Apr 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.
“In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of a story.” – Walter Cronkite
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Trade headlines are weighing on market sentiment this morning as semiconductor stocks are down about 4% in aggregate on the heels of a 6%+ decline in Nvicia (NVDA) due to US government restrictions on the sale of Hopper chips to China. While not having as large of an impact as they have in the past, it’s another indication that uncertainty surrounding trade isn’t going anywhere.
In economic news, Retail Sales were inline with expectations at the headline level but better than expected after stripping out Autos, and February’s readings were also revised higher. On a net basis, this was a strong report as the divergence between hard and soft data continues.
The S&P 500 bounced over 8% from its closing low last week and more than 11% from its intraday low. Despite the rebound, on Monday, the index experienced what technical analysts call a ‘death cross’ where its 50-day moving average (DMA) crossed below its 200-DMA as both have downward slopes.
This was the S&P 500’s first death cross in more than three years (March 2022) and the 25th in its history, dating back to 1928. It’s also the eighth such pattern in the post-financial crisis period, and as shown in the chart below, it followed a nearly 20-year period where there was only one occurrence.
Apr 15, 2025
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Apr 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.
“Concentration is that ability to not think about anything.” – Pete Rose
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 you were hoping that April’s volatility would calm down this week, you will have to wait at least another day. However, bulls will find today’s volatility to be much more tolerable since it’s to the upside. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to open over 1% higher while treasury yields are lower, crude oil is higher, and gold is marginally lower. It’s a much more ‘normal’ picture this morning than many days we saw last week. Friday evening’s news that smartphones, semis, and other electronics would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs has tech stocks flying, and nowhere is the strength more notable than in Apple (AAPL), which is trading up over 5% in the premarket.
Talk about a roller coaster. After peaking just after Christmas, shares of AAPL lost more than a third of their value in less than four months and have since recovered more than 23% when you consider this morning’s gains. Volatility of this magnitude is notable when it occurs in just about any stock, but this is the largest company in the world we’re talking about. Are we really to believe that the company’s value has fluctuated by this magnitude in such a short period?
With today’s 5% rally in the pre-market, AAPL is on track for its second straight daily gain of over 4%. Since the iPod was launched in 2001, the only other time the stock had a higher number of consecutive 4%+ daily moves was in October 2008 when there were three in a row. The current streak of back-to-back gains, if it holds, would be the first such streak since coming out of the Financial Crisis, but before that, they were common as the market cap was much lower.
Apr 11, 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.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
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 see yesterday’s segment from CNN’s OutFront, click on the image below.
Looking at futures now, we may see a positive end to the week, but if you look in a few minutes, the picture could look entirely different. Banks have kicked off the earnings season positively with all of the major banks that have reported exceeding EPS forecasts. In response to the reports, most of the stocks are modestly higher, but with gains of less than 1%, the moves are hardly convincing.
The only economic reports on the calendar are PPI and Michigan Sentiment. Just like yesterday’s CPI, PPI cam in weaker than expected with both the headline and core readings showing negative readings on a m/m basis. Given the brushing off yesterday’s CPI, it doesn’t look like the market will pay much attention to that report. Regarding the UMIch report, we would expect to see another round of extremely divergent views based on political leanings, but an overall weaker trend.
If there are years where nothing happens, the last few weeks have been a period where years happened, and this weekend can’t come soon enough. As the President has torn up the playbook for global trade, financial markets have responded with some of the most violent moves in years. The most extreme aspects of the volatility started last Wednesday night, but this week has seen just as notable moves across the financial spectrum.
During periods of the most heightened volatility and uncertainty in markets, three areas where investors often flock are gold, the dollar, and US Treasuries. This week, only one of those safe havens caught a bid.
After pulling back to its 50-day moving average earlier this week, gold has bounced in the last three days. It’s still early, but if today’s gains hold, it will be gold’s third straight day of rallying more than 1.5% and the longest streak of gains in the magnitude or more since 2011/ During the last three days, gold is up over 8% and on pace for its largest three-day move since March 2020. Before that, you would have to go back to the financial crisis to find the last time it rallied as much in three days.
Apr 10, 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.
“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class and be humble.” – John Madden
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 one of the largest one-day gains in market history yesterday, we’re giving back some of the gains this morning as the S&P 500 is indicated to open 1.75% lower while the Nasdaq is down 2%. European stocks are surging with the STOXX 600 up over 5%, and in Asia overnight, the Nikkei was up over 9% while China saw more muted gains.
We just got March CPI, and the headline and core readings were weaker than expected. Headline CPI dropped 0.1% while core CPI increased just 0.1% versus expectations for an increase of 0.3%. In recent history, this report would send futures sharply higher, but given the looming tariffs, the markets may view it as somewhat stale. Jobless claims were right in line with expectations, ending a streak of five better-than-expected reports. Given concerns over the economy, initial claims have been contained.
As big as yesterday’s move was in the S&P 500, it’s crazy to think that it is still down over 3.5% since last Wednesday’s close and well below both its 50 and 200-day moving averages.
In terms of where various sectors are trading relative to their short-term trading ranges, nine out of eleven are still at oversold levels (1+ standard deviations below their 50-DMAs), and that accounts for yesterday’s big gains!
In yesterday’s session, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) traded in an incredible intraday range of 10.8%. Even crazier is that on Tuesday, the intraday range was 7.3% while Monday’s range was 8.6%! Since SPY was launched in 1993, the last three days represent just the sixth time that the ETF has had an intraday range of more than 5% for three or more days. The only periods with as many or more consecutive intraday ranges of at least 5% were in the fourth quarter of 2008 (four separate occurrences) and March 2020. These levels of sustained volatility are truly historic.
