims came in 10K lower than expected, while Continuing Claims were higher. The Philly Fed report was a big miss and came in at -26.4, which, outside of one reading in April 2023, was the weakest since the Covid crash.
Ironically, the main company of focus this morning has nothing to do with tariffs. Shares of UnitedHealth (UNH) are trading down over 20% in the pre-market after the company reported a reverse triple play with weaker-than-expected EPS and revenues while also lowering guidance. After dropping as low as $438 in late February, the stock rallied up just above $600 as recently as last Thursday, but this morning has given it nearly all back as the stock sinks to $460.
What makes today’s plunge even more painful is that investors had been gravitating to the stock as they took on more defensive positioning since the market peak in February. Since the 2/19 peak in the S&P 500 through yesterday’s close, UNH had been the 12th best performing stock in the S&P 500 and the best performing stock in the Dow, and that included a 12.5% downside gap on 2/21! When the defensive stocks start to fall, where is an investor to turn?
With the stock on pace to open down 20.52% as of this writing, it would go down as UNH’s second-largest downside gap at the open since 1990. The only one that was larger was a 20.57% gap in August 1998 when the company took a $900 million charge. At this point, though, it wouldn’t take much more downside for today’s decline to unseat that decline. Besides the August 1998 occurrence, the only other time that UNH gapped down anywhere near 20% was in July 1996 (-19.13%). It’s also interesting to see that this morning’s extreme downside gap follows what was one of the stock’s most extreme upside gaps less than two weeks ago!
Apr 16, 2025
See what’s driving market performance around the world in today’s Morning Lineup. Bespoke’s Morning Lineup is the best way to start your trading day. Read it now by starting a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your trial.
“In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of a story.” – Walter Cronkite
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Trade headlines are weighing on market sentiment this morning as semiconductor stocks are down about 4% in aggregate on the heels of a 6%+ decline in Nvicia (NVDA) due to US government restrictions on the sale of Hopper chips to China. While not having as large of an impact as they have in the past, it’s another indication that uncertainty surrounding trade isn’t going anywhere.
In economic news, Retail Sales were inline with expectations at the headline level but better than expected after stripping out Autos, and February’s readings were also revised higher. On a net basis, this was a strong report as the divergence between hard and soft data continues.
The S&P 500 bounced over 8% from its closing low last week and more than 11% from its intraday low. Despite the rebound, on Monday, the index experienced what technical analysts call a ‘death cross’ where its 50-day moving average (DMA) crossed below its 200-DMA as both have downward slopes.
This was the S&P 500’s first death cross in more than three years (March 2022) and the 25th in its history, dating back to 1928. It’s also the eighth such pattern in the post-financial crisis period, and as shown in the chart below, it followed a nearly 20-year period where there was only one occurrence.
Apr 14, 2025
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“Concentration is that ability to not think about anything.” – Pete Rose
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
If you were hoping that April’s volatility would calm down this week, you will have to wait at least another day. However, bulls will find today’s volatility to be much more tolerable since it’s to the upside. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to open over 1% higher while treasury yields are lower, crude oil is higher, and gold is marginally lower. It’s a much more ‘normal’ picture this morning than many days we saw last week. Friday evening’s news that smartphones, semis, and other electronics would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs has tech stocks flying, and nowhere is the strength more notable than in Apple (AAPL), which is trading up over 5% in the premarket.
Talk about a roller coaster. After peaking just after Christmas, shares of AAPL lost more than a third of their value in less than four months and have since recovered more than 23% when you consider this morning’s gains. Volatility of this magnitude is notable when it occurs in just about any stock, but this is the largest company in the world we’re talking about. Are we really to believe that the company’s value has fluctuated by this magnitude in such a short period?
With today’s 5% rally in the pre-market, AAPL is on track for its second straight daily gain of over 4%. Since the iPod was launched in 2001, the only other time the stock had a higher number of consecutive 4%+ daily moves was in October 2008 when there were three in a row. The current streak of back-to-back gains, if it holds, would be the first such streak since coming out of the Financial Crisis, but before that, they were common as the market cap was much lower.
