Oct 30, 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.
“And so we always say we’re not on a preset path, and we really mean that.” – Jerome Powell
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 lower this morning with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both indicated to open moderately lower from yesterday’s close as investors continue to digest Powell’s hawkish comments from yesterday. The weakness also follows a slew of earnings reports, including the behemoths of Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT). The reaction from the market to those three has been somewhat of a draw, with GOOGL up sharply, META down sharply, and MSFT only modestly lower. The fun continues tonight with just as many reports, including Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) after the bell. After that, we’ll be through the peak of earnings season, at least in terms of market cap, so Congress better get the government open again, so there can be some economic data to focus on!
In Asia, there was no shortage of headlines with Presidents Trump and Xi meeting in South Korea. While the two leaders reached a 1-year détente on trade with Trump reducing fentanyl tariffs to 10%, China agreed to keep the flow of rare earth materials going and announced plans to purchase soybeans, energy, and other farm products. President Trump also said he plans to visit China in April. Despite all the headlines, though, it was a quiet session as most indices in the region were modestly lower. Of course, South Korea bucked the trend, though, with a gain of 0.1% as the KOSPI remains seemingly unstoppable.
In European trading this morning, stocks are decidedly lower. The STOXX 600 is down 0.5% as Spain leads the way lower with a decline of just over 1%, while Germany outperforms, even as it faces a decline of 0.1%. GDP growth for the region was above expectations (0.2% vs 0.1%), as growth in France led the region. The underperformance from Spain, however, stems from a higher-than-expected inflation print as y/y CPI increased 3.1% versus expectations for an increase of 2.9%.
As US equities continue to march to new record highs, individual investor sentiment got a boost this week as the weekly survey from AAII showed that bullish sentiment increased from 36.9% to 44.0% for the highest reading in three weeks. While you would expect bullish sentiment to rise, current levels of optimism are nowhere near where they were at this point last year.
Perhaps one reason investors are less optimistic is due to the government shutdown, which has lasted nearly a month. With the S&P 500 up over 3% this month, it doesn’t appear as though the market is all that concerned, but looking at sector performance, there have been some shifts this month. The chart below compares sector performance so far in October (period covering the shutdown) on the x-axis to sector performance in the first nine months of the year (y-axis).
While sectors like Technology, Utilities, Energy, Real Estate, Materials, and Consumer Staples have stayed relatively close to the trendline, indicating that their YTD trend has remained largely intact this month, sectors like Communication Services, Health Care, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, and Financials have seen their performance trend this month deviate significantly from their YTD trend in the first nine months of the year. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the shutdown has had a direct impact on these sectors’ performance, but their YTD trends have shifted.
Oct 29, 2025
We’ve highlighted the weak breadth in the market for clients for the last several days now, and this afternoon, we wanted to provide another example to add to the growing list. Let’s start with the straight-up performance of the market-cap-weighted S&P 500 (SPY) versus its equal-weighted counterpart (RSP). For the first few months of the year, both indices performed right in line with each other. On a YTD basis, the two had equal returns as late as mid-June, but the equal-weighted index took the summer off and appears like it’s still out on vacation. As the chart below illustrates, the gap between the two indices has been widening for the last four months, with a real acceleration in the last few trading days as SPY has continued higher while RSP has traded lower.
The performance gap has been so wide in the last week, that RSP has underperformed SPY by more than three percentage points. It hasn’t been just a one or two-day move either; through this afternoon, SPY is on pace to outperform RSP by at least 0.5% for the fourth straight day. Since RSP’s launch in 2003, there has never been a streak that long.
While the performance gap between SPY and RSP has been extremely wide, it hasn’t yet reached a historical extreme. The keyword here is “yet.” Over the last six months, SPY has outperformed RSP by just over 11 percentage points. This marks the fourth time that SPY has outperformed RSP by more than 10 percentage points over a six-month span. The three prior periods of massive SPY outperformance all occurred post-COVID, and the only other times the spread got wider were briefly in August 2023 and July 2024.
Eventually this outperformance of SPY over RSP will reverse; it’s just a matter of when. It will be interesting to see how the mega-caps trade in reaction to earnings reports, which for many will hit the tape tonight and tomorrow. Will earnings be a “sell-the-news” catalyst for the mega-caps? We’ll find out shortly.
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Oct 29, 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.
“People don’t care about what you say, they care about what you build.” – Mark Zuckerberg
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 a day that doesn’t begin with “S” which these days means that stocks are poised to open higher with the S&P 500 indicated to open up 0.25% while the Nasdaq looks likely to gap up 0.43% at the open ahead of what will be a big day for earnings as three of the megacaps – Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) – will report after the close. Also, don’t forget today’s Fed decision at 2 PM Eastern.
With equities indicated higher, treasury yields have also moved higher, but at 3.99%, the 10-year yield remains below 4%. Crude oil prices are slightly higher, while gold has rallied more than 1%, moving back above $4,000 per ounce.
