Jul 17, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.
The US equity market closed out this week right at the line in the sand that has snuffed out two prior attempts at sustaining the post-March rally. That sets up a huge next week as earnings reports start to really flow while the Federal Reserve debates yield curve control and Congress has to reckon with the expiry of large unemployment benefits which may threaten consumer spending. Meanwhile COVID continues to spread in the background, forcing a narrative reckoning across price and policy. We discuss in detail along with reviews of recent sentiment indicators, economic data, political polling, and the start of earnings season in this week’s Bespoke Report.
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Jul 10, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.
The S&P 500 was up 3% on the week, while the Nasdaq 100 was up 6.6% (leaving it up 24.6% YTD). Chinese stocks also had a big week with a gain of 15.9%. Within the US, we continue to see huge performance divergence between the largest and smallest stocks. Within the large-cap S&P 500, the cap-weighted index was up 3% on the week, but the equal-weight index was up just 0.3%. YTD, the cap-weighted S&P is down just 0.28%, but the equal-weight index is still down more than 10%.
Here is a stat for you that highlights strength at the top: the five largest stocks in the S&P added $352 billion in market cap this week alone. That would rank as the 10th largest stock in the index. At the bottom of the index, if the 100 smallest stocks in the S&P 500 each doubled from here, it would only add 2.5% to the index. If only Apple (AAPL) were to double from here, it would add 6% to the index.
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Jul 2, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.
It looked like the market was going to finish out the week on a positive note, but a late-day sell-off erased much of the day’s earlier gains. Even after the decline, markets finished the day and the week in positive territory. While it was a short week, we have a lot to discuss in this week’s Bespoke Report.
Topics discussed include the strongest 100-day rally since 1933, a discussion of long and short-term performance trends in various asset classes, international equity market performance, still elevated levels of volatility, economic trends, sentiment, seasonal trends, and a lot more.
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Jun 26, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.
It was another bout of Friday selling which took stocks to new two week lows this week, led lower by banks in the wake of Federal Reserve stress tests that limited buybacks and dividends. In the background, surging case counts across the US Sunbelt are driving market concern over how the virus can be contained along with the impact on the economy. We take a look at the outlook for the economy and markets in depth, as well as reviewing the US political and policy outlook in this week’s Bespoke Report.
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Jun 19, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members. Below is the opening excerpt.
The areas of the country where Covid case counts are currently rising the most are in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. So much for the heat keeping the virus at bay! On a day when Governor Cuomo thankfully ended his daily coronavirus press briefings, the stock market is once again focused on the daily case count numbers in other parts of the country. At least for most of the week, the market managed to shake off increased attention on case numbers. The S&P 500 was up 1.9% this week while the Nasdaq 100 rose 3.5%. Health Care, Materials, Tech, Consumer Staples, and Communication Services all rose more than 2%, while Energy was down 0.6% even though the oil ETF was up 6.8%. Outside of the US, China and India were up the most while Brazil, Spain, and Russia were in the red.
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Jun 12, 2020
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.
US equities stumbled into the end of the week after a brutal day Thursday. Narratives abound, but given how overbought global equities had gotten, we are skeptical to push explanation beyond that. What we’re less skeptical about is the ongoing disease burden of COVID-19, the accomodative stance of monetary policy, and the slow improvement of the US economy over the last few weeks. We discuss all of this as well as updating the outlook for the election in this week’s Bespoke Report.
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