Apr 23, 2026
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“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late” – William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Paul Hickey appeared on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street yesterday to discuss energy, midterms, and the markets. To view the segment, click on the image below
Equity futures traded sharply lower overnight on concerns of renewed military action in the Middle East. Since then, the negative sentiment has receded on reports out of China that the US and Iran will return to the bargaining table, and futures are well off their lows. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are now flat, while the Dow, being dragged lower by a decline in IBM, is indicated to open down 0.35%.
Treasury yields are marginally higher this morning, with the 10-year yield ticking above 4.30%, while crude oil is now lower after trading much higher overnight. Gold prices are fractionally lower, and Bitcoin is still down 1.5% at just under $78K.
Asian stocks were mostly lower overnight, with South Korea the standout gainer among a sea of red. Higher oil prices were the primary driver of the weakness. In terms of economic data, though, flash PMI readings for April in Japan, India, and Australia came in higher than expected. European stocks are also trading tentatively this morning as the STOXX 600 trades down 0.3%, with France the only gainer. Like Asia, the flash PMI reading for the Eurozone Manufacturing also unexpectedly showed an acceleration.
Besides the pickup in earnings flow, the economic calendar is busy this morning with jobless claims at 8:30, flash PMI readings at 9:45, and then the KC Manufacturing report at 11 AM. On the sentiment front, if should come as no surprise that AAII’s weekly survey saw a big uptick in bullish sentiment, rising from 31.7% up to 46.0%, which isn’t far from the 52-week high of 49.5% in January.
Semis and software have generally moved in opposite directions this year, but over the last several days, both have moved higher. Semis extended their streak of daily gains to a record 15 trading days yesterday, and the streak in software stocks has been half as long. As shown in the chart below, the iShares Expanded Tech Software Sector ETF (IGV) has traded higher for eight straight days, making it tied for the longest daily winning streak since late 2019. With the ETF trading down close to 3% this morning, though, we wouldn’t bet on the streak extending to a ninth day.
The chart below shows a long-term look at IGV’s performance, with red dots showing every prior eight-day streak. Only once, in the summer of 2011, did one of these streaks coincide with a notable peak in the sector, as the majority occurred within various stages of longer-term uptrends. This current streak has been somewhat unique in that IGV is trading so close to a low.
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Apr 22, 2026
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“When you sell your great companies and add to the losers, it’s like watering the weeds and cutting the flowers.” – Peter Lynch
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Make sure to check out Paul Hickey on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street today at 10:30 Eastern.
It looks like a two-day losing streak was all the Nasdaq needed to recharge from the impressive 13-day streak the index ripped off from the March lows. Following news that President Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran, Nasdaq futures point 0.75% higher while the S&P 500 looks to gap up 0.60% at the open. Treasury yields are lower, with the 10-year hovering near 4.27%, while crude oil and gold rally by 0.50% to 1.0%. The star of the show this morning is Bitcoin, which is up over 4% and trading back above $78K, the highest level since early February.
In Asia, it was a mixed session overnight with the Nikkei up 0.4% and the Kospi adding 0.5%. Hong Kong and India, however, both finished down over 1%. European stocks aren’t looking as positive. The STOXX 600 is slightly lower, with Spain leading the losses, declining 0.5%. In both regions, the key driver of the moves has been Iran and its impact on energy prices.
Here in the US, it will be a quiet session for economic data, but the pace of earnings continues to pick up steam. Some of the more notable reports since the close yesterday include Boeing (BA), Capital One (COF), GE (GE), and United (UAL), and after the close, IBM, Tesla (TSLA), Texas Instruments (TXN), and United Rentals (URI) will be the headliners.
The fact that equity futures and crude oil are trading higher this morning is uncommon relative to recent history, especially since the war started. Over the last 50 trading days, the crude oil ETF (USO) and the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) have traded in the opposite direction (up or down) 37 times (74%). Since the ETF launched in 2006, this is right near the record high of 76%, reached less than two weeks ago on April 9th. Before this current period, the last time the correlation between the two ETFs was at comparable levels was in the summer of 2008, during the early stages of the financial crisis.
Shifting from crude oil, the fuel of the physical economy, to the fuel of the digital economy, semiconductors continued to roll yesterday as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) traded higher for the 15th straight day, tying the record from June 2014. Besides these two periods, there have only been three other periods where the SOX even had a ten-day winning streak.
