Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 11/4/25 – It Must Be Tuesday
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“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” – 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.
After a strangely subdued reaction to its earnings report after the close yesterday, shares of Palantir (PLTR) are down nearly 8% in the pre-market as investors had some time to sleep on it overnight. An 8% decline is nothing to dismiss, but it’s also important to remember that PLTR is a volatile stock. In its history as a public company, the average one-day reaction to earnings has been a gain or loss of over 15%, and based on where it’s trading now, shares of PLTR are back to where they were just last Tuesday.
The decline in PLTR comes as a cloud of concern envelops the market over how fast stocks have rallied and where valuations have gone. Right on cue, a Bloomberg article says as much with the headline below. While the headline sounds scary enough, the details read a lot less scary. Essentially, it quotes various Wall Street CEOs, among them Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, suggesting that the market could see a pullback of 10% to 20% at some point in the next 12 to 24 months. Solomon was quoted as saying, “Of course, it’s likely there will be a 10% to 20% drawdown in equity markets over the next 12 months,” but even he admitted that pullbacks like that can come at any time and from any level.
Concerns are concerns, though, and when investors worry, they sell. With that, futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both indicated to open down by more than 1%, following a down session in Asia and Europe, where stocks are also broadly lower by around 1% or more.
Even with the sharp decline in equities, bond yields are only modestly lower as the 10-year yield still hangs around 4.1%. Crude oil prices are also down more than 1%, which suggests that investors are also concerned about the health of the economy, given the ongoing shutdown. We’ll be watching the level of airport delays; the more they rise, the more likely it is that policymakers in DC reach an agreement to open the government back up. Thanksgiving is just three weeks away, and no one on either side of the aisle wants to face the wrath of Americans who can’t get home for the holiday.
Given the scope of the pre-market declines, it must be Tuesday. As shown in the chart below, the S&P 500’s median opening gap on Tuesdays this year has been just five basis points (bps), which is less than half the next closest weekdays (Thursdays and Fridays), so the day has had a knack for weakness. From the open to close, Tuesday isn’t the weakest day of the week, but it’s still much weaker than the median gains of 15 bps on Monday and 8 bps on Friday.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 11/3/25 – Nine’s Fine
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“It would be a mistake to think something is wonderful just because it looks great.” – Anna Wintour
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Last week may have been the peak week of earnings season in terms of the market cap of companies reporting, but we have another busy week in store for investors, and it’s picking up right where it left off last week. Of the companies reporting so far today, 89% have reported better than expected EPS forecasts, and 75% have topped sales forecasts, so you can’t ask for much more than that. Even in terms of guidance, 3 companies have raised forecasts while only one lowered.
In response to the better-than-expected reports, equity futures are also picking up right where they left off last week, as markets look to open the week higher with the Nasdaq leading the way. Today’s positive open for the Nasdaq will be the ninth straight positive start to a week for the index, which is only the longest streak since summer 2024, but still tied for the second longest in the index’s history.
In Asia, Japan was closed for the day, but other indices in the region were broadly higher even as South Korea’s manufacturing PMI moved into contraction territory. In Europe, most manufacturing PMIs were also in line with forecasts, and the STOXX 600 responded by rallying 0.5% while Germany rallied more than 1%.
Outside of equities, the 10-year yield is slightly lower at 4.09% ahead of a busy week for Fed speakers, who have mostly sounded more skeptical of a December rate cut, as concerns over inflation linger even as there are signs that the labor market is stabilizing.
Crude oil prices are essentially unchanged even as OPEC+ announced over the weekend that it would increase output by 137K barrels per day, but then pause those increases beginning in January. WTI is starting the month just over $60 per barrel after declining 2% in October, taking its monthly losing streak to three months.
Gold prices are starting off the month back above $4,000 per ounce as other metals also trade higher, but the troubles for digital gold continue as bitcoin prices trade down close to 2% and barely hangs on to $108K. Ethereum prices are down twice as much as they barely hang on to $3,700.
With just two months left in the year, over the weekend, we looked at asset class performance, country performance, and individual stock performance for October and various other time periods. Make sure to take a look at that rundown of where things stand heading into year-end. Even though the major averages may be looking good, not everything looks great.
