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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.
“There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.” – Edouard Manet
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
April may only have 30 days, but this one feels like it was the longest month in a long time. Liberation Day was on April 2nd, but it seems like months ago. Maybe that’s because we have seen market moves that usually take months to play out compressed into just a matter of weeks. Thankfully, things have started to calm down, but you can never be sure if we’re past the worst or just in the eye of the storm.
Regarding economic data, the month is closing out with a whirlwind, and it started with the ADP Payrolls report which came in weaker than expected. While economists were expecting growth of 125K payrolls, the actual reading came in at just under half that at 62K. ADP was just the first of many, though, with the first read on GDP, the GDP Price Index, Core PCE, Personal Consumption and the Employment Cost Index all coming out at 8:30. GDP showed a slightly larger than expected decline (-0.3% vs -0.2%) and Personal Consumption was higher than expected, but the inflation readings came in much higher than expected which has pushed equity futures sharply lower and yields sharply higher.
As if these reports weren’t enough, we still have Personal Income and Personal Spending at 10 AM. That’s just economic news, too. Don’t forget that we’re in the thick of earnings season, and after the close today, the focus will be on Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Did anything happen this month? Heading into the last trading day of the month, the S&P 500 is down less than 1%, five sectors are up, and six are down. At the surface, it sounds like an uneventful month, but it was anything but. The scatter chart below shows the performance of the S&P 500 and sectors on a month to day basis through April 8th and then from the close on April 8th through yesterday’s close. It has been a wild ride!
Along with the S&P 500, six sectors fell more than 10% through 4/8 and then rallied more than 10% since. Through 4/8, all eleven sectors fell at least 6.2% (Consumer Staples) and as much as 17.9% (Energy), and since then, every sector has rallied at least 4.6% (Health Care) and as much as 16.4% (Technology). In most cases, the biggest losers in the first eight days of the month have been the biggest winners since although Energy has been the exception, as its bounce was meager relative to the size of its plunge.
After all the noise, Technology is leading the way higher with a gain of 1.2%, followed by Communication Services (0.9%), Consumer Discretionary (0.8%), and Utilities (0.5%). On the downside, there are still plenty of losers, and the magnitude of the losses is much larger than the winners. Energy has been the big outlier with a decline of over 10% while Health Care (-4.7%), Materials (-2.7%), and Financials (-2.4%) are all still down over 2%. It hasn’t been a great month for the market, but it could have been a LOT worse.
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.
“If you’ve made your own hell, then only you have the power to escape it.” – Willie Nelson
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
April was on track for being one of the most volatile months on record, but it’s closing out on a quiet note. While yesterday’s move in the S&P 500 was the smallest since the S&P 500 peak, equity futures are even quieter this morning as they indicate an unchanged market at the open. It’s been a busy overnight session for earnings, but the big reports from Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Meta (META) are still to come.
The big economic reports of the morning will be Consumer Confidence and JOLTS. The former is an April number, so it will give us a good idea of how the month’s craziness has impacted sentiment.
Here’s something you don’t see often. The S&P 500 Technology sector ETF (XLK) is up nearly 11% over the last five trading days, but it’s still down over 10% YTD and more than 1% below its 50-day moving average (DMA). Like Tech, the Consumer Discretionary sector ETF (XLY) has rallied more than 9% and is still down nearly 12% YTD and more than 1% below its 50-DMA.
More broadly, it’s been a phenomenal five trading days for US equities- except for the Consumer Staples sector (XLP). Don’t shed too many tears for Consumer Staples, though, it’s still up 2.5% YTD. For the most part, the sector has done exactly what it’s supposed to do: underperform when the market rallies and outperform when the market declines. Putting it all together, while five sectors have rallied over 5% in the last week, and all but one have essentially rallied at least 3%, ten out of eleven sectors remain below their 50-day moving average, and all eleven sectors remain in neutral territory.
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.
“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.” – Harper Lee
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 five straight weeks where the market has essentially gapped down 1% or more at the open to start a week, futures are surprisingly muted this morning, with the S&P 500 indicated to open fractionally lower (~0.10%). The subdued tone comes as there has been no change to the trade situation between the US and any of its trading partners. You can say no news is good news, but the longer we go with no news, the more anxious the market will become. In Europe, stocks are starting the week positively with the STOXX 600 up nearly half a percent, Germany and France lead the way higher, while Spain and Italy lag.
This will be an important week for economic and earnings-related news outside of trade-related news. On the earnings front, a third of the companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled to report, including Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Meta (META). The pace of economic data will be just as busy. While Dallas Fed is the only report on the calendar today, on Tuesday, we’ll get Consumer Confidence for April and JOLTS for March. On Wednesday, we’ll get ADP for April and the first read of Q1 GDP, followed by jobless claims and April Manufacturing PMI for April on Thursday. Then Friday, the week closes out with the April Employment report. After all these reports, we should have a much better read on how all the uncertainty over trade has impacted the economy.
After rallying as much as 12.4% month to date and rising above $3,500 per ounce last week, gold prices have significantly pulled back in the last four trading days. This morning, the price is little changed, trading right around $3,300 per ounce. While still up nearly 6% for the month, the magnitude of the gain has been more than cut in half.
When gold last hit a 52-week high on Tuesday (4/22), it pulled back sharply lower intraday and finished the day more than 2.5% from its intraday high. Since the mid-1970s, it was just the 33rd time that its price hit a 52-week high but finished the day down more than 2.5% from the intraday high. The chart below shows every prior occurrence with a red dot. While these types of reversals were evident at prior peaks, they were also scattered throughout longer-term uptrends. The most recent occurrence before last week was almost exactly a year earlier in mid-April of last year, and we all know what gold has done since then. In other words, it’s hard to put too much significance into any one day’s reversal.
Looking at gold’s performance relative to other commodities, it certainly has been doing its own thing lately. Year to date, both gold ETFs are up over 25% and finished the week more than 8% above their 50-day moving average after pulling back from extreme overbought levels. Most other commodity-related ETFs are either down or up by mid-single-digit percentages. Gold has its reasons to rally relative to other commodities, but as it rallied above $3,500 last week, its price became extremely extended.