Below we show a long-term chart of the SOX showing when the prior 15-day winning streak occurred with a red dot. That streak capped off a longer run of gains for the index, and while it continued to rally, the pace of the ascent started to slow. From a longer-term perspective, though, it’s amazing to think that in the 12 years since that streak, the SOX has doubled and then doubled again and then doubled again and doubled once more for a total gain of 1,500%. Not bad for 12 years!
What’s just as impressive as the SOX’s 15-day winning streak is the 34% rally it has experienced during that span. That’s the largest 15-day gain for the index since October 2002, coming out of the dot-com lows. As shown in the chart, these types of moves were somewhat more common during the late 1990s and early 2000s, but have been very uncommon since.
Again, looking at these occurrences on a long-term chart of the SOX shows that most were exclusive to the period after the 1998 Russian Debt Crisis through the lows of the dot-com crash. Since then, the only two others were coming out of Covid and the tariff-tantrum. What has also been uncommon is for these moves to cap off rallies to all-time highs. That only occurred in late 1999 and early 2000. Gulp.
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Apr 21, 2026
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“Success flourishes only in perseverance — ceaseless, restless perseverance.” – Baron Manfred von Richthofen
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 Nasdaq may have broken its 13-day winning streak yesterday, but it’s looking to start a new one this morning. Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both up nearly 0.5%, while the Dow, powered by a 7% rally in UnitedHealth Group (UNH), has that index on pace to gap up 0.65% at the open. Treasury yields are slightly higher, with the 10-year yield just under 4.26%, while crude oil is fractionally lower at just under $90 per barrel. All in all, it’s been a quiet overnight session as markets await the outcome of the latest on-again, off-again peace talks between the US and Iran. President Trump will also be interviewed on CNBC at 8:30, so investors will be focused on that for any potential headlines. Will he be talking about Iran, Kevin Warsh, or maybe even “Tim Apple’s” retirement?
In international markets overnight, Asian stocks were higher across the board, with South Korea surging 2.7% to a new record high and erasing all its 20%+ decline from late in the first quarter. European stocks are also trading with a positive bias, with the STOXX 600 0.2% higher, led by Germany and Spain, which are up 0.5%.
On the US economic calendar this morning, we’ll get Retail Sales at 8:30, and then Business Inventories and Pending Home Sales at 10 AM. The earnings calendar will also continue to pick up after the close with Capital One (COF), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), and United Airlines (UAL) all on the calendar.
One of the world’s largest companies marked the end of an era last night when Apple (AAPL) announced that CEO Tim Cook would retire effective September 1st, just over 15 years after taking the helm in August 2011. During Cook’s tenure, AAPL’s stock rallied more than 1,900%, which works out to an annualized gain of 22.8%, or nearly 10 percentage points more than the 13.0% gain for the S&P 500!
As incredible as the stock’s performance has been, it ranks only 38th among current members of the index. Among the current group of trillion-dollar stocks, AAPL trails Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Broadcom (AVGO), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA) but is ahead of Microsoft (MSFT), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/b), and Walmart (WMT). Meta (META) wasn’t even public when Cook took over as CEO, as its IPO wouldn’t be for another eight to nine months in May 2012.
The table below lists the 20 top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 since Cook took the helm at AAPL. NVDA’s 61K% gain is more than double the next closest stock (TSLA) and more than 30 times the gain of AAPL! There are three other stocks – Comfort Systems (FIX), AVGO, and Monolithic Power (MPWR) that have rallied more than 10,000%. While most have become household names, not all have. If you asked the average person to comment on the names listed below, many would probably see names like Comfort Systems (FIX) or Monolithic Power (MPWR) and ask why a mattrass company and utility are on the list, not knowing that the companies provide essential cooling (FIX) and power management systems (MPWR) for the data centers that power AI.
A look at AAPL’s performance under Cook shows what, in retrospect, looks like a steady uptrend with higher highs and higher lows, although there have been plenty of times along the way where the road ahead looked very uncertain. When Cook took the helm, AAPL was trading at a split-adjusted $13 per share. Yesterday, it closed just above $273, off nearly 5% from its all-time high of $286.19.
As steady as the rally in AAPL looks, the stock has seen a major shift in at least one respect over the last five years. For more than a decade, from the launch of the iPod through the launch of the iPhone, right up until Covid, AAPL was a steady alpha generator versus the market. A look at its relative strength versus the S&P 500, though, shows a sideways pattern that has been in place for more than five years. Will the new CEO “Ternus” around?
