Dec 2, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“Well, I don’t have any greater insight than anybody else.” – Jensen Huang
Hangover on a Wednesday? Well, there is football today, so anything is possible! After a great start to the month yesterday, futures are indicated lower this morning as concerns over a stalemate on any agreement related to a stimulus/spending bill weigh on sentiment. ADP Private Payrolls for November was just released and came in weaker than expected. While economists were forecasting an increase of 440K jobs, the actual reading came in more than 100K weaker at 307K. That’s a pretty big miss, but there has been little reaction in the futures market on the premise that ADP has been consistently weaker than expected over the last few months.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for updates on the latest market news and events, Eurozone auto sales, an update on the latest national and international COVID trends, and much more.
Equities have continued to do well lately, but semis have been an area of notable strength. While the S&P 500 has rallied nearly 1% in the last three trading days, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) has rallied over 1% on each of the last three trading days for a total gain of over 4%. Semis are considered one of the more cyclical sectors of the market, so their recent strength is a good sign.
Dec 1, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.“ – Jeff Bezos
Futures are picking up in December right where they left off November as the S&P 500 is indicated to open up just about 1%. Besides just the near-constant bid to the market these days, other factors behind today’s move include a rally in European equities and generally positive economic data out of Asia and Europe.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for updates on the latest market news and events, economic data out of Asia and Europe, an update on the latest national and international COVID trends, and much more.
With a gain of 10.75%, the S&P 500 just had its best November since 1928 when the index rose 11.99%. But while it was the best November in more than 90 years, it wasn’t even the best month of 2020 as April’s 12.68% gain still holds that lead.
As we noted at the start of the month, November has historically been a good month from a seasonal perspective. The same is true for December as shown in our monthly seasonality snapshot below. Over the last 100 years, the Dow has averaged a gain of 1.43% with positive returns 73% of the time. Over the last 50 years, the Dow has averaged a gain of 1.51% with positive returns 70% of the time. And over the last 20 years, the Dow has averaged a gain of 0.84% with positive returns 65% of the time.
Nov 30, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” – Albert Einstein
There’s just one day and a month left in 2020, so hang on! Based on current levels in the futures market, equities are poised to close out a very strong month on a down note, but bulls are just fine with that. The pace of economic data picks up this morning with Chicago PMI, Pending Home Sales, and the Dallas Fed.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for updates on the latest market news and events, surging copper prices, economic data out of Asia, an update on the latest national and international COVID trends, and much more.
Just like the US equity market, international equities have also had a strong run lately, and from the perspective of US investors, the gains have been even more impressive after you factor in the weakness of the US dollar. Below we show a snapshot of major international regional ETFs from our Trend Analyzer tool. Over the last week, each of the ETFs in the snapshot has seen gains of at least 1.5%. Like the US market, where the largest gains recently have come from some of the areas of the market that had previously been the most beaten down, the biggest gains from an international perspective have been in some of the ETFs that could be considered lower quality, as in those with more emerging market exposure.
While international markets have seen large gains recently, they are also trading at overbought levels. All of the ETFs listed below finished off last week at least 5% above their 50-DMAs, and many are even at ‘extreme’ overbought levels resulting in ‘poor’ timing scores. In other words, they may be due for a bit of a breather to work off these overbought conditions.
Nov 27, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“I love to talk about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about.” – Oscar Wilde
Is this thing on? Just in case there’s anyone out there this morning, US equity futures are trading modestly higher this morning as trading resumes for three and a half hours before the weekend. Newsflow in US markets is incredibly quiet this morning with nothing in the way of economic data or earnings reports and very little in the way of analyst actions or corporate headlines to speak of.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for updates on the latest market news and events, economic data out of Europe, an update on the latest national and international COVID trends, and much more.
Of all the financial assets in the world, one that never sleeps is bitcoin. And while you were enjoying your turkey yesterday, bitcoin was getting pummeled with prices declining just under 10%. Even after that large of a drop, though, bitcoin currently trades where it was in mid-November and still remains well above its 200-DMA and above the up-trending channel it broke out of at the start of November. Would you believe that even after yesterday’s takedown, bitcoin prices are still up over 20% MTD?
Declines of yesterday’s magnitude aren’t particularly out of the ordinary throughout bitcoin’s history. This year alone, there have been two other one-day declines of a larger magnitude, and since the start of 2017, there have been 24 larger one-day drops.
Nov 25, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” – Henry David Thoreau
The market isn’t in much of a good or bad mood this morning as futures are indicated modestly lower. The earnings news we did get overnight was generally positive, and there’s an avalanche of economic data jammed into today ahead of what will be a long holiday weekend for many.
This Thanksgiving isn’t going to be a typical one for most people, but there’s still a lot to be thankful for, so we hope you have a good day regardless. Happy Thanksgiving!
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for updates on the latest market news and events, economic data out of Asia, an update on the latest national and international COVID trends, and much more.
The holiday season is generally considered a great time of year for equities, but very short-term returns for the market based on seasonality haven’t been particularly strong. As shown in the snapshot from our Seasonality Tool, the S&P 500’s median historical return over the last ten years in the upcoming one-week period has been a gain of 0.24% which is right in the middle of the road compared to all other one-week periods throughout the year. One month later, median returns improve considerably to 1.99% which ranks in the 75th percentile relative to prior periods. Three month returns, however, have been very strong. The S&P 500’s median return of 6.30% in the three month period from today’s close ranks in the 98th percentile of all three-month periods throughout the year.
Nov 24, 2020
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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus
In yesterday’s Chart of the Day (“Monday Night is Bull Time“), we noted that when you look at historical market returns based on after-hours and regular hours performance and then further break down those returns by the day of the week, the best time to be long the market has historically been from the close on Monday to the open on Tuesday. There’s still an hour left until the opening bell, but based on where futures are trading this morning, that strategy appears to have worked last night.
The catalyst for this morning’s move in futures is news that while he has yet to concede, the President instructed GSA to allow for the beginning of the transition process. Global equities around the world have also been rallying with a general risk-on sentiment, and in Germany, Q3 GDP showed a stronger than expected bounce from Q2’s plunge. On a side note, Germany’s benchmark DAX index will also be expanded from 30 to 40 companies.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, the Nikkei’s surge to multi-decade highs, European economic data, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
Also, we had a segment on CNBC earlier this morning discussing the market’s current backdrop and what to expect going forward. Give it a watch (CNBC Interview – 11/24/20) if you have the time.
With COVID cases surging throughout the country, it has been surprising for traders and investors to see the stocks that originally benefitted the most from COVID basically flatlining after their surge from the March lows through late Summer. The chart below shows the performance of our “Stocks For the COVID Economy” basket since the start of March. The basket’s performance has basically been moving sideways for the last three months after its late Spring/Summer surge.
On a relative strength basis versus the S&P 500, COVID stocks steadily outperformed the S&P 500 right up until October, but just as case counts surged, the COVID stocks fell off a cliff relative to the S&P 500 (chart below). The assumption here was that despite the third wave, investors were looking past the bad news (in the present) and forward to the Spring when case counts would likely decline and vaccines would be rolling out. Ironically, though, Pfizer’s (PFE) vaccine announcement on 11/9 represented what has been a short-term low for the relative strength of the COVID stocks versus the S&P 500. In fact, since the close on 11/9 (a day when the COVID stocks underperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin), the S&P 500 is up less than 1% while the average return of the COVID stocks is a gain of 4.6%. Just as with a lot of other areas of life, things are not always as they seem.
