Oct 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.
“‘That didn’t work’ is cool, but ‘that won’t work’ is not a way to go through life.” – John Mayer
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
A triple play from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM)—beating on earnings, revenue, and guidance—is lifting US equity futures, with technology stocks at the forefront. This rally is notably happening despite the President stating yesterday after the close that, “We are in one now,” in reference to a trade war with China. There are also signs that China’s aggressive stance on rare earth exports could be backfiring, as it has started to cause a more unified front between the US and other international partners.
Today was supposed to be a busy one for economic data, but the government shutdown put the kibosh on that, and the only report released was the Philly Fed Manufacturing report, which came in weaker than expected. The pace of earnings, however, remains active, and once again this morning, we’re seeing generally strong results.
Outside of equities, crude oil is fractionally higher but still well below $59 per barrel, the 10-year yield is trying to hang on to 4%, gold and other precious metals are rallying (what else is new), and crypto is also rallying after what has been a rough week for the sector.
It’s been a somewhat rocky week for US equities, although by the standards of October, it’s hard to get too worked up. After trading at an all-time high intraday last Thursday, the S&P 500 closed modestly lower on the day. That modest decline was followed on Friday by a sharp 2.7% decline in the S&P 500 as trade issues with China and concerns over corporate credit in the auto sector nudged investors to take some risk off the table. This week started on a positive note as the S&P 500 erased half of the losses from last Thursday and Friday, but intraday trading has been more volatile, and there’s been more of a tendency to sell rips than buy dips.
The skittishness showed up in investor sentiment this week as the weekly American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) survey showed that bullish sentiment dropped from 45.9% to 33.7% for the lowest reading in a month. The decline in bullish sentiment comes even as the S&P 500 closed within 2% of a record high yesterday. While bullish sentiment was routinely near 50% throughout 2024 as the market rallied, in the bounce off the April lows, investors have been much less willing to hop on the bandwagon.
Along with the modest weakness in US stocks over the past five trading sessions, global equities have also been under pressure. Of the US-traded ETFs tracking the stock markets of the seven G7 countries, all but France (EWQ) traded lower in the five trading days ended yesterday, and the US was stuck right in the middle with a decline of 1.2%. The biggest laggards have been Italy (EWI) and Germany (EWG) as their the only two below their 50-DMAs. Markets have certainly been on a tear this year as six of the seven ETFs listed have rallied at least 20% this year, but in the short run, they’ve mostly worked off their overbought conditions as France is the only country still in extended territory.
Oct 15, 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.
“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau” – Irving Fisher, 10/15/29
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 sell-off into the close yesterday, equity futures are rallying this morning on the back of strong rallies in Asia and Europe. S&P 500 futures are up 75 bps while the Nasdaq is up 1%. In the commodities space, crude oil is little changed, while gold is up another 1% and now over $4,200 per ounce.
While there’s little economic data on the calendar again today, it’s been another strong showing for earnings this morning as eight of the ten companies reporting exceeded bottom-line results, while Progressive (PGR) was the only miss. Revenues have also been strong as the pace of beats has been nearly as strong.
We’ve all said things that we wish we could take back, and we can all come up with countless examples involving a boss, friend, family member, spouse, and/or our kids. You don’t need us to give you examples. In a less personal sense, it’s always funny to look back at past comments from public figures and, with the benefit of hindsight, see how foolish or wrong their comments turned out to be.
The stock market has seen a lot, but one of the most famously disastrous comments was made exactly 96 years ago today when an economist named Irving Fisher spoke at an industry trade dinner in New York. Fisher was one of the most well-known economists of his generation. Joseph Schumpeter called him the “greatest economist the United States has ever produced”. His theories on the velocity of money helped him forecast swings in inflation and the economy, and he wrote a weekly economic column that was read by millions of readers. He spoke to audiences all over the country, and they hung on every word.
The most famous or infamous of those speeches came on 10/15/29 when he made the quote above, and then followed it up later on in an informal Q&A session, saying he expected “to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today, within a few months.”
When Fisher made those comments, the equity market was coming off a solid year of gains. While the Dow was down about 8% from its September high, it was still up over 40% in the prior year. And that was coming off what had been one of the strongest four-year stretches in stock market history, where the index had tripled! Given the path equities had taken, Fisher’s comments were hardly out of consensus. At that point, gains were expected.
While investors were feeling entitled to gains, what the market giveth, it can quickly take away. The day after his comments, the Dow fell by over 3%. Then, after a one-day bounce of 1.7%, it had back-to-back declines of over 2.5%. Then, it kept falling from there. On 10/23, the DJIA fell 6.3%. On 10/24, it fell another 2%. Then, on 10/28, the crash came as the Dow fell 13% followed by another decline of 12% the day after that. Just after Labor Day of 1929, the Dow was at record highs, basking in the heat of the roaring 20s. Now, less than two months later, it was down 40%.
