We’ve seen some better than expected economic data out of Europe for a change this morning as PMIs for the Services sector mostly came in better than expected.  US equity futures are pointing to a slightly higher open after yesterday’s weakness.  In Asia, China lowered 2019 GDP growth forecasts and President Trump is threatening to end preferential trade treatment for India and Turkey.  Read all about everything driving the markets in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/5/19

We’ve been discussing the market’s strong breadth so far in 2019 for several weeks now, but today we wanted to provide another illustration of it.  The S&P 500’s 10-Day A/D line typically oscillates between positive and negative territory on what is usually a week to week basis or at least every couple of weeks to weeks.  Lately, though, it has been all positive.  Through yesterday’s close, the 10-Day A/D had been positive for 39 straight trading days. That’s over eight weeks in calendar days!

These kinds of periods of consistent positive breadth don’t typically happen very often. Going back to 1990, there have only been four other periods where the 10-day A/D line was positive for longer than it has been now.

A quick programming note — Bespoke co-founder Paul Hickey will be on CNBC this AM at 8:40 ET to discuss our market views.  Be sure to tune in!

US equity futures are higher to start the week as trade tensions continue to ease.  Catch up on everything you need to know ahead of the open in today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup.

The week looks to be ending on a positive note with US futures higher and the Nasdaq on pace for its 10th straight week of gains.  In economic data, Personal Income and Spending both missed estimates, but the big report of the day will be ISM Manufacturing at 10 AM (consensus estimate- 55.8 vs 56.6 last month).  Read all about overnight events and this morning’s news in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 3/1/19

As long as the Nasdaq doesn’t finish down five points or more today (it’s currently indicated up by 50), this will be the tenth straight positive week for the index.  The last time that happened was nearly two decades ago in 1999!  Below are all of the ten-week winning streaks for the Nasdaq as well as its performance following the tenth straight up week.  Interestingly enough, of the eight prior ten week streaks, six went to eleven or more.  As shown, the average performance the week after the 10th straight positive week was a gain of 1.07% (median: 1.58).  Even more impressive is the fact that three months later the Nasdaq was up every time for an average gain of over 10%!  Looking further out, six-month and one-year returns are a little more muted, but the only time the Nasdaq was down one year later was after the last streak in 1999 when it fell more than 36%!

Even with President Trump leaving Hanoi with no deal, futures are little fazed this morning as the focus is on economic data including GDP, Jobless Claims, and Chicago PMI.  Read all about overnight events and this morning’s news in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 2/28/19

With the S&P 500 stalling out just below the 2,800 level in recent days, we wanted to provide a quick update on where the market and individual stocks within the S&P 500 stand relative to their 52-week highs.  The chart below shows how far every stock in the S&P 500 closed yesterday versus their 52-week high.  While the S&P 500 is just over 5% from its September high, individual stocks in the index are down an average of 14.2% from their respective highs.  That may sound like a pretty wide divergence, but it’s actually pretty common as not all stocks hit new highs in unison with the market.  In fact, even when breadth is very positive, it’s rare that even 25% of stocks in the index will hit 52-week highs on the same day.  As things stand now, 43 stocks in the S&P 500 closed within 1% of a 52-week high yesterday while 150 closed within 5%.

Just like the opening days of the NCAA basketball tournament, today is the kind of day when it pays to have more than one TV or at the very least, a DVR.  With President Trump meeting Kim Jong Un, Fed Chair Powell set to resume testimony on Capitol Hill, and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen also set to testify, who needs Netflix?  Not only that, but there’s also a healthy slug of economic data to digest.

Stocks are poised to open lower but since declines early in the European session, S&P 500 futures have edged a bit higher and are currently pointing to a decline of just about 30 bps at the open. The dollar is down for the fourth day in a row and 8th of the last 10 days.  Read all about overnight events and this morning’s news in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 2/27/19

Software had been a leading area of the market leading up to the September highs, and the sector pulled back just as much as the broader market during the Q4 sell-off.  The rally back, though, has been much stronger.  Just yesterday, the group traded within two points of its all-time high from 2018.  This particular group isn’t the same as the Software and Services group, which contains many of the highest fliers in the sector, but instead, it is made up of the major players in the space including Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Adobe (ADBE), Salesforce (CRM), etc. Nevertheless, if this group is trading back at new highs, it bodes well for the overall growth trade and broader market in general.

Meanwhile, semis continue to hold up as well.  While not as strong as the software group, it continues to outperform as it attempts to remain above its downtrend from the highs in the first half of 2018.

What happened in December?  Between the delayed December Retail Sales report released earlier this month and this morning’s report on Housing Starts, either the economy hit a cliff or whoever was responsible for tabulating the data while the Federal government was shutdown needs to brush up on their calculations.  Today’s report on Housing Starts came in at SAAR of 1.078 million, which was 178K below the consensus forecast of 1.256 million.  Looking through our Economic Indicator Database, there has not been that big of a miss in Housing Starts relative to expectations in 12 years!   It wasn’t all bad news, though, Building Permits came in better than expected.  Besides this morning’s already released data, there’s still a lot on the schedule today, so read all about not only them but also overnight events around the world and this morning’s news in today’s Morning Lineup.

Bespoke Morning Lineup – 2/26/19

Yesterday, we noted the fact that the Shanghai Composite was bumping right up against a very long term downtrend after its 5%+ gain to kick off the week.  Overnight, the index rallied higher in the morning but gave it all back throughout the trading day and closed with a decline of just over half of a percent.  So, we’re going to have to wait at least another day (and likely more) before that downtrend gets taken out.

Another downtrend that’s provided pretty formidable resistance recently is the short-term downtrend in long-term US Treasury yields. At both the 10 and 30 year maturities,  yields just can’t seem to increase the way so many have been calling for.  In the case of the 10-year, yields bounced off the early January lows but quickly ran out of steam just shy of resistance at the 2.8% level, and since then have been trending lower right below the 50-DMA. For the 30-year it’s a similar story as the 50-DMA acts as a ceiling and the current yield of 3.02% is just 14 bps above the low print from early January.