Jun 10, 2025
Tomorrow’s report on May CPI will help to shape the inflation narrative for the rest of the summer. A stronger-than-expected report will be quickly seized upon by the anti-tariff contingency, and if there’s a weaker-than-expected report, you can bet that President Trump will be on Truth Social singing the praises of tariffs. Earlier today, we tweeted that the Fed’s CPI Nowcast was predicting headline CPI to rise 0.13% compared to a Wall Street consensus forecast of 0.2%, so if the Nowcast is right, get ready for some Truth Social posts!
Besides the Nowcast, seasonal trends suggest that a stronger-than-expected inflation print is less likely. The table and chart below show the frequency of stronger-than-expected, weaker-than-expected, and inline headline CPI prints from 1999 through 2024. Since 1999, the May CPI report (released in June) has only been stronger than expected 31% of the time. That ranks as the fifth-highest percentage of higher-than-expected readings of any month. Weaker-than-expected reports, however, are more common at 46% of the time. The only other month with a higher frequency of lower-than-expected headline CPI reports is November (released in December) at 50%.
Jun 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.
“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” – Maurice Sendak
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’re not sure if it’s the summer doldrums setting in early or that investors needed a breather after the craziness of the last several months, but for the second morning in a row, the action in futures has been quiet. This morning, S&P 500 futures have been moving on either side of the unchanged line while the Nasdaq is set to open slightly higher.
US and Chinese officials are in London again this morning for the second day of trade talks, and the economic calendar is quiet with NFIB Small Business Sentiment being today’s only report. That came in better than expected, rising from 95.8 to 98.8 in May. Overnight, in Asia, Australia and Japan were higher while Hong Kong and China declined.
When it comes to the mega-cap stocks in the S&P 500 with market caps of more than or around a trillion dollars, an increasingly evident trend is that the group no longer trades as a block, where each member’s performance is no longer in line with the others. This can be seen in the year-to-date performance of the nine stocks listed below. While the average performance of the nine stocks on a YTD basis is basically unchanged (-0.01%) and the median is a gain of 5.37%, the performance of each stock ranges from 18.5% (Meta Platforms-META) to a decline of 23.6% (Tesla–TSLA). Even over the last 12 months, while all nine stocks have experienced positive returns, the magnitude of the gains ranges from 4.3% for Apple (AAPL) to a gain of 69.6% for Broadcom (AVGO). Even with every stock trading higher, they have hardly traded in unison.
Where we have seen a group of stocks trade much more in unison is at the other end of the market cap scale. The table below shows the nine stocks in the S&P 500 with the smallest market caps and how each has performed YTD and over the last 12 months. On a YTD basis, all nine stocks are lower with an average decline of 20.7% (median: -19.35). Just as notable is that the range of returns has been much closer than the largest stocks in the S&P 500. Whereas more than 42 percentage points separates the best and worst performances of the nine largest stocks in the S&P 500, for the nine stocks with the smallest market caps, the spread is just 23 percentage points. So, while the rising tide hasn’t impacted each of the nine largest stocks equally, the nine smallest stocks have been weighed down by a more similar anchor.
In terms of performance, while there may have been some concerns over the performance of the mega-cap stocks in recent months, they’re still doing much better than the nine smallest stocks.
Even on a relative strength basis, the nine stocks with the smallest market caps in the S&P 500 have consistently underperformed. Earlier this month, they even made a new low relative to the mega caps.
Jun 9, 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.
“If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there’s something wrong with my act.” – Les Paul
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 generally quiet morning in markets ahead of what could be a busy day, depending on how a trifecta of potential catalysts play out. First, US-China trade talks will resume in London in London, and then we could also get an update from the Senate with its version of the reconciliation bill and what changes it made to the House’s version. To round out the trifecta, Apple (AAPL) will be holding its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). In last Wednesday’s Chart of the Day, we looked at how the stock typically performs leading up to and after the conference, so make sure to check that out, if you haven’t yet.
The S&P 500 closed above 6,000 for the first time since 2/21, and with a gain of just over 2%, it’s firmly back into positive territory for the year. Overall breadth on the year has also been strong as eight sectors are up YTD, and just three – Consumer Discretionary (-6.8%), Energy (-3.4%), and Health Care (-2.6%) are in the red. The only other sector that’s underperforming the S&P 500 this year is Technology (1.1%), and because it’s easily the largest sector, that’s why so many sectors are outperforming, including five sectors that are up over 5%. The best performing sector, though, is Industrials which finished last week up just shy of 10% for the year.
The technical picture for Industrials also looks positive. For about the last month now, the sector has been trading right around its highs from late last year, and while it was acting as resistance, just last Friday, it broke out to new highs just as the rising 50-DMA looks like it’s on track to cross back above the 200-DMA. Late last year, we were positive on the Industrials sector given the trend of onshoring and less regulation in a second Trump administration, and that has, so far, played out this year.
Jun 6, 2025
As the S&P 500 flirts with closing 20% above its April 8th closing low, there have been several strong performers helping to drive the gains, and very few losers, with only 56 stocks in the index trading lower. While the rally has been broad, the largest stocks in the index have been driving the gains. Even as the index is up just over 20%, the average performance of the 500 individual companies has been four percentage points lower at 16.1%.
Of the S&P 500’s biggest winners since 4/8 as of Friday afternoon, 19 stocks in the index have rallied 50% or more. A 50% rally over a year or two is incredible enough, but a surge of 50% in less than two months is rare, especially for a large-cap stock. The table below lists each of the stocks that have rallied 50%, and if there’s one theme that immediately stands out, it’s that Technology has been driving the surge. Eight of the 19 stocks listed are from the Technology sector, including three of the top four. The best-performing stock off the April low has been Seagate Technology (STX), which has nearly doubled. After Technology, the next most heavily represented sectors are Industrials and Utilities (yes, Utilities!) with three each.
Of the 56 stocks that are lower since April 8th, only 14 have declined by double-digit percentages. Leading the way to the downside, UnitedHealth (UNH) has plunged over 45%. Along with UNH, Humana (HUM) is down close to 20% and just two others are down over 15%. While Technology has been popular on the leader board, Health Care accounts for more than half (8) of the 14 biggest losers. Looking through the names listed, they’re primarily defensive, so you wouldn’t expect them to outperform during a period like the last two months, but double-digit declines? Someone get these stocks a doctor!