Looking at a ten-year window of the Dow from 1925 to 1935, from its peak in 1929 to the low three years later, it lost nearly 90% of its value. The economy sank into the Great Depression, erasing generations of wealth and causing permanent damage to the fabric of the US economy. Maybe not creative, but destruction nonetheless!
The S&P 500 closed at record highs just a week ago today, so no matter how steep the selloffs have been over time, the market has always come back. Sometimes, though, the comebacks take longer than others. After the peak this February, it only took a few months. After the 2022 peak, though, it took two years for the market to make new highs. Coming out of the Financial Crisis, it took close to five years. After the dotcom bust, it took seven years. The takeaway is that it’s all about time horizons. If you’re invested in the stock market, long periods of drawdowns shouldn’t necessarily be a baseline expectation, but they should be part of the plan. Coming out of the 1929 peak and Fisher’s comments from October 1929, those levels on the Dow wouldn’t be seen again for another 25 years! That type of drought should certainly not be a base case for investors, but it should provide some balance to a growing feeling of entitlement in some areas of the market where double-digit daily percentage gains are starting to feel like an Inalienable right.
Oct 14, 2025
This content is for members only
Oct 14, 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.
“Pessimism never won any battle.” – Dwight Eisenhower
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 the market rallies on a bank holiday, does it count? Judging by the declines in US equity futures and cryptocurrency markets, it appears not. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures point to a drop of about 1% at the open, which would erase about two-thirds of Monday’s gain. Declines in the crypto space look even scarier as Bitcoin drops 4% and Ethereum traded back down below $4,000 with a decline of nearly 7%.
The catalyst for this morning’s weakness stems from continued trade tensions with China as both countries start charging additional fees on each other’s cargo ships, and China imposed further sanctions on certain US shipping subsidiaries. The weakness also comes even after a strong batch of earnings reports on what is really the first busy day of earnings for the Q3 reporting period.
As shown in the table below, of the seven major reports this morning, all seven reported better-than-expected EPS and sales, but only three are trading higher in reaction to the reports. Domino’s (DPZ), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) are all up 1% or more, while Goldman (GS) leads the declines with a drop of nearly 2%.
The S&P 500 had a good day to start the week yesterday, but breadth wasn’t exactly strong, especially for a day when the index rallied over 1.5%. As shown in the chart below, only four sectors saw a net of 50% or more of their components finish higher on the day. Energy and Technology led the charge with 90%+ of each sector’s components finishing higher on the day, while Consumer Discretionary (+80%) and Materials (+62%) were the only two other sectors where net breadth was stronger than the S&P 500. On the other end of the spectrum, Consumer Staples (-22%) and Utilities (-10%) both had negative net breadth, while Health Care also was relatively weak at just 17% net positive.
What was unique about yesterday’s trading, though, was that it was an extreme ‘inside’ day for the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY). An inside day in the market occurs when the intraday high for a day stalls out short of the prior session’s high, while the intraday low is higher. Not only did we have an inside day yesterday, but the intraday high was 1.3% below Friday’s high, while the intraday low was 1.1% above Friday’s low. We finished the day stuck right in the middle of the prior day’s range!
Inside days in SPY where both the intraday high and intraday low were more than 1% below or above the prior session’s extreme have been extremely rare. Since 1993, there have only been 11 other occurrences, with the most recent occurring back in April, right after the tariff-tantrum low. But before that, you have to go back to December 2020, and then before that, August 2015.
Oct 13, 2025
Precious metals prices have been going crazy lately. Gold’s move above $4,000/ounce last week garnered the most headlines, but its gains look pedestrian compared to other metals like silver and platinum. We’ll start with gold, though. Over the last six months, gold rallied 26.9%, and as of last week, it was up over 35% in six months. The last time it rallied that much in half a year was back in 2008.
There’s nothing wrong with a gain of 26.9% in six months, but silver is still up by more than twice as much and was up over 65% in the trailing six months just last week. Historically, silver has been more volatile than gold, so its current run is ‘only’ the strongest since 2020.
As if you think silver’s run has been impressive, platinum says “hold my beer.” Through today, platinum was up over 80% in the last six months, and as of last week, it was up over 86%. In futures pricing dating back to 1986, platinum has never had a larger six-month gain.
While all three metals have had widely varying rallies in the last six months, relative to their respective histories, their moves have ranked above the 95th percentile versus all other six-month periods. The charts below show the performance of gold, silver, and platinum since 1986, which is when we have pricing data for all three commodities. In each chart, we have also included red dots to show the times when all three metals simultaneously had six-month rallies that ranked in the 95th percentile or above of their respective histories.
The only other periods when all three metals simultaneously had six-month rallies that ranked in the 95th percentile or above were in May 2006, February to March of 2008, May to early June of 2009. and September 2020. Within the equity market, we often see overbought markets becoming more overbought, but in the case of these three metals, it wasn’t uncommon to see at least a short-term pullback following prior moves like the one we’ve seen recently.
