Jan 23, 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 more people who own little businesses of their own, the safer our country will be, and the better off its cities and towns; for the people who have a stake in their country and their community are its best citizens.” – John Hancock
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 a shaky start to the year, US equities have more than stabilized over the last two weeks, and whether you’re talking about small caps with the Russell 2000 or large caps like the Nasdaq and S&P 500, the major averages are sitting on YTD gains of over 3%. Not bad for just over three weeks! You might be surprised to hear, though, that even with those strong performance numbers, European stocks are modestly outperforming the US on a MTD basis. After accounting for the impact of currency moves, the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK) is already up over 4.7% YTD.
It’s been a good start to the year for European shares, but they still have a lot of work to do. While the Russell 2000, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500 have all been in well-defined uptrends, the same can’t be said for VGK which has been stuck in a downtrend since last fall. Not only does it remain in a rut of lower highs and lower lows, but it also isn’t even trading above its 200-DMA.
Jan 22, 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 a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” – Francis Bacon
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
The positive reaction to earnings reports continues this morning with the most high-profile example being Netflix (NFLX). As noted in yesterday’s Chart of the Day, historically, the stock tends to respond most positively to its Q4 earnings report, and that was the case once again this earnings season as the stock is indicated to open close to 15% higher taking the market cap well above $400 billion. NFLX isn’t the only example, though, as UAL, P&G, and Travelers are just a few more examples of large companies trading higher in the pre-market in reaction to earnings. The only notable losers are in the Health Care sector where Abbot (ABT) and J&J (JNJ) are down about 2%.
What was looking like a breakdown in the chart of the S&P 500 (SPY) last Monday has quickly reversed. After closing back above its 50-day moving average on Friday, equities picked right back up on Tuesday with additional gains, breaking the string of lower highs and the short-term downtrend that has been in place since early December. We’re still just about 1% off those former highs, but the last five trading days have been a good start, and if the market can continue to react positively to the incoming earnings reports, those highs should be within reach.
Like SPY, some other major indices are playing peekaboo with their downtrends that have been in place since early December. The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) is an example as it broke its downtrend from the December highs yesterday. Additionally, it didn’t make a higher high yesterday, but based on pre-market trading, it should break that string of lower highs today.
Jan 21, 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 America, the impossible is what we do best.” – Donald J. Trump
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
The presidential stock market performance scorecard starts all over again today, as Trump 2.0 begins. For Biden’s entire presidency, the Dow Jones Industrial average rallied 39.4%, about 18 percentage points less than the four years under Trump 1.0 and more than 100 percentage points less than the 149.4% during the eight years of the Obama administration. While the Dow’s performance under Biden was the weakest of the last three Presidents, it was still nothing to sneeze at, and it caps off a third straight period of strong gains under a Presidential term. The only other periods since 1900 where the DJIA rallied more than 30% under three straight presidents were FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower from 1933 to early 1961 and then Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton from 1981 through early 2001. The most recent period, though, was the only one that included two one-term Presidents.
Let these performance numbers serve as a reminder that as an investor you should never let your politics and investment decisions overlap. In late 2008/early 2009, many investors wanted out of the stock market because of Obama’s views towards business and the economy. Yet during his tenure, the Dow rallied nearly 150%. In late 2016/early 2017 another group of investors wanted out of the market because of all the chaos that came with Trump. Lot of good that did you if you moved to the sidelines. When Biden won the election in 2020, the cycle repeated itself, and now in 2025, it’s probably happening with some investors again.
The Dow’s performance under Biden may have been the weakest of the last three Presidents, but it was still enough to rank as one of the top ten performances of any president since 1900. Coolidge, Clinton, and FDR ranked as the top three all with gains of over 150% while the Presidents who encountered the worst stock market returns were Hoover, Bush II, and Nixon.
Jan 17, 2025
Last weekend’s Barron’s had an article citing the fascinating results of a study from Arizona State professor Hendrik Bessembinder. In a recent paper, Bessembinder studied the performance of more than 29,000 stocks from 1925 through 2023 and found that most stocks lost money over time and that a small number of stocks are responsible for the majority of the market’s long-term gains. Looking back at stocks with a minimum of 20 years of returns, the study found that Nvidia (NVDA) had the greatest annualized compound return, which should surprise no one. Looking further back, though, of the stocks that have been around since 1925, the three with the biggest gains were Altria (MO), Vulcan Materials (VMC), and Kansas City Southern (KSU). All three have generated annualized gains of over 14% (table below is from the paper). When you think of the market’s biggest winners over the last 100 years, would you have ever guessed the trio would include a tobacco company, an asphalt company, and a railroad?
It’s hard to imagine a sector of the economy that has been more out of favor in recent decades than tobacco. Given its addictive nature and how popular it was for most of the last 100 years, though, Altria’s strength makes more sense. When it comes to Vulcan (VMC), it doesn’t get less sexy than asphalt. Still, as the auto industry exploded over the last century, especially after WWII, and more Americans moved out of cities and into suburbs, none of it would have been possible without a company like Vulcan laying pavement. Just as networking companies have facilitated the movement of data around the internet since the late 1990s, companies like Vulcan and even Kansas City Southern can, in some ways be thought of as the networking companies of the physical economy of the 20th century.
When the same study is conducted in 2125 looking at the best-performing stocks since 2025, will NVDA be as exciting as a tobacco or asphalt company is now? If not, which companies of today will end up as the leaders of the next century?
Jan 16, 2025
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