May 29, 2026
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“In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Futures are modestly higher this morning following a mostly positive session in Asia, where South Korea rallied 3.6% to take its weekly gain to 8%. The Nikkei also rallied 2.5% for a weekly gain of nearly 5%. Asia’s positive moves have flowed through to Europe this morning, and the STOXX 600 is up 0.6%, led higher by Spain, Italy, and France.
Outside of equities, treasury yields and crude oil are modestly lower on reports that the Iran-US ceasefire will be extended, and gold is bouncing after briefly trading below its 200-DMA yesterday.
An AI compute deal between Anthropic, Alphabet (GOOGL), Broadcom (AVGO), Apollo (APO), and Blackstone (BX) was reported on by Bloomberg last night. The deal has a lot of moving parts to it, and raises concerns over complex transactions and whether it’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors. We broke it all down in the commentary section of today’s Morning Lineup and explained why it’s nothing like the transactions that took place leading up to the Financial Crisis, so make sure to check that out.
In our experience, we’ve seen enough to know never count anything out, but with the S&P 500 up over 1% already this week, it’s looking likely that the S&P 500 will finish higher this week, extending its weekly streak of gains to nine. The last time the S&P 500 traded higher for nine straight weeks was in December 2023, and the last time there was a longer streak of weekly gains was way back in 1985!
The chart below shows S&P 500 winning streaks in the post-WWII period, and while there have been eleven other nine-week streaks, only four made it to a tenth week or longer. In 1985, the S&P 500 went 12 straight weeks without a decline, and in 1957, the index went 13 weeks, or 3 months, without a weekly decline.
The chart below shows each prior streak on a long-term chart of the S&P 500. Besides the fact that none of these prior periods occurred right near a major top in the market, it’s also interesting to note that they didn’t really occur early on in bull markets coming out of extended bears.
While the S&P 500 keeps chugging along, gold prices have been under pressure for months now, which is a stark contrast to earlier this year when the metal could do no wrong. From the peak in late January, gold prices briefly dropped into bear market territory (on an intraday basis) before rallying intraday. In the process of that decline, gold prices also briefly dipped below the 200-day moving average (DMA) for the first time in 2.5 years.
While the streak of trading without a breach of the 200-DMA on an intraday basis ended yesterday, the streak of closes above that level remains intact, and at 638 trading days, it ranks as the second-longest streak on record, trailing only a 729 trading day streak that ended in December 2011. In order for the current streak to break the record, gold would have to stay above its 200-DMA through the summer months and into late October, but it has been an impressive streak.
The decline in gold since its January high, however, should serve as an important reminder that the tide on a trade that can seemingly do no wrong can quickly go out.
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May 28, 2026
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“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success” – Ian Fleming
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Markets are taking a breather this morning as the US and Iran trade missile and drone strikes. The S&P 500 looks poised to open 0.2% lower, while the Nasdaq is down 0.33%. After a brief excursion below $90, WTI crude oil is back above $90, gold is down over 1%, and the 10-year yield is up 3 bps to 4.51%.
Asian stocks were mostly lower overnight, with the Nikkei down 0.5% and Hong Kong falling 1.3%. The Shanghai Composite bucked the trend, finishing with a marginal gain, but even South Korea finished the session lower, falling 0.5%. South Korea down? Outside of the rising tensions between the US and Iran, there was no obvious catalyst for the declines in the region.
In Europe, events in the Middle East have also weighed on equities. The STOXX 600 is down close to 1%. Led lower by the UK, while Italy bucks the trend with a gain. Hawkish comments from the ECB’s Chief Economist also haven’t helped.
In the US today, there’s a monster slate of data on the calendar with Personal Income, Personal Spending, PCE, Jobless Claims, Durable Goods, and GDP all at 8:30, followed by New Homes Sales at 10 AM, as well as Energy inventories at 10:30 and 12:00.
