Besides Brexit and Boeing again today, there really isn’t a lot going on in markets this morning.  US futures are indicated modestly higher, and Boeing is trading down again.  The stock is off its lows, though, as it attempts to bounce back from its first back to back declines of 5%+ in nearly a decade.

Please click the link below to read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/13/19

After bouncing back nicely from its early lows on Friday, the S&P 500 is currently less than 5% from its September all-time high, while the 60+ industries in the index are down an average of close to 10%.  What’s most surprising about where individual groups stand relative to their highs, though, is that the groups at the top are all Utilities.  As shown below, Water, Multi, and Electric Utilities all hit 52-week highs yesterday and closed out the session less than 1% from those highs.

Today’s Morning Lineup is brought to you by the letter “B” as Brexit and Boeing are the major drivers of headlines this morning.  Regarding Brexit, while things looked promising ahead of today’s vote after last night’s deal between PM May and EU President Juncker, reality has set in overnight, and the prospects of the deal passing a vote in Parliament aren’t looking entirely promising at this point.  Meanwhile, Australia and Singapore joined the growing list of countries grounding flights of the 737 Max, and just now Malaysia announced the same.  While the FAA deemed the 737 Max airworthy overnight, it also sent a mixed message mandating Boeing to push certain changes to the 737’s flight control system by ‘no later’ than April.

In economic news, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey increased versus January but came in lighter than expected, while CPI was right in line with forecasts at both the headline and core levels.

Please click the link below to read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/12/19

Software has been a key group for the market over the last year, and yesterday’s rally took the S&P 500 Software group back within 1% of an all-time high.  On Friday, the index bounced right at what was former resistance levels which was an encouraging sign.  This group is dominated by Microsoft (MSFT) but is also comprised of Oracle (ORCL) Adobe (ADBE), and salesforce.com (CRM).  Watch this group in the coming days to see if it can lead the broader market higher.

As great as things were for the DJIA when Boeing (BA), with its high price and weighting in the index, was on the way up, today the DJIA is feeling the pain of what happens when a high priced (weighted) stock in the index declines.  With shares of Boeing set to open down over 10% this morning, its decline is set to have a negative impact of around 250 points (or 1%) at the open.  Outside of BA, US equities are generally indicated higher following the lead of both positive starts to the week in Asia and Europe.

Please click the link below to read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/11/19

As mentioned in today’s Morning Lineup, both China and European equities bounced this morning right at short term support from a brief late February consolidation.  The S&P 500, meanwhile, finished off last week below its 200-DMA for the second straight day.  While in a bit of a tougher hole than its international counterparts, the S&P 500 is also right at a potential support area from a period of consolidation in early February.  Friday’s rebound off the early lows was a positive sign, and if equities can follow through today, it might just be enough to finally break out of the congestion area around the 2,800 level.

Declines over the last week or so have moved all but two S&P 500 sectors back into neutral territory from what had been pretty extreme overbought levels.  No sector has yet to move below its 50-day moving average, but Health Care is sitting the closest to its 50-DMA at the moment..  For a full recap of the morning’s news and market activity, read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/8/19

Futures have been bouncing around the flat-line this morning ahead of the weekly initial jobless claims report.  We continue to see downside mean reversion as overbought conditions get worked off.  You can see this mean reversion in our chart of the percentage of overbought and oversold stocks in the S&P 500 below.  For a full recap of the morning’s news and market activity, read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/7/19

ADP Private Payrolls for February were just released and came in slightly weaker than expected at 183K versus estimates for a reading of 190K.  Futures are indicated modestly lower but are near their overnight highs, while oil is down and the dollar is on pace for its 6th straight positive day.  Read all about everything driving the markets in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/6/19

One of the events getting some headlines this morning is the fact that the OECD has lowered global growth forecasts for both 2019 and 2020.  Reasons behind the downgrade include trade disputes and uncertainty over Brexit.  Is this really newsworthy?  After all, it’s not as if any of these headwinds are anything new.  The fact is that economic data around the world has been underwhelming for some time now.  Check out the chart below of the Citi Economic Surprise Index for G10 economies.  At a level of -34.10, it is currently just off what were its worst levels since 2012.