Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 7/1/25 – The Spat Resumes

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.

“Every story needs an element of suspense – or it’s lousy.” – Sydney Pollack

Morning stock market summary

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 new month, a new quarter, and a new half this morning, and while investors would certainly be happy with a repeat in terms of the returns during the half, they would prefer to do without the volatility. This morning, futures are drifting moderately lower after two straight days of record closing highs. The quarter is also getting off to an active start with the June ISM Manufacturing report at 10:00 AM, along with the May reports on Construction Spending and JOLTS.

While these reports will likely impact the market upon their release, so far this morning, there aren’t many headlines driving the market in either direction. While futures are lower, the magnitude of the losses has been pretty modest so far. In Washington, the Senate is still trying to pass the GOP Reconciliation Bill. That ongoing process has led to a resurgence in the war of words between Elon Musk, who hates the bill and is threatening to primary conservatives who vote for it, and President Trump, who responded with comments that Elon owes all his success to government subsidies and said DOGE should look into them.

Besides another flare-up in the spat between President Trump and Elon Musk, Tesla (TSLA) has been in the news this week as the company marked the 15th anniversary of its IPO on Sunday. Based on its performance this year, the stock hasn’t exactly been celebrating the milestone. While well off its April lows, it’s still down over 20% on the year, and this morning, it’s on pace to open down by another 5% after the President ‘truthed’ that DOGE should look into all the subsidies that Musk’s various companies receive. If these pre-market losses hold, it will also put the stock below both its 50 and 200-day moving averages, just as it experiences a ‘golden cross’ where the 50-day moving average (DMA) crosses up through the 200-DMA as both are rising.

Even with its 20%+ decline YTD, TSLA still ranks as the third best performing stock out of the current Russell 1000 members with an eye-popping gain of 19,849% since its IPO. The only two stocks that have performed better are Nvidia (NVDA), which has tripled TSLA’s gain, and Axon Enterprise (AXON), which is up just under 22,000%. Trailing behind TSLA, Broadcom (AVGO), and Texas Pacific Land (TPL) round out the top five stocks that have all rallied more than 10,000%. That’s a 100-bagger!

While the last 15 years have been great for TSLA, the road for traditional auto OEMs hasn’t been much bumpier. While the S&P 500 has rallied nearly sevenfold over the last 15 years, Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) have essentially gone nowhere.

The Closer – First Half Close, Weak Dollar, AI Ideas – 6/30/25

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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin with a recap of first quarter performance (page 1) including a look at the historically bad start for the dollar (page 2) and underperformance of US equities relative to the rest of the world (page 3). Next, we check in on the performance of our AI baskets (page 4) including a look at some other under the radar AI plays (page 5). We finish with a review of the latest manufacturing data (page 6).

See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!

Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/30/25 – Resume the Counting!

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.

“It would be good to be a fake somebody rather than a real nobody.” – Mike Tyson

Morning stock market summary

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 market enthusiasm that took the S&P 500 to new highs last Friday has followed through to the new week as the S&P 500 looks to gap up about 0.5% at the open. Financials are leading this morning’s gains as the Fed announced last Friday that all of the banks passed the stress tests. Goldman Sachs (GS) is leading the way with gains of over 3%, but all of the other major banks and brokers are up around 1% or more.

The only economic indicators on the calendar this morning are the Chicago PMI at 9:45 and the Dallas Fed Manufacturing report at 10:30. Washington will be a focus for the market today as investors look to see if the Senate can pass a version of the GOP tax bill.

Last Friday’s close in the S&P 500 marked the first new all-time closing high for the S&P 500 in over four months and now fully puts the tariff-induced near-bear market in the rearview mirror.  It also completes one of the more stunning market cycles where the S&P 500 experienced one of its sharpest sell-offs from an all-time high on record, followed by one of its swiftest rebounds.

