Sep 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.
“For September so far this year the spending by $BAC customers both on debit and credit cards is up–spending overall is up.” – Brian Moynihan, CEO Bank of America
Futures have been modestly lower for most of the morning, but we have a busy day of Fed speakers on the schedule, and jobless claims were just released. Both reports came in higher than expected. Initial claims came in at 870K versus expectations of 840K while continuing claims were more than 300K above consensus forecasts (12.58 million versus 12.275 million). The only other economic data on the calendar is New Home Sales at 10 AM (estimate – 890K) and KC Fed Manufacturing (estimate – 14).
While the labor market appears to be slowing, or even weakening a bit, it was somewhat encouraging to hear Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan say in an interview on CNBC this morning that both spending and checking account balances in its customer accounts is higher this September than it was last September.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, economic data in Europe, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
Yesterday was a lousy day for bulls capping off what has been a lousy month. It could be worse. It has now been three weeks (14 trading days) since the S&P 500’s high on September 2nd, and during that span, the index has declined nearly 9.6%, which is just shy of the technical definition of a correction.
Now, rewind six months. Half a year ago this morning, we were all coming in to our desks (or more accurately, at our kitchen counters, a corner of the bedroom, or maybe down at a table in the basement) and looking at a market that had just lost more than a quarter of its value in the same span (14 trading days). By just about all accounts, things were looking bleak. In the six months that followed, though, the S&P 500 has rallied more than 40% in what, even after the declines of the last three weeks, has been one of the strongest six-month rallies in the history of the stock market.
In a B.I.G. Tips report yesterday, we looked at prior periods where the S&P 500 saw similar moves over a six-month stretch to see how the S&P 500 performed going forward. If you haven’t already, make sure to read it over.
Sep 23, 2020
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“Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.” – Warren Buffett
It’s not often anymore that you can say the Congress passed a bill on a bipartisan basis, but that’s what happened last night as the House passed a spending bill to keep the government open through December 11th. The way things are going, one couldn’t be faulted for asking if we’d all be better off if they did close, but we already have enough to debate.
US futures are mixed this morning as the DJIA futures lead the way on the back of Nike’s (NKE) strong earnings report after the close last night. With the stock up over 15% in the pre-market, NKE is on pace for its most positive reaction to earnings in at least 20 years. While DJIA futures trade higher, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to open flat to slightly lower.
Over in Europe, equities have reacted positively to some stronger than expected flash manufacturing PMIs in the region. However, while the manufacturing sector shows strength, the flash PMIs for the services sector generally missed expectations. Looking ahead to today, US flash PMIs for both the Manufacturing and Services sectors will be released at 9:45 eastern, and there’s a heavy dose of Fedspeak kicking off at 9 AM and going on through the entire day.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
While growth has been the overall leader YTD, we’re starting to see an epic tug of war between growth and value investors. After a record eleven straight months of the Russell 1000 Growth index outperforming the Russell 1000 Value index, through last Friday, the value index was outperforming growth in September by the widest margin since March 2001. Just when it looked like value investors were going to go on a run, though, growth has come roaring back this week. Over the last two days, the Russell 1000 Growth index is outperforming Value by over 3.6 percentage points. So far this year, there have only been two other periods with a wider performance spread over a two-day period, and before this year the last time there was a wider spread was in October 2008.
The chart below shows the rolling two-day performance spread between the Russell 1000 Value and Growth indices. Since 1995, there have been three distinct periods where the performance spread widened out to extreme levels – the late 1990s/early 2000s, the Financial Crisis, and now.
Sep 22, 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.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
All eyes will be on Powell and Mnuchin this morning as they testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee today regarding the CARES Act. We’ll also get Existing Home Sales for August at 10 AM. Futures are trying to stabilize after yesterday’s decline, but the foundation for any rally today has so far been on shaky ground. Finally, in the UK PM Boris Johnson is calling for increased restrictions to help ward off a building second wave of the COVID outbreak in that country.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, discussion of the political ramifications of the upcoming SCOTUS fight, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
In yesterday’s Chart of the Day, we took a look at historical bear markets for Apple (AAPL) in the post-iPod era, including a look at the typical length and magnitude of decline for the stock during other periods when it dropped 20% or more. Yesterday, the stock had a bit of a respite from the selling as it bounced right at the support of its uptrend off the March lows. The bounceback in Apple helped to stabilize the entire market and technology specifically, but it wasn’t quite able to move back above its 50-DMA so that technical level will loom on the stock today.
Sep 21, 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 want to put a ding in the universe.” – Steve Jobs
2020 has put more than a ding into the universe, and just when you thought things can’t get any more complicated, the world received news Friday night regarding the death of the iconic Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. From a purely political perspective, what already promised to be one of if not the craziest, and most politically charged election cycles of our lifetimes only heated up more. Add to that a resurgence of the COVID outbreak in Europe, and it’s looking like another typical September week of declines.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, discussion of the political ramifications of the upcoming SCOTUS fight, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
The S&P 500 is poised to open down about 1.5% this morning, and below we have summarized the typical performance of SPY from the open to close following downside gaps of 1% or more. On the 64 days since 1994, that these downside gaps have occurred on a Monday, SPY’s median performance from the opening to closing bell has been a gain of 0.02% with positive returns half of the time. In other words, it’s basically a coinflip.
Sep 18, 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.
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” – John Naisbitt
After two days of declines, US futures are trying their best to close off the week on a positive note and break a two-week streak of multi-percentage point declines for the major indices. Even a modest loss today would still put equities in the black for the week, but it’s never fun to head into the weekend on a down note.
The economic calendar is relatively light today with Leading Indicators and Michigan Sentiment both coming out at 10 AM. We’ll also hear from Fed Presidents Bullard and Bostic before noon.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
After eleven straight months where large-cap growth stocks have outperformed, value stocks have held up considerably well this month. While the Russell 1000 Growth index is down over 7% MTD through Thursday, the Value index is holding up much better with a decline of less than one percent. The performance cap of 6.6 percentage points for Value relative to Growth is currently wider than any other month since March 2001! Needless to say, unless things change drastically between now and month-end, Value will finally break its streak of underperformance.
Sep 17, 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.
“The person who turns over the most rocks wins the game.” – Peter Lynch
Futures are picking up right where they left off yesterday with downside momentum, although they’re modestly up from their overnight lows. It’s been a busy day for economic data already with Jobless Claims and the Philly Fed coming in roughly in line with consensus forecasts, Continuing Claims better than expected, but Housing Starts and Building Permits both weaker than expected.
Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, updates on Asian and European economic data, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
Was yesterday an up or down day for the US equity market? With the S&P 500 finishing the day down 0.46% and the Nasdaq down over 1%, it was obviously lower, but the internals of the market were actually positive. The S&P 500’s A/D line was +128 which was actually an improvement from the prior day where the S&P 500 was actually up over 0.5%. Additionally, the S&P 500 equal-weighted index also finished the day higher by more than 0.6%. In fact, as the chart below from page two of our Morning Lineup illustrates, even though the S&P 500 was down moderately on the day, the percentage of overbought stocks actually increased while the percentage of oversold stocks declined.