Taking a high-level look at equity market returns, whether you’re looking at the short-term or long-term, it has been a friendly environment. Over the last year, the S&P 500’s total return has been a gain of 21.5% which is nearly twice the historical average of 12.0%, but over the last two years, the 29.5% annualized gain has been nearly triple the long-term average. Looking out over longer-term time periods, though, over the last five, ten, and twenty years, returns aren’t as strong, but they’re still above the long-term average.
While equity market investors have been on a highway paved in green, the treasury market has been a world of pain. Over the last year, long-term treasuries, as measured by the BofA/Merrill 10+ Year Treasury Index, have posted positive returns, but at 3.4% it’s still less than half of the long-term average. Over the last two years, the annualized gain of 9.0% is actually slightly above average. Still, looking back further than that, it’s been a painful five, ten and twenty years for anyone who has loaned money to the US Treasury.
What Volatility?
October is winding down, and while investors braced for volatility this month, they got off relatively easy. From its MTD high (at the time) on 10/9 to its intraday low on 10/10, the S&P 500’s maximum drawdown from a high was 3.16%, While last October’s maximum drawdown of 2.99% was smaller, this month’s max decline was 1.44 percentage points less than the median maximum drawdown of 4.60% seen during the month dating back to 1983, which is as far back as we have intraday price history for the S&P 500.
October is known as the most volatile month, and history backs that up. As shown in the chart below, no other month has experienced a larger median maximum drawdown. Somewhat surprisingly, though, April at -4.5% and January at -4.3% aren’t far behind. What makes the month seem even more volatile than it is, though, is that for anyone who has been around a while, two of the three largest intra-month drawdowns from a high have both occurred in October. In 1987, the S&P 500 declined by more than 34% from peak to trough, while in 2008, it plunged by 28%. The only other months with an intra-month decline of more than 25% were March 2020 (-30.12%) when Covid shut down the economy and November 2008 (-26.45%) during the Financial Crisis. It isn’t always a crazy month, but when it is, October sure knows how to disappoint!
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 10/31/25 – No Scares From the Mega Caps
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“The work of today is the history of tomorrow and we are its makers” – Juliette Gordon Low
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
To view yesterday’s CNBC interview talking about market breadth, click on the image below.
The S&P 500 heads into today with just fractional gains for the week, but today’s trading should add to those gains with futures indicated 0.7% higher. Strong earnings from the mega-caps are to thank for the gains, as what has already been a positive earnings season continues. Outside of equities, treasury yields are slightly higher, while crude oil trades slightly lower but has hung on to $60 per barrel for now. Metals prices are mixed as gold hangs on to $4,000 while silver and copper are essentially unchanged. Crypto is showing some life as Bitcoin trades higher by 3% and Ethereum rallies closer to 5%.
In Asia overnight, markets were mixed. Japan, China, and South Korea all closed out the week higher and with solid gains for the week, but Hong Kong and India were both lower. The biggest economic datapoints of the session were PMI readings in China as the Manufacturing index slid further into contraction territory while the Services component barely stayed out of contraction (50.1).
In Europe, there’s another negative bias with the STOXX 600 down 0.4% as an index of inflation expectations showed a modest uptick from 2.0% to 2.1% for 2025. It wasn’t all bad news, though, as 2025 GDP growth forecasts also showed a modest uptick from 1.1% to a still anemic 1.2%. The higher inflation expectations were also accompanied by an uptick in headline CPI to 0.2% m/m from September’s rate of 0.1%.
Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) rounded out the group of mega-caps reporting this week with earnings releases after the bell Thursday. Shares of Apple (AAPL) are poised to gap up over 2% at the open, but the real standout is Amazon.com (AMZN). While investors worried that the company’s layoff announcement earlier in the week was a precursor to a weak report, AMZN eased those fears with strong numbers across the board, and in response, shares spiked more than 10%.
Today is Halloween and the last trading day of October, so can investors expect a trick or a treat? Over the last 50 years, it’s been a bit of a coin flip. As shown in the chart below, the S&P 500’s median performance on the last trading day of October has been a gain of 0.02% with positive returns 54% of the time. In terms of volatility, the median absolute daily change on these days has been 0.50%.
While the last day of October has been relatively uneventful in terms of returns, November typically starts on a more positive note. Over the last 50 years, the S&P 500’s median gain has been 0.35% with gains 70% of the time. And while October is a month known for its volatility, with a median absolute daily change of 0.77%, the first trading day of November has been more volatile than the last day of October.