Yesterday was another one of those days when the S&P 500 hit a 52-week high, but breadth was negative. So far this year, these types of daily divergences have occurred 11 times, and if that brings back memories of the late 1990s, it shouldn’t.
As shown in the chart below, we’re not even fully five months into the year, but this year already ranks tied for fourth in the number of days when the S&P 500 closed at a 52-week high but breadth was negative. The only years with more occurrences were 1995 (17), 2021, and 2025, with 14. If you look at the late 1990s, though, in 1998 it happened only eight times all year, in 1999 there were only four occurrences, and in 2000, it only happened twice.
Regarding breadth, the S&P 500’s cumulative advance/decline line continues to diverge from price. On 4/20, the cumulative A/D line made a marginal new high, but ever since then, it’s been biased to the downside, even as the S&P 500 has rallied close to 6%.
At least there have been some signs that breadth is modestly improving. The chart below shows the S&P 500’s 10-day A/D line over the last year, with the period from 3/30 shown in dark blue. While breadth was positive in the early days of the rally, from late April through just before Memorial Day weekend, it was negative before moving modestly back into positive territory this week. Breadth could still use a lot of improvement, but you have to start somewhere!
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May 27, 2026
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“Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem” – Henry Kissinger
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
S&P 500 futures are modestly higher (+0.27%), while Nasdaq leads (+0.79%) as memory stocks surge again in pre-market trading. Crude oil is down over 4%, right around $90 per barrel, on hopes (again) of a resolution to the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The 10-year yield is down 3 bps to 4.46%, and gold is down another 1.2% to $4,450 per ounce.
It’s a quiet economic calendar this morning, with Richmond Fed the only report on the calendar, while several Fed officials are scheduled to speak. In Asia and Europe, markets were mixed, and the STOXX 600 is currently up 0.2%
As mentioned above, WTI crude briefly dipped below $90 per barrel this morning and now trades just above that level. Prices have been moving in an increasingly narrow range as the markets await a resolution to the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. US markets have already rallied so much above their pre-war levels, so it’s hard to imagine seeing the US market get a major lift unless prices see a major decline from here. However, if prices continue to drift lower, we would expect to see a broadening of the rally, perhaps even at the expense of the mega caps.
One area of the world more leveraged to oil prices is Europe. As shown below, the FTSE Europe ETF (VGK) has yet to take out its high from earlier in the year, but the drop in oil prices this morning has it getting closer. With this morning’s rally, the ETF is also breaking its downtrend from its earlier peak, leaving one less roadblock to clear on the road to new highs.
On a final note, here we go again. Whenever a new trend emerges in the market, you always find irrelevant companies looking to exploit the wave of euphoria by ‘rebranding’ their businesses to capitalize on the wave of investor interest. In the late 1990s, we saw it with dot-com companies. Then, about 10 years ago, penny stocks started adding crypto to their name in hopes of getting a pop in their share prices.
Recently, the “it” rebranding strategy is AI, and the latest example this morning is a company called Sharps Technology (SSTS). For years, Sharps Technology could generously be described as a medical device company in that they made medical syringes. In 2025, the company “pivoted” towards crypto, essentially becoming a Solana treasury company and holding as much as $250 million in the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet.
Judging by the company’s stock price, the pivot to crypto didn’t go as planned, as the price of STSS stock has been in a steady free-fall for several years now. On a reverse-split adjusted basis, the stock has gone from around $16,000 to $1.82 yesterday. It’s been like a memory stock, but only in reverse!
Often, a reverse stock split, even if it’s on a 1-2 basis, is a sign of trouble at a company. STSS has announced two reverse stock splits in the last four years. In October 2024, the company announced a 1 for 22 reverse split, and if that wasn’t bad enough, six months later, it announced a 1 for 300 split. If our math is correct, for every 6,600 shares you had in the summer of 2024, you have one now!
