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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.
“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” – David McCullough
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Investors are being eased back into the market this morning, with futures showing modest losses after a more significant decline overnight. The market may be open, but with no economic or earnings reports on the calendar, things are relatively quiet to kick off the new week. That’s generally the case for the rest of the week too, with very few reports on the calendar in the next four trading days. That will leave plenty of time for investors to focus on trade, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says to expect several announcements in the next two days, and for those that don’t make a deal by August 1st, tariffs on their exports to the US will go back to the levels announced on April 2nd
The long holiday weekend is over, and it’s time for investors to get back to business as Q2 earnings season is right around the corner, and the tariff situation is likely to become more concrete. One thing bulls have going for them heading into this week is the seasonal calendar. Since WWII, the S&P 500’s median performance during the week after the July 4th holiday week has been a gain of 0.47% with positive returns 57.5% of the time. More recently, performance has been even stronger with a median gain of 1.14% and positive returns 70% of the time.
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“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” – Declaration of Independence
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Happy Fourth! In an outcome that most would not have predicted over the last several days and weeks, the House is likely to pass the Reconciliation Bill ahead of the July 4th holiday. Just yesterday, the odds of passage by that date were less than 50%, but the bill cleared a procedural vote overnight, and Polymarket now has the odds of passage at 91%. Whatever side of the aisle you position yourself, the ability of Speaker Johnson to pass legislation over the last six months with such a slim majority has been impressive.
That’s the biggest news event of the market day so far, but there’s a jam-packed economic calendar this morning that includes Jobless Claims, Non-Farm Payrolls, Factory Orders, and ISM Services. Besides being a busy day for data, it’s also a short session as the equity market closes at 1 PM ahead of the holiday, and the bond market closes at 2 PM.
Despite the big political news and the busy day of data ahead, futures are eerily quiet as the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow are all indicated to open less than 0.10% higher. Crude oil is marginally lower, gold is unchanged, and treasury yields are lower. That last point is notable; for all the talk about how the Reconciliation Bill will be a budget buster and blow out the deficit, the 10-year yield has been going down as passage of the bill has become more likely. From a longer-term perspective, too, the 10-year yield is the same now as it was on Election Day.
Heading into the July 4th holiday, the fireworks of the second quarter have put eight of the eleven sectors into overbought territory. Over the last five sessions, every sector has traded higher, and Utilities (XLU) is the only sector ETF with a gain of less than 1%. Leading the way to the upside, Materials (XLB) have rallied over 5% pushing the sector into extreme overbought territory and a gain of nearly 9% YTD.
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“Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do.” – Amelia Earhart
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 from Closing Bell Overtime, click the image below.
US futures are little changed this morning as the S&P 500 looks to erase Tuesday’s modest losses. The major issue of the day will continue to be the Big Beautiful Bill and whether the House can pass the Senate’s version. A vote on that will be held either today or tomorrow, depending on when members can return to DC for the vote. Even when representatives return, passing the bill will be no easy task, as the slim Republican majority means Speaker Johnson can only afford a few no votes from his caucus. Betting against Johnson, however, hasn’t been a profitable strategy so far this year.
Overnight in Asia, equities were mixed with Japan falling just over 0.5% while Hong Kong rallied by a similar magnitude. The weakness in Japan stemmed from comments by President Trump, who expressed doubt that a deal with Japan would be reached by July 9th, in which case he could increase tariffs on the country to 35%.
The tone in Europe has been much more positive, with the STOXX 600 trading up about 0.5%. Unemployment in Europe ticked up to 6.3% which was higher than the 6.2% forecast, while Italy saw its jobless rate surge from 6.1% to 6.5%. That weakness should help to keep the ECB biased towards more easing.
In the US this morning, employment is also at the fore following this morning’s release of the ADP Employment report, which showed a 35K decline in payrolls in June, which was the first decline in over two years and well below the consensus forecast for growth of 95K. The ADP report has been consistently weaker than government data in recent months, and we’ll get the June Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow morning, but for now, this weakness lends to concerns over economic growth against a backdrop of uncertainty related to trade. With this report, you can practically hear President Trump’s fingers tapping out the next Truth Social post to Fed Chair Powell.
As we highlighted in the Chart of the Day, yesterday’s trading was all about rotation, where the best-performing areas of the market in Q2 lagged while the Q2 laggards outperformed. Another example of the rotation was in sector performance. The scatter chart below compares the performance of S&P 500 sectors during Q1 (x-axis) versus on 7/1 (y-axis). Here, you can see the rotation from the Q2 haves to the Q2 have-nots. The five worst-performing sectors of Q2 were the five best performers yesterday. Technology and Communication Services, easily the best-performing sectors of Q2, were the only two sectors to trade lower yesterday. As Andy Warhol once said, everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, and yesterday it was the Q2 laggards’ chance to grab the spotlight.
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“Every story needs an element of suspense – or it’s lousy.” – Sydney Pollack
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 new month, a new quarter, and a new half this morning, and while investors would certainly be happy with a repeat in terms of the returns during the half, they would prefer to do without the volatility. This morning, futures are drifting moderately lower after two straight days of record closing highs. The quarter is also getting off to an active start with the June ISM Manufacturing report at 10:00 AM, along with the May reports on Construction Spending and JOLTS.
While these reports will likely impact the market upon their release, so far this morning, there aren’t many headlines driving the market in either direction. While futures are lower, the magnitude of the losses has been pretty modest so far. In Washington, the Senate is still trying to pass the GOP Reconciliation Bill. That ongoing process has led to a resurgence in the war of words between Elon Musk, who hates the bill and is threatening to primary conservatives who vote for it, and President Trump, who responded with comments that Elon owes all his success to government subsidies and said DOGE should look into them.
Besides another flare-up in the spat between President Trump and Elon Musk, Tesla (TSLA) has been in the news this week as the company marked the 15th anniversary of its IPO on Sunday. Based on its performance this year, the stock hasn’t exactly been celebrating the milestone. While well off its April lows, it’s still down over 20% on the year, and this morning, it’s on pace to open down by another 5% after the President ‘truthed’ that DOGE should look into all the subsidies that Musk’s various companies receive. If these pre-market losses hold, it will also put the stock below both its 50 and 200-day moving averages, just as it experiences a ‘golden cross’ where the 50-day moving average (DMA) crosses up through the 200-DMA as both are rising.
Even with its 20%+ decline YTD, TSLA still ranks as the third best performing stock out of the current Russell 1000 members with an eye-popping gain of 19,849% since its IPO. The only two stocks that have performed better are Nvidia (NVDA), which has tripled TSLA’s gain, and Axon Enterprise (AXON), which is up just under 22,000%. Trailing behind TSLA, Broadcom (AVGO), and Texas Pacific Land (TPL) round out the top five stocks that have all rallied more than 10,000%. That’s a 100-bagger!
While the last 15 years have been great for TSLA, the road for traditional auto OEMs hasn’t been much bumpier. While the S&P 500 has rallied nearly sevenfold over the last 15 years, Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) have essentially gone nowhere.
