Apr 10, 2023
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“I don’t think one should ever be satisfied with any objective that you’re trying to accomplish because perfection is never attained.” – Fred Ridley
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With European markets closed for Easter and many Asian markets also still on holiday, it’s been a quiet pre-market session. Chinese stocks were open for trading, though, and they traded modestly lower. S&P 500 futures have been weakening into the open with the Nasdaq leading the way lower, as some of the tech sector’s outperformance this year gets unwound. Friday’s employment report has also raised the odds of a 25-bps hike at the May meeting to better than a two-in-three chance.
Enjoy the quiet while it lasts because earnings season kicks off at the end of this week when the major banks start to report on Friday with Blackrock (BLK), Citi (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), PNC (PNC), and Wells Fargo (WFC) all on the calendar. Outside of these banks, the only other notable reports this week will be Delta (DAL) on Thursday and UnitedHealth (UNH) on Friday.
It may be a dull start to the week for stocks, and from a bull’s perspective, dull is good. Historically, the week following Easter has been better than normal. Since 1945, the S&P 500’s median performance during Easter week has been a gain of 0.54% with positive returns just under 60% of the time. For all weeks in the post-WWII period, the S&P 500’s median weekly performance has been just over half of that at a gain of 0.29% with positive returns 56.6% of the time.
Breaking out performance further by how the market was performing YTD heading into the holiday when the S&P 500 was up on the year heading into Easter the median performance during Easter week was a gain of 0.67% with gains 61.7% of the time. That compares to a gain of just 0.20% in years when it was down YTD. Recall that last year, the S&P 500 was down 7.8% heading into Easter and declined 2.8% during Easter week.
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Apr 6, 2023
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“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” – Woodrow Wilson
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It hasn’t been an especially good week for economic data so far with notable weakness in employment-related data. Besides the JOLTS and ADP reports which were weaker than expected, the employment component of the ISM Manufacturing report was the lowest in over two years while the employment component of the Services report declined relative to February and is barely clinging to positive territory. Initial Jobless Claims were also just released and came in at 228K relative to expectations for 200K. Continuing Claims were 1.823 mln versus forecasts for 1.7 mln. Initial Claims were the highest since last December while Continuing Claims were the highest since December 2021 So, you can add more weak employment data to this week’s pile. In reaction to the report, futures saw a modest tick lower but nothing major.
All of these indicators are a sideshow, though. Tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payrolls report will either confirm the weakness we have seen in these indicators or render them irrelevant (for a few days at least). Unfortunately, the equity market will be closed for the main event in observance of Good Friday. Bond markets will be open, and lately, they’ve been more volatile than the stock market anyway, so don’t think there won’t be any fireworks. And if that isn’t enough for you, crypto never sleeps!
Open or closed tomorrow, we’ll be watching to see if another epic streak can continue or come to an end. Monthly Non-Farm Payrolls have come in better than expected for eleven straight months, so a better-than-expected report would make it a full year. Never before has the been a streak that long or for that matter even half as long.
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Apr 5, 2023
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“He was sitting over there, waiting like a possum for something to happen.” – Joe Torre
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Futures are indicating another weaker open this morning after this morning’s weaker-than-expected ADP Private Payrolls report. In what is a big week for employment data, we’re currently 0-2 (weaker than expected JOLTS and ADP) with jobless claims on deck tomorrow and the Non-Farm Payrolls report in the hole on Friday.
September 20th, 1998 seemed like just a normal night in Baltimore. Heading into the last home game of the season, the Orioles were just two games over .500 and out of the post-season with only the Devil Rays separating them from last place. For most fans, the only reason to go to the game was that they were playing the Yankees who were having one of the best regular seasons of all time and on their way to sweeping the Padres in the World Series. Plus, it was a good weather night for baseball with temperatures in the high 60s. What fans heading into Camden Yards that night didn’t know was that they would leave with an unforgettable memory. No, it wasn’t bobblehead night. It was even better as one of the most iconic records in sports came to an end as Cal Ripken pulled himself from the lineup and ended his iron-man streak of 2,632 consecutive games.