Looking at AAPL’s performance on a short-term basis shows the stock at an important juncture. After trading in a steady downtrend since its high late last year, AAPL tested that downtrend line over the last couple of days and appears to be stalling. While the stock successfully tested its 200-DMA in March and reclaimed its 50-DMA, the next step on the road to new highs and a potential return to outperformance will be a rally above $275.
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Apr 20, 2026
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“If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” – John A. Simone Sr.
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After a big rally on Friday on homes that the Iran war was ending, futures are lower to start the week as uncertainty over the progress of the war rekindles itself. The damage isn’t nearly as bad as it was earlier, though, as both S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are down less than 0.5%. Treasury yields are only slightly higher, and while crude is trading up close to 6%, WTI is still below $89 per barrel. Gold prices are down 1%, and Bitcoin is surprisingly higher as it holds above $75K. In the short term at least, the market has taken a two steps forward, one step back mentality.
Despite the weakness in US futures, Asia had a positive session as it played catch-up to Friday’s rally. The Nikkei rallied 0.6% while South Korea added 0.4%. Europe, however, was still open on Friday when the positive news regarding the Strait came out, so this morning, the STOXX 600 is down over 1.1% with Italy and Germany leading the way lower (-1.4%).
The economic calendar is light in the US today, and there isn’t even a lot in the way of earnings reports for investors to digest, but that will change as the week goes on as we head into the peak of earnings season.
Equities are on pace to start the week lower, but keep in mind how fast it’s recovered. The snapshot below shows where US index ETFs closed out last week relative to their trading ranges compared to where they were as of the close three weeks ago today. As of Friday, every US index ETF in our screen finished off last week at either overbought (1+ standard deviations above the 50-DMA) or extreme overbought (2+ standard deviations above) levels. Three weeks ago, all but one of them were at extreme overbought levels. We’ve come a long way, so some short-term digestion of the moves is only natural.
While major US indices closed out the week at record highs last Friday, the same can’t be said for stocks on an international basis. The chart below shows the performance of the SPDR MSCI ACWI Ex US ETF (CWI) over the last year. The sell-off because of the Iran war took the ETF right down to a successful retest of its 200-day moving average, and like the US, the rebound was faster than the decline. Unlike US equities, though, CWI’s rally on Friday stalled out just shy of the all-time highs from late February.
It’s well known by now that the US economy is much more insulated from the issues in the Middle East than the rest of the world, and the chart below illustrates that. On a relative strength basis, international equities bottomed shortly after the 2024 election and reached a short-term peak around Liberation Day last April. Towards the end of last year, as tariff concerns fell off the front page, international stocks started rallying again, hitting a multi-year high right at the end of February.
The start of the war abruptly derailed that outperformance, and while international stocks rebounded in late March into early April, they started to rollover again last week, and look poised ot continue that underperformance today. That weakness was somewhat surprising given it came as tensions in the Persian Gulf started to ease, but if there’s one thing we can all be certain of, the market is always full of surprises.
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Apr 17, 2026
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“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall.” — Lord Varys, Game of Thrones
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As if a 12-day rally wasn’t enough for bulls, Nasdaq futures are indicated higher again this morning, putting the index on pace for its 13th day in a row of gains. Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are on pace to rally 0.40% while futures on the Dow, which has underperformed recently, indicate a 0.54% gain at the open. The 10-year yield is slightly lower and holding below 4.3% while crude oil flirts with $90 to the downside, falling more than 4%. Gold prices are modestly higher with a gain of 0.34%, while Bitcoin rallies nearly 1% to its highest level since early February.
For much of this year, investors had to put up with weakness heading into the weekend, given all the uncertainty surrounding the war. For the last two weeks, though, investors haven’t been able to resist adding exposure heading into a 48-hour break.
International markets have been more mixed to close out the week, but are still higher for the week. The Nikkei fell 1.8% overnight while Hong Kong, China, and South Korea were all down less than 1%. In Europe, the STOXX 600 is marginally gaining 0.1%, with Italy leading the way (+0.6%) while the UK lags (-0.4%).
Just over two weeks ago, on March 30, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at their lowest levels since the summer, the Iran war was ongoing, and while Iran’s capabilities were severely damaged, the New York Times warned of a quagmire, saying that “Wounded Iran Is Still Biting: Attacks May Be Fewer But Have Deadly Effect”. Besides all that, it was a Monday too!
