May 13, 2025
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 trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your trial.
“Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.” – John D. Rockefeller
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 S&P 500 rose 3.26% to start the week, which was its biggest Monday gain since April 6th, 2020 when the index rose 7.0% on weekend headlines that the rate of COVID infections was slowing and lockdowns might start to ease.
Yesterday’s rally was driven by an agreement between the US and China to pause steep reciprocal tariffs of 100%+ for at least the next 90 days. The best performing stocks yesterday were names that got hit the hardest during the post-“Liberation Day” crash from April 2nd to April 8th. The worst were the ones that held up best during the Trump-tariff crash. You can see this in the chart below that breaks the S&P into deciles (10 groups of 50 stocks each) based on performance from 4/2 to 4/8. The bars show the average performance yesterday of the stocks in each decile. The three deciles of stocks that did the worst during the tariff crash from 4/2 to 4/8 saw average gains of more than 5% yesterday. The 50 stocks that held up the best from 4/2 to 4/8 actually fell an average of 0.95% yesterday. This clearly highlights yesterday’s rotation out of tariff resistant names into tariff exposed names.
It has taken a gain of more than 17% off the lows for the S&P 500 to finally tick back up into overbought territory:
May 12, 2025
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“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” – Cormac McCarthy
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
US equity futures are up 3% pre-market on news that the US and China would be pausing tariffs for 90 days after meetings between the two in Geneva over the weekend.
As shown below, SPY is set to open above its March highs and back in positive territory since Election Day last November.
Stocks most dependent on China for cheap imports are soaring this morning. Below is a look at the pre-market moves for stocks in some of the “tariff losers” baskets we’ve highlighted in the last five weeks. Wayfair (W) is up the most at 16.2%, followed by RH (+15.6%) and elf Beauty (+10.2%). Best Buy (BBY), Yeti (YETI) and SharkNinja (SN) are all up 8%+ as well.
May 9, 2025
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“If it’s in the papers, it’s in the price.” – Bill Miller
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Yesterday was the last big day for earnings season with roughly 200 companies posting Q1 numbers. For the next couple of weeks until Walmart (WMT) and NVIDIA (NVDA) wrap things up, we’ll see fewer than 30-40 reports per day.
While we saw a large percentage of companies cutting or pulling guidance in the early weeks of this earnings season in mid-April, things have taken a much more positive turn this month. The big uptick in positive guidance that we’ve seen so far in May has been enough to flip the guidance spread (% of companies raising minus lowering guidance) positive for the full earnings season. Of the 1,551 companies that have reported since the season began on April 10th, 6% have raised guidance versus 5% that have lowered. At the same time, 70% of companies have beaten consensus analyst EPS estimates, while 64% have beaten sales estimates. Q1 has basically been an average to slightly better-than-average earnings season during a period where market volatility and “uncertainty” raged due to President Trump’s tariff policy. In terms of share-price reactions, the average stock that has reported has averaged a one-day gain of 0.34% in reaction to the news. That’s very positive relative to history as well.
May 8, 2025
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“Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.” – Florence Nightingale
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
US equity futures are up roughly 1% ahead of today’s open after President Trump announced that a trade deal between the US and UK would be announced shortly. Along with the tariff news, yesterday the market managed to not trade lower after Fed Chair Powell’s press conference as it normally does.
We’ve gotten a huge number of earnings reports this week as well, and the results have been largely positive. So far in May, we’ve seen a positive reversal in guidance trends. In April, we were seeing many more companies lowering guidance than raising guidance, but that has flipped this month. Of the nearly 800 companies that have reported month-to-date, 69 have raised guidance compared to just 45 that have lowered guidance. You don’t expect to see such positivity when there’s such an “extremely elevated level of uncertainty” as Fed Chair Powell described in his FOMC comments yesterday.
Based on where it’s trading in the pre-market, the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is set to test last week’s highs when it opens this morning.
May 7, 2025
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“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.” – Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
While European markets are trading lower, equity futures in the US are higher by about 50 basis points this morning on positive trade talks with China.
As shown below, this week’s declines have yet to do much technical damage, but we’ll likely need a positive close today for the S&P to remain above its 50-day moving average. Right now, price is sitting in between the 50-DMA (below) and the 200-DMA (above), and the next stop on the upside will be a re-taking of the 200-DMA.
Weakness in the final hours of the trading day on Fed Days has been a hallmark of Powell’s tenure as Fed Chair. That’s actually in contrast with what we’ve seen for markets recently. The S&P is currently flat since “Liberation Day” back on April 2nd, but as shown below, we’re only flat because of intraday strength. Since 4/2, the S&P (SPY) has averaged an opening gap lower of 0.27% each day followed by an average gain of 0.28% from the open to the close.
May 6, 2025
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“I’d rather be dead than sing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 45.” – Mick Jagger, 1975
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After breaking a nine-day winning streak yesterday, the S&P 500 is trading down roughly 0.75-1.00% pre-market as the rally takes a breather. As shown below, 10-day advance/decline lines for many key sectors are at their most overbought levels of the past year, so downside mean reversion here should be totally expected.
While futures are lower, we’d note that it has been a strong week for earnings so far with thirteen companies raising guidance versus just three that have lowered guidance. There have also been nine triple plays already this week.
A few weeks ago we published a Chart of the Day that featured stocks that have consistently reported earnings triple plays in the past few years that also appear to be less exposed to tariffs. As shown below, many of the stocks that we highlighted have had very nice runs over the last week:
