Apr 29, 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 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.
Apr 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.
“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.
Apr 25, 2025
April has been one of the most volatile months in market history, and as we head into the final days of the month next week, equities have returned almost to where they were in late March. Whether the market can build up enough momentum to break above resistance just under 5,500 remains to be seen, but so far it’s been quite a round trip over the last month or so.
Just like equities, the US Treasury market has been volatile. Despite all the concerns of a mass exodus out of the Treasury market, the 10-year yield is also around the same levels it traded at in late March.
While stocks and bonds have made a lot of noise with little to show for it, the dollar has maintained its downhill path. After peaking in early January, the US Dollar Index lost about 5% through late March, and Liberation Day only accelerated the slide. Since late March, we’ve seen an additional decline of nearly 5%, taking the Dollar Index to 52-week lows.
The dollar’s slide plays right into the hands of what the Administration seems to want. Stephen Miran, the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has actively advocated for a weaker dollar to reduce the trade deficit and make US exports more competitive. In his 41-page essay “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”, Miran outlines his thesis about how to address the economic imbalances resulting from the dollar’s overvaluation due to its role as the world’s reserve currency. Miran endorses the idea of tariffs as one useful tool of several to help re-engineer global trade. The key to success, though, would hinge on execution as Miran concludes with the observation: “There is a path by which the Trump Administration can reconfigure the global trading and financial systems to America’s benefit, but it is narrow, and will require careful planning, precise execution, and attention to steps to minimize adverse consequences.” Maybe the sequence of events since Liberation Day was part of some orchestrated plan, but there has seemingly been nothing ‘careful’ or ‘precise’ about any of it.
Apr 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.
“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” – Al Pacino
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 interview on CNN’s OutFront, click on the image below.
After three strong days for stocks following the plunge to start the week, the week looks to be ending on a down note following the publication of an interview by Time magazine with President Trump. The interview took place on Tuesday, so the comments are for intents past their shelf life based on the White House news cycle, but they reinforce the notion that when it comes to this Administration, policy is a moving target.
Earnings news was mixed overnight, but the most high-profile report came from Alphabet (GOOGL), and the stock is trading up in response. The only economic report on the calendar is Michigan Confidence. Investors will be watching the inflation expectations component of that report. Even as it has become incredibly polarized based on political leanings, the general trend has been higher, which the Fed doesn’t want to see.
Day-to-day volatility in the market has picked up since late February, and the historic 9.5% rally from April 9th sticks out like a big middle finger. That big gain also overshadows a nearly impressive run of three straight daily gains of 1.5% or more in the S&P 500. Outside of the big gain on 4/9, any of these days would have qualified as among the best days in the last six months, but having them occur on a back-to-back-to-back basis is extraordinary.
As impressive as the daily gains have been, yesterday’s rally only took the S&P 500 back to levels it opened at right after the Liberation Day ceremony in the Rose Garden and then the level it traded up to on 4/9. For bulls to breathe easier, we’ll need to see the market maintain its momentum and break above this resistance, which happens to coincide with the downtrend line from the February high.
Apr 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.
“The lack of a sense of history is the damnation of the modern world.” – Robert Penn Warren
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 two days of solid gains, US equity futures are lower this morning but off their lows as the S&P 500 is indicated to open down 0.31%. After the last several trading days, though, investors could probably use a breather, as four of the last five trading days have seen gains or losses of at least 1.5%. Overnight, Asian stocks were mixed but mostly higher, even as the Chinese government pushed back on claims from the US Administration that the two sides are talking to de-escalate the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. In Europe, equities are seeing very modest losses.
Outside of equities, Treasury yields are lower with the 10-year trading down to 4.34%, oil is 1% higher, gold is rebounding after Wednesday’s sharp decline, and Bitcoin is down 1% but still over $92K.
Earnings news since yesterday’s close has generally been positive, but a negative reaction to IBM’s results has the stock trading down 7%, which is contributing to a more than 100-point decline in the Dow.
On the economic calendar, we’ll get Durable Goods Orders and Jobless Claims 8:30, followed by Existing Home Sales at 10 and the KC Fed regional manufacturing report at 11. Of these reports, jobless claims will be the most important to watch for any signs of weakness due to the impact of tariffs.
While the last two trading days have been strong for US stocks, performance over the last five trading days has been weak, lagging the rest of the world. As shown in the snapshot below, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is down 0.41% over the last five trading days, which keeps it over 5% below its 50-day moving average (DMA) and down over 8% for the year. Relative to other regional international ETFs, SPY is the only one down YTD, and along with Emerging Markets (EEM), the only one below its 50-DMA as well.
The weakness in US stocks has been extremely evident in investor sentiment. This week’s survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) showed that bearish sentiment declined from 56.9% to 55.6%, but that still extends the streak of readings where bears were at 50% or more to a record nine weeks. In the entire history of the survey dating back to 1987, there have only been three other periods where bears were at 50% or more of total respondents for even five straight weeks.