Since the crypto strategy hasn’t quite worked out for Sharps, today the company is going in a new direction and announced a new “vision to build the leading Agentic Finance Platform for the Global South.” The company will change its name to SkyAI and combine its “stablecoin rails with agentic AI to deliver financial access, education, and actionable intelligence to the billions of underbanked users across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.”
Whenever you see these types of stories, it immediately brings bubble talk into the conversation, and rightfully so. The one silver lining to all of this, at least at this point, is that the announcement has been largely ignored as shares of STSS are up merely six cents in pre-market trading.
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May 26, 2026
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“You’re short on ears and long on mouth.” – John Wayne
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 headlines over the weekend regarding the status of the war in Iran have been conflicting, but markets are taking the optimistic side. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were both firmly higher to kick off the holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 is on pace to open at a new record high with a gain of 0.70%, while Nasdaq futures are up my more than 1%. European and Asian markets were mostly lower overnight, but that’s because they were open yesterday and saw broad gains.
Outside of equities, the 10-year yield is down 9 basis points and back below 4.5%, while crude oil is down 4% to $92.66, although it was down more over the weekend.
Here in the US today, we’re largely done with earnings season, but on the economic calendar, we’ll get house price data at 9 AM easter, Consumer Confidence at 10 AM, and the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index at 10:30.
After the long weekend, we wanted to provide a quick recap of market performance heading into the holiday. The S&P 500 was up less than 1% for the week, but breadth was positive as three sectors rallied more than 3%, and another three rallied more than 1%. The only sectors that traded lower were Communication Services and Materials, which were both down less than 1%.
In terms of where sectors are trading compared to their trading ranges, four finished the week at overbought levels, while every other sector was neutral. Utilities and Materials are also the only sectors that headed into the weekend below their 50-day moving averages, but Utilities at least moved out of extreme oversold territory.
On a YTD basis, Financials has been the worst-performing sector with a decline of just over 5%. As shown in the chart below, the sector ETF finished the week right between its 50 and 200-DMAs. The 50-DMA, which has recently been acting as support, also coincides with longer-term support in the low 50s.
Health Care has been another laggard this year, but has recently shown some signs of life. After holding support in the low $140 range for the last few weeks, the sector broke out of a short-term trading range to close out the week and closed above both its 50 and 200-DMA for the first time in several weeks. Health Care has been out of favor for a long time now, but there’s a lot of runway for the sector between current levels and the high from earlier this year.
Finally, Industrials were a laggard last week, and along with other sectors, still have yet to trade to a new high. As shown in the chart below, though, the sector is getting close. XLI has traded in a sideways range for more than a month now, with downside support at the 50-DMA and upside resistance at the highs from earlier in the year. If the headlines are right and the Iran war is close to an end, the resistance may start to weaken.
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May 22, 2026
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“Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them.” – Sam Walton
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
If you don’t cut out early for the holiday weekend, make sure to check out Paul Hickey on Making Money with Charles Payne today at 2 PM.
The S&P 500 is looking to extend its streak of gains to eight weeks, and futures are cooperating so far. Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are indicated to open 0.15% higher, although they’ve given up much of their earlier gains as crude oil rallies about 2%. Treasury yields are lower, although the 10-year yield still sits above 4.55%. Gold and Bitcoin are both down about 0.5%.
It was another positive session in Asia, as the Nikkei rallied 2.7%, taking its weekly gain to 3.1%, while South Korea rallied 0.4% to finish nearly 5% higher for the week. Chinese stocks also traded up, with the Shanghai Composite rallying 0.9% but still finishing modestly lower for the week.
The catalyst for last night’s rally was weaker-than-expected April CPI, with core rising 1.4% y/y relative to expectations for 1.7%. Also, in South Korea, the index of Consumer Confidence for May jumped from 99.2 to 106.1.
It’s been a broadly positive day for equities in Europe. The STOXX 600 is up 0.5%, taking its weekly gain to more than 2.5%. Germany is leading the way for the week with a gain of 3.4%, while Italy is up less than half a percent. These gains come despite some hawkish commentary from ECB officials concerning inflation.
