Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/5/26 – Weak End into the Weekend

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“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” – Madeleine L’Engle

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

It’s already been a busy week for employment-related news, and most of it has been good. This morning’s labor report will trump all the other reports and help dictate the direction of the markets heading into the weekend and whether the current streak of weekly gains extends to double digits. Wherever the report comes in, though, remember that it is only one snapshot of a much larger mosaic. Odds are it will be revised multiple times over the next several months (years).

Heading into the last session of the week, equity futures are mostly lower. The Nasdaq is indicated to gap down more than 1%, while S&P 500 futures point to a 0.5% decline, and the Dow is indicated slightly higher. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because the setup was the same yesterday. There are not really any catalysts to blame for the weakness, except that investors are growing increasingly