In Asia, most indices were higher as positive headlines emerged from the President’s trip to the region. Consumer sentiment in Japan came in higher than expected, but inflation in Australia came in unexpectedly high. All eyes in the region will now shift to tomorrow’s meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi after headlines this morning suggest that China has already placed soybean orders with American farmers, while the US is likely to reduce fentanyl-related tariffs. The positive tone in Asia made its way over to Europe as the STOXX 600 rallies 0.3% with the UK and Spain up more than twice that.
With Asian stocks mostly higher overnight, South Korea, after announcing a trade deal with the US, saw the KOSPI rally 1.8% to another in what has been a string of recent record highs. For the year, the KOSPI has now rallied more than 70%, which pretty much outdoes every other major stock market around the world on a YTD basis. Not only has the KOSPI rallied, but with its currency rallying against the dollar this year, from the perspective of a US investor, the gains are even greater at 76.1%. Even in euro terms, South Korean stocks are up over 57%!
The gains in the KOSPI have also been consistent. Through last night’s close, the index traded higher on nearly 62% of all trading days, putting it on pace for the highest percentage of up days in a year on record. The only two other years when up days exceeded 60% were 1987 (61.0%) and 2020 (61.3%).
In the US, where we’ve seen strength this year has been at the opening bell. Just like today, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has gapped up at the open on 61.7% of all trading days. Since its inception, the only years with a higher percentage of positive gaps were 1999 (63.5%) and 1997 (62.1%), while 1996, 2021, and 2024 were the only three other years when SPY gapped up at the open more than 60% of the time.
Much of the strength in SPY at the opening bell has come more recently since the tariff-tantrum. Over the last 50 trading days, SPY has gapped up at the open on more than two-thirds of trading days, and back in August, that percentage spiked up to a record high of 80%, exceeding the twin peaks of 76% from February 1997 and March 1999. What makes the current spike even more unique is the fact that it immediately followed a period of extreme selling at the open. Just as recently as this Spring, SPY gapped down on nearly two-thirds of all trading days, which was the lowest reading since December 2006.
Oct 28, 2025
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Oct 28, 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.
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.” – John Locke
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 positive start to the week, stocks are taking a breather this morning as S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are indicated just fractionally higher, while a 5%+ rally in UnitedHealth (UNH) in reaction to earnings has the Dow indicated to open up closer to 0.40%. The muted gains in the US follow what has mostly been a modestly negative session in Asia and Europe.
The pace of earnings has really picked up, and tomorrow will be the biggest day of earnings season in terms of market cap with Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) all on deck to report. Besides earnings reports, this morning we’ll also get the October Richmond Fed report and Consumer Confidence at 10 AM Eastern.
It’s been quite a week for stocks as the major US equity indices have broken out to new record highs, and S&P 500 7000 has entered the conversation. As noted in yesterday’s Chart of the Day, though, breadth has been somewhat weak. Another example of that weak breadth is in overall sector performance. As shown in the snapshot below showing sector ETF performance, over the five trading days ended yesterday, the only one outperforming SPY is Technology (XLK) with a gain of 3.75%. Consumer Discretionary (XLY) is close (2.03% vs 2.10%) but not good enough. Besides XLY, the only two other sector ETFs whose performance is within even one percentage point of the S&P 500 are Energy (XLE) and Industrials (XLI).
At the other end of the spectrum, the sectors underperforming are mostly what you would expect to see in an environment where the market rallies. Consumer Staples (XLP) is the lone decliner with a loss of 0.55% while Materials (XLB) and Utilities (XLU) have only seen modest gains of 0.10% or less. While XLU has underperformed over the last week, it remains one of just three sectors with a gain of more than 20% on the year.
Shifting focus, with the government shutdown now set to enter its fifth week at midnight tonight, we wanted to look at how sectors have performed so far this month to see what, if any, impact it has had on performance. With a gain of 2.8% MTD through yesterday, it’s hard to say that the market has been impacted. Leading the way higher, Technology, Health Care, and Utilities have all seen gains of 5% or more, while Communication Services is the only other sector that has outperformed the S&P 500. To the downside, Materials (-1.69%), Financials (-1.13%), and Energy (-0.89%) are the only sectors to have experienced declines. It’s also worth noting that Consumer Discretionary has managed a gain of just over 1%, so even with so many Americans relying on the Federal government for either pay or benefits, and those paychecks and benefits poised to dry up, at least temporarily, it appears that the sector has held up.
There’s always a but, though. If we look at sector performance on an unweighted basis, performance for the month looks much different. For the market as a whole, while the cap-weighted index is up 2.79%, on an unweighted basis, the gain is less than half that at 1.11%. One of the most notable shifts in performance, though, is in the Consumer Discretionary sector where the 1.11% gain on a market cap weighted basis shifts to a decline of 0.19% on an unweighted basis as MTD gains in the sector’s trillion dollar stocks (Amazon.com and Tesla) don’t carry nearly the weight on an equal-weighted as they do on a cap weighted basis.