Compared to the environment three years earlier when Lou Gehrig’s ‘unbreakable’ streak of 2,130 games that stood for 56 years was broken, there wasn’t much celebration around the end of Ripken’s streak. The Yankees did come out of the dugout to tip their cap to Ripken and the fans gave him a standing ovation and two curtain calls. But while the whole country watched as Ripken broke the streak in 1995, most Americans didn’t find out about the streak ending until the next morning. The Orioles ended up losing 5-4 as ‘El Duque’ notched his 11th win and the 107th for the Yankees.
In the markets yesterday another record streak ended with even less fanfare than Ripken’s, and chances are that even the morning after, you never even knew about it. After yesterday’s weak economic data, the 10-year yield finished the day at 3.34% which was its lowest close since early last September, marking the first time that the 10-year Treasury yield closed at a six-month low since – wait for it – August 2020! That 664-trading day stretch without a six-month closing low in the 10-year yield was the longest streak in the history of the data going back to at least 1962.
Admittedly, this was a much more obscure streak than Gehrig’s ‘unbreakable’ streak that stood in place for 56 years, but this was something that hasn’t been done in at least 61 years. Also, when you think about it, a run in the 10-year yield that kept it from closing at a six-month low for nearly three years definitely had more of a real-world impact on the lives of Americans (and people around the world for that matter) than any streak of Gehrig’s, Ripken’s, or anyone else who follows them.
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Apr 4, 2023
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“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” – Bill Gates
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We’re looking at a modestly positive start to the trading day with overseas markets leading futures higher. The Reserve Bank of Australia announced a pause in its rate hiking cycle, and PPI fell more than expected in the Eurozone, and inflation expectations in the region slowed from 6.2% down to 5.8%.
48 years ago today, a college dropout and a computer programmer in Boston started one of the most successful business stories in US history. The number of millionaires minted from “Micro-Soft’s” founding in 1975 is nowhere near the number of ‘blue screens of death’ and subsequent airborne staplers flying across the room that its software has caused, but when it comes to money printing presses, they don’t get much more efficient than Microsoft (MSFT). With its market cap of just over $2 trillion, Microsoft is now the second-largest company in the US. To put it another way, $10,000 invested in MSFT stock on the day of the IPO would be worth A LOT more today – like, 20 million more.
The chart below shows the rolling 10-year price performance of MSFT stock since 1996 (ten years after the company went public). The early years for the company were a great time to be a stockholder or a Microsoft employee with stock options, but the heady days of gains came to an end in the early 2000s when the US government launched its antitrust suit against the company. After a judge originally ruled that Microsoft violated parts of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the company later won on appeal, and the verdict was overturned. Microsoft may have won in the courtroom, but it was losing in the stock market. The stock’s rolling 10-year returns plummeted throughout the early 2000s and even went negative for the first time in its history during the financial crisis.
Looking just at the last twenty years, the last decade has been another golden era for the stock, in what has been a legendary reinvention of the company. It’s hard enough to lead one major industry trend, but to completely change your business model and do it again is rare indeed. While the chart above makes it look as though returns for the stock have continued to languish in the last ten years, that’s only because of the perspective of the stock’s returns during the 1990s. As late as 2021, the stock’s rolling 10-year return was a gain of over 1,200%. Even after the market turmoil of the last year or so, MSFT stock is still up over 900% in the last ten years which works out to an annualized gain of 25%. Yup 25%! Feel free to run the numbers in Excel yourself or just go over to Bing and ask GPT.
Another lesson of Microsoft’s stock performance over the last several decades is the power of compounding and the fact that sometimes, the best action is no action. An investor frustrated with the stock’s performance in the early 2000s could have easily sold the stock to chase the next best thing. Not only would they have taken a major tax hit on their gains, but by switching, they would have missed out on what has been a stock run unequaled by the vast majority of other publicly traded stocks. That doesn’t mean that you should always stick with an underperforming position, but if you are going to make a move, you want to be as sure as possible that the alternative is a better option.