With the new high, we can also resume the count of new all-time closing highs for the S&P 500, which for 2025 now totals four. That may sound like a meager number, but two months ago, the thought of new highs for the S&P 500 seemed like a pipe dream. With roughly 125 trading days left in the year, we’re unlikely to get anywhere near last year’s total of 57 record closing highs this year, but you have to start somewhere.

The Bespoke Report – Equity Market Pros and Cons – Q3 2025

This week’s Bespoke Report is an updated version of our “Pros and Cons” edition for Q3 2025.

With this report, you’re able to get a complete picture of the bull and bear case for US stocks right now.  It’s heavy on graphics and light on text, but we let the charts and tables do the talking!

On page three of the report, you’ll see a full list of the pros and cons that we lay out.  Slides for each topic are then provided on page four and beyond.

To read this report and access everything else Bespoke’s research platform has to offer, sign up for Bespoke’s 50/20 special today.  Our 50/20 special gets you a full year of Premium for half off, then 20% off per month after the first year.  SIGN UP HERE.

Below is a look at the performance of key ETFs across asset classes so far in Q2 and year-to-date.

After a very rough March and early April, equities both domestically and globally have surged since.  The S&P 500 (SPY) is currently up more than 10% in Q2 with just one full trading day left on Monday.  The Tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) is up much more at 17.4%, while the Semis (SMH) are up more than 30%.

As good as it has been in the US, it has been an even better first half and second quarter for much of the rest of the world.  The All World ex US ETF (CWI) is up 18.5% on the year versus a gain of 5.7% for the US (SPY), and countries like Germany (EWG), Italy (EWI), Mexico (EWW), and Spain (EWP) are sitting on 30%+ YTD gains.

As a reminder, quarterly rallies this strong aren’t the norm, so enjoy it but don’t get too cocky heading into Q3.  Mr. Market loves serving humble pie to the face of investors that think they have it all figured out.

Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/27/25 – Lockstep

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 we really want to know who is responsible for the mess we’re in, all we have to do is look in the mirror.” – Ross Perot

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

Less than three months after President Trump unleashed “Liberation Day” on the world and sent the S&P 500 plunging by nearly 20%, a new phrase has made its way back into the lexicon: new highs. Equity futures are higher this morning, with the S&P 500 trading at record highs following a strong session in Europe. Treasury yields and crude oil are modestly higher, while gold is plunging over 1% as investors continue to exit safe-haven trades.

For these new highs to hold through the closing bell, we still have to navigate a decent amount of economic data for a summer Friday with reports of Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE at 8:30, followed by Michigan Sentiment at 10 AM.  The 8:30 data was mixed but mostly in the wrong direction. Personal Income came in sharply weaker than expected, falling 0.4% versus expectations for an increase of 0.3%. Personal Spending fell 0.1% compared to expectations for an increase of 0.1%. On the inflation front, headline PCE was right inline with expectations at 0.1% m/m and 2.3% y/y, but the core reading was a tenth higher than expected on both a m/m and y/y basis at 0.2% and 2.7%, respectively. The initial reactions to the data have been pretty muted.

Looking at US equity market performance, we were struck by how uniform the gains have been over the last five trading sessions. All fourteen of the index ETFs in our Trend Analyzer screen have gained at least 2%.  At the top of the list, both ends of the market cap spectrum are represented with Microcaps (IWC) up 3.4% while megacaps in the Nasdaq and S&P 100 are the second and third best performers with gains of 3.26% and 2.90%, respectively. Relative to their short-term trading ranges, all fourteen index ETFs are at similarly overbought levels, and they are all at least 4% above their 50-day moving averages. The only area that returns haven’t been uniform is on a YTD basis, where the Nasdaq 100 is up 6.8% while small caps are in the red.

The Closer – Growth Woes, Hard vs Soft, Shorts – 6/26/25

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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, after beginning with a recap of the latest spending bill drama, Fedspeak, and GDP revisions (page 1), we review jobless claims data (page 2). After that, we check in on the conflicting signals in hard and soft data (page 3) before closing out with an update on the newest short interest figures (pages 4 and 5).

See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!