The only economic report on the US calendar this morning is the Michigan Sentiment report, which continues to hang around near all-time lows even as the stock market sits near all-time highs. Also, since it’s the Friday before a holiday weekend, the bond market closes at 2 PM today, so look for activity to really dry up in the afternoon.
Earnings season came to an unofficial end with Walmart’s (WMT) report on Thursday, and what an earnings season it was. Heading into the reporting period, we highlighted the pace of negative revisions as a bullish contrarian signal, and it played out, as results and guidance both came in much better than expected.
From April 10th through yesterday’s close, the S&P 500 gained 9.2%, which ranked as the best earnings season (Friday before the first large banks start to report through WMT) since the same reporting period last year, coming out of the tariff-tantrum. Back then, it was a similar backdrop; amidst tariff uncertainty, companies had little incentive to give upbeat outlooks, but that’s exactly what we saw. This earnings season saw a similar story unfold, with the main difference being that tariff uncertainty was swapped out and replaced with the war in Iran.
The chart below shows the S&P 500’s performance during earnings seasons since the start of 2009, and while the market rallies an average of 2.2% during earnings season, the 9.2% gain during this earnings season ranks as the fifth best since the start of 2009. The only better ones were coming out of the financial crisis, two quarters coming out of the 2022 bear market, and finally, the Q1 earnings season last year.
Looking ahead, coming out of the unofficial start to summer next week, the S&P 500’s historical performance in the week after Labor Day has been a gain of 0.52% (median: 0.61%) with positive returns 61.8% of the time. The best post-Memorial Day week was a gain of 7.2% in 2000, which turned out to be a major false alarm, while the only two years when the S&P 500 declined 3%+ during the week were in 1973 and 2012.
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May 21, 2026
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“To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.” – Mr. T
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Equity futures this morning are lower, but it’s not because of Nvidia (NVDA) earnings. Those are basically shaping up to be a non-event. The culprit this morning is news out of Iran, as the country’s Supreme Leader said that the country will not let its enriched uranium leave the country. That lowers the odds of a peaceful solution, which has oil prices moving higher and equity prices lower. The S&P 500 looks to open down about 0.4% while the Nasdaq is down 0.6%.
As mentioned, crude oil is up about 3%, treasury yields are higher, gold is down about 0.6%, and Bitcoin is fractionally lower.
In Asia, Japan rallied 3.1% while South Korea surged more than 8% as the strike at Samsung was averted. China bucked the positive tone, though, and fell 2%. In Europe, equities are lower across the board with the STOXX 600 down 0.3% as flash PMI indices for the region largely missed expectations.
It’s been a busy morning for data already in the US, and the results have been mixed. Jobless claims were basically in line with forecasts, the Philly Fed for May missed expectations, while Building Permits and Housing Starts came in better than expected.
For all the focus the media puts on Nvidia (NVDA) earnings, the stock is poised to gap up 0.52% today as the market rates the report a snoozer. To put that in perspective, shares of Walmart (WMT) are priced to gap down 2.4% at the open. Today’s moves continue a trend where a relatively ‘boring’ stock like WMT has had a more volatile initial reaction to earnings than NVDA. Including today’s reaction, shares of WMT have had a larger gap (in terms of magnitude) than NVDA for six of the last eight quarters. While NVDA’s average gap on earnings reaction days in the last eight quarters has been 2.6%, WMT’s average gap has been +/-3.6%.
The S&P 500 closed within 0.2% of a 52-week high yesterday, so you would expect investors to feel more optimistic, but the latest sentiment survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) showed the opposite. In this week’s survey, bullish sentiment declined from 39.3% down to 31.7% while bearish sentiment spiked up to 43.6% for a bull-bear spread of -11.9. Historically, when the S&P 500 was within 1% of a 52-week high, the bull-bear spread was positive 14.6!
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