At the time, very few probably anticipated what was in store next for the market. Since that low, the Nasdaq hasn’t closed lower on a single day, and the S&P 500 has rallied in eleven of the last 12 days for a total gain of 11.0%. At the sector level, the rally hasn’t been especially broad, and gains have been concentrated in Technology and Communication Services, which both have surged more than 18%. The only sector that has outperformed the S&P 500 since that low is Consumer Discretionary (+13.6%).
To the downside, Energy has been the main loser with a decline of 9.0%, and the only other sector in the red has been Consumer Staples (-0.8%). As we noted earlier in the week, Consumer Staples is the only sector in the S&P 500 that declined both in the first month of the war from 2/27 to 3/30 and since the 3/30 low.
Technology has been the clear leader over the last 12 trading days, and relative to its own history, it’s been an impressive streak. The current streak for the sector is tied with the period ending 2/26/19 for the longest since February 2017. That 15-day winning streak was also the longest in the sector’s history since 1990.
Not only has the sector’s winning streak been among the sector’s best, but the 18.4% rally over the last 12 trading days has been among the strongest since 1990 as well. You have to go back to April 2020, coming out of Covid to find a bigger 12-day rally (+20.9%), and before that, the only larger 12-day gain was in March 2009 coming out of the Financial Crisis. To be sure, not all big 12-day gains for the Technology sector were followed by gains going forward, but the sector’s median gain over the following six and twelve months was 13.8% and 28.1%, respectively.
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Apr 16, 2026
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“Our conviction in the multi-year AI megatrend remains high and we believe the demand for semiconductors will continue to be very fundamental.” – C.C. Wei, President and CEO, Taiwan Semiconductor
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Before getting to this morning’s note, last night we updated our Bespoke Baskets, where we made two changes to the Growth basket and no changes to the Dividend Income basket. You can view the full update here.
Also, be sure to watch our discussion on markets with Brian Sullivan in a CNBC appearance yesterday.
Futures are indicated higher again this morning as the S&P 500 looks to add to its record highs from yesterday, in what has been one of the most rapid turnarounds in market history. Treasury yields are also lower, while crude oil is just fractionally higher. Both gold and Bitcoin have also shown very modest moves in either direction.
In Asia overnight, most major benchmarks were higher, with the Nikkei up over 2% and China up roughly 1%. In Europe, we’re also seeing gains with the STOXX 600 up 0.4%.
The pace of earnings continues to pick up, but this morning’s focus has been on economic data, and the news was good as both jobless claims and the Philly Fed Manufacturing report exceeded expectations. Lastly, in Fedpseak, NY Fed President John Williams is speaking right now, and he commented that “the No. 1 topic related to the economy is the Middle East conflict, which has introduced substantial risks and heightened uncertainty”.
Since it’s not a US company, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) doesn’t get a lot of attention in US stock market coverage, which is a mistake. With a market cap of just under $2 trillion, it’s one of the ten largest publicly traded companies in the world. TSM is the linchpin of the global semiconductor supply chain and the global digital economy for that matter. As much as the Iran war has disrupted energy supplies and threatened to derail the global economy, in a scenario where semiconductor supplies from TSM were cut off for an extended period, it would be an economic calamity.
Thankfully, that’s not the case. Overnight, TSM reported better-than-expected EPS and sales and raised guidance. As highlighted in the quote above, the company sees no signs of a slowdown in demand. Revenues rose 40.6% y/y on incredible gross margins of 66.2%.
TSM’s results for Q1 were nothing new and continued a trend of strong results since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. In the 14 quarters since that launch, the company has reported better-than-expected EPS results 13 times, exceeded sales results nine times, and raised guidance nine times. As shown in the table below, while results relative to expectations were shaky early on in the bull market, more recent results have been consistently strong, with six triple plays in its last seven reports.
Despite the strong results overnight, shares of TSM are trading modestly lower in the pre-market and failed to make a new high in yesterday’s trading, even as the broader market and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) specifically hit new highs yesterday. That’s not to say that the stock hasn’t been a strong performer, though, more than doubling in the last twelve months.
TSM is the second-largest stock in the SOX on a market cap basis, trailing Nvidia (NVDA) by a wide margin. Like TSM, though, NVDA also didn’t join the SOX or the S&P 500 in hitting a new high yesterday. The fact that the SOX has managed to make new highs without the participation of its two largest members illustrates how broad the underlying strength in the sector has been.
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