Jul 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.
“I want to live my life, not record it.” – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
We hope you had a restful weekend, because the last four days of July and the first trading day of August are going to be jam-packed with earnings and economic data. Among the hundreds of companies reporting earnings this week, Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) will report on Wednesday, followed by Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) on Thursday. Regarding economic data, besides the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday, we’ll also receive the ISM Manufacturing report on the same day, along with the Michigan Sentiment. However, these reports will be followed by Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, ADP, GDP, and PCE on Wednesday, and jobless claims on Thursday. Don’t forget that there’s also an FOMC meeting this week that ends on Wednesday and the August 1st deadline for trade deals on Thursday. We already need a break just thinking about everything on the calendar!
This morning, equity futures are in a modestly positive position leading up to the onslaught of events and following a perfect week for the S&P 500 where it traded higher and at a record close every day last week. European stocks are also higher in the wake of the US–EU trade deal announced yesterday, and the STOXX 600 is up just over 0.5%. In Asia, it was more of a mixed session where Australia traded slightly higher, Japan was down over 1%, while China was fractionally higher.
Outside of equities, treasury yields are slightly higher, crude oil is up over 1%, while natural gas is down 1%. Gold, silver, and copper are basically unchanged to start off the week, but platinum and palladium are both up over 2%. In crypto, Bitcoin is trading just under $119K while the rally in Ethereum continues as it trades just below $3,900.
With all the talk about how market performance has been unbalanced between the mega-caps and everyone else, we wanted to look at performance within the S&P 500 on a YTD basis. At the sector level, most sectors (6) have outperformed the S&P 500 on YTD basis. Yes, Technology is one of the sectors that’s ahead of the S&P 500, but other non-tech sectors like Industrials, Utilities, Financials, and Materials have also outperformed on a YTD basis. On the other side of the performance spectrum, Health Care and Consumer Discretionary are the only two sectors in the red on a YTD basis.
Jul 25, 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.
“When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.” – Walter Payton
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 sitting on modest gains as the S&P 500 looks to close out the week with a 1% gain. The S&P 500 has traded higher every day this week, and the number of record closing highs is starting to pile up with 13 on the year so far. That’s nowhere near last year’s total of over 50, but considering where the market was three months ago, it’s impressive to say the least.
While US equity futures hang onto positive territory, Asian stocks finished in the red even as the Nikkei started off the session at new highs. The reversal stemmed from concerns over a more aggressive BoJ. European stocks are also firmly in negative territory, with the STOXX 600 down about 0.5%. Outside of equities, energy commodities are modestly higher, while metals prices are lower across the board. In crypto, Bitcoin and Ethereum are both lower. It’s also worth pointing out that Bitcoin is now down near $116,000 after hitting a high of $123,000 eleven days ago.
The pace of earnings so far this month has been positive, economic data has been hanging in there, and we’re even starting to get some sense of clarity on tariffs, so you can’t fault investors for being optimistic. Today, we’ll get a bit of a break from the data, though, as the earnings and economic calendars are relatively light, but you never know when the President will drop a tariff-related headline.
While there’s not a lot of economic data today, we wanted to take a moment to look back at yesterday’s initial jobless claims report, which came in weaker than expected and declined on a week-over-week basis for the sixth time in a row. As shown in the chart below, this was just the 11th streak of six or more weekly declines. Of those prior ten streaks, only four were longer, with just one stretching more than seven weeks. That record was the 13-week stretch coming out of the Covid lockdowns. We also included shading to indicate recessions, and you typically don’t see these kinds of streaks leading up to the onset of a recession.
The market has been treading a steady path higher over the last several weeks, and one place the lack of volatility has shown up is in the VIX. This week, it dropped below 16 to its lowest levels since 2/19. That was right at the peak before the tariff-takedown, so it’s only natural to wonder if there’s a sense of complacency setting in.
Jul 24, 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.
“Don’t confuse schooling with education. I didn’t go to Harvard, but the people that work for me did.” – Elon Musk
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 mixed picture for US equities this morning, as Dow futures are poised to open down by about 0.4%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to be higher. Helping to drive the gains in the Nasdaq and S&P 500, shares of Alphabet (GOOGL) are up over 3% after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and sales. To the downside, Tesla (TSLA), another trillion-dollar stock, or at least as of the close yesterday, is down 6% after CEO Elon Musk warned of “a few rough quarters” ahead.