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Apr 3, 2023
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“Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy.” – Carl Menger
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Equities are poised to open right around the unchanged level this morning as crude oil is surging following news of the OPEC+ production cut over the weekend. Within the market, though, there’s a lot of dispersion as energy stocks are surging while tech stocks have been under pressure on concerns that higher oil prices will push inflation higher and keep the Fed on the warpath to hike rates for longer.
The surprise production cut from OPEC+ over the weekend has both oil prices and oil-related stocks rallying this morning as the S&P 500 Energy sector ETF (XLE) is set to gap up over 4%. As mentioned above, the S&P 500 is treading water after last week’s surge and is poised to open around the unchanged level. While energy stocks are notoriously volatile, this morning is set to be just the ninth time since 2000 that XLE has gapped up at least 3% even as the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) gapped down or up less than 0.5%.
The first chart below shows the performance of SPY over the last ten years (a period that covers all the occurrences mentioned above) with the red dots indicating each of the days that XLE gapped up 3%+ while the S&P 500 was basically flat or down at the open. More than half of these occurrences (5) occurred in a three-month span from April to June 2020 with another occurrence last February and the other two occurrences back in 2019 and 2016. While the most recent occurrence was followed by weakness, the S&P 500 rallied immediately following the prior occurrences.
Below we show a similar chart for the Energy sector. Here, forward returns were more mixed. The most positive period was after the most recent occurrence, but forward returns following each of the pre-COVID occurrences were weaker.
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Mar 31, 2023
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“Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.” – Donald Trump
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A bunch of economic data just hit the tape and it was generally better than expected. Personal Income was slightly better than expected (0.3% vs 0.2%) while Personal Spending was a little weaker (0.3% vs 0.2%). On the inflation front, Core PCE came in lower than expected on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. The m/m reading came in at 0.3% versus forecasts for an increase of 0.4% while the y/y reading was also a tenth lower than expected at 4.6%. In response, futures, which were already higher, added a little bit to their gains.
What an interesting quarter it’s been for the stock market. While the S&P 500 is up 5.5%, the Russell 2000 is barely hanging on to gains, and the Dow is actually slightly lower. These all pale in comparison to the Nasdaq which is up 14.8% and the Nasdaq 100 which is up an unbelievable 18.5%. If these gains hold through the end of today, Q1 will go down as the best quarter for the Nasdaq 100 since Q2 2020, and it will mark the 21st quarter in the Nasdaq 100’s history (since 1985) that the index was up at least 15%.
Of the 20 prior quarters where the Nasdaq 100 was up 15%+, its median performance in the following quarter was a gain of 6.1% with positive returns 65% of the time. That compares to an average gain of 4.0% with positive returns 68.4% of the time in all quarters since 1985. When the 15%+ gain occurred in Q1, however, forward returns weren’t as positive. In those six quarters, the median performance in Q2 was a decline of 1.2% with gains just half of the time while the median rest of year gain was 7.5% also with positive returns half of the time. Before reading too much into these numbers, though, we would caution that returns were all over the map. In terms of the rest of year performance, 97 percentage points separate the best (50.4% in 1998) and worst performances (-46.8% in 2000).
Looking at the Nasdaq 100 ETF’s (QQQ) price chart shows an interesting picture depending on your perspective. In the short run, QQQ broke above resistance this week and traded to its highest level since Powell’s Jackson Hole speech in late August. It has also carved out what technicians would describe as a bullish cup and handle formation.
Longer-term, QQQ’s rally has taken it to levels that once acted as support back in the first half of 2021 and Q1 2022. Since that Q1 2022 period there have only been a handful of days that QQQ traded above these levels, and two other times it attempted to make a break of that level it immediately pulled back.
Our Morning Lineup keeps readers on top of earnings data, economic news, global headlines, and market internals. We’re biased (of course!), but we think it’s the best and most helpful pre-market report in existence!
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