The mixed picture for US stocks follows a positive session in Asia, where the Nikkei rallied over 1.5% while Chinese stocks also finished the session in positive territory as trade deals start to emerge. European equities were also positive on prospects of trade deals ahead of the August 1 deadline. Flash PMI readings for July came in roughly in line with expectations. The ECB also announced its latest policy decision, and as expected, there was no change in rates.
Turning back to the US, another CEO, like Elon Musk, who didn’t go to Harvard, is the current Starbucks (SBUX) CEO and former Chipotle (CMG) CEO Brian Niccol. Since it was announced that the Miami University (Ohio) alum would be leaving Chipotle for Starbucks, the former’s stock has had a rough go, and its four earnings reports since then haven’t been particularly positive either.
After the close yesterday, CMG reported inline EPS on weaker-than-expected revenues. The revenue miss was the fourth straight time it missed top-line expectations, and the stock is on pace to gap down close to 10% at the open this morning. Besides the four straight sales misses, CMG will have now gapped down 5%+ in reaction to three of its last four earnings reports.
Including this morning’s decline, shares of CMG are down over 15% since it was announced that Niccol would be leaving the company. Over that same period, the S&P 500 is up over 18%. All of this also comes after the stock rallied more than 1,000% during Niccol’s tenure as CEO. Whether all of CMG’s problems are a result of Niccol’s departure or he saw the writing on the wall could be up for debate, but his timing was impeccable, further burnishing his reputation. He came into the company just as it was reeling from food safety incidents in 2018, and while he didn’t get out right at the top, he didn’t miss it by much.
The snapshot below from our Trend Analyzer compares CMG to other restaurant stocks in the S&P 500. As of the close yesterday, stocks in CMG’s peer group were all up on the year, but CMG was down well over 10%, and that doesn’t even take into account this morning’s weakness.
Looking at the charts of all six stocks, CMG is also an outlier as no other stock in its group is closer to a 52-week low. SBUX is the second furthest from a 52-week high, so Niccol’s magic doesn’t appear to be coming through just yet.
Speaking of SBUX, the stock has been stuck in a range for the last five years. Just as it was announced nearly a year ago that Niccol would be taking over the company, SBUX was testing the low end of its multi-year range. Since then, the stock has rallied 25%, which is modestly better than the S&P 500, but outside of a brief period earlier this year, the downtrend from its post-COVID high remains intact. Since it was announced that Niccol would be taking over as CEO last August, SBUX has reported weaker-than-expected EPS and revenues in two of the last three quarters, so his move to the CEO seat has yet to show any meaningful impact on results, but the next opportunity will be next Tuesday.
Jul 23, 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.
“Restlessness is a fickle catalyst; it can drive you to achieve or it can coax your demise” – Slash
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
The deals are starting to come in. Last night, President Trump announced a trade deal with Japan, which will set tariffs on imports from the country into the US at 15% (more details in today’s Morning Lineup). Futures are higher in response, with the biggest gains coming in the Dow while Nasdaq futures are just marginally higher.
Asian stocks surged in response to the news, with the Nikkei rising over 3% while other markets in the region saw broad gains. Japanese automakers have been the biggest winners with gains of over 10%. The positive sentiment from the trade deal with Japan has seeped into European trading as the STOXX 600 is up about 1%
Yesterday was a strange day for the market. While the S&P 500 finished the day with a fractional gain of 0.06%, four sectors traded up more than 1% on the day, and nine of eleven sectors finished the day higher. The only two sectors to finish lower on the day were Technology (-1.1%) and Communication Services (-0.3%). As another example, while the S&P 500 was barely up, the equal-weighted index was up over 1%. You don’t see that very often!
Given the strong breadth at the sector level, individual stock breadth was also very positive as the S&P 500’s net advance/decline reading was +314 – the strongest since June 6th! Going back to 1990, it was just the ninth time that the S&P 500 had a daily breadth reading of +300 or more on a day when the S&P 500 finished up by less than 0.5%. Yesterday was also the smallest gain of those nine prior days (and there has never been a day when net breadth was +300 and the S&P 500 finished down on the day).
Checking up on the performance of the S&P 500 market-cap-weighted index versus the performance of the equal weight index, even after yesterday’s improvement in the equal weight index, the cap-weighted index has handily outperformed over the last year. While the performance gap between the two indices is wider now than at any point in the last year, it’s interesting to note that as recently as early May, the equal-weight index was outperforming the cap-weighted index. It just goes to show that trends can be quick to change, especially in the market.
Jul 22, 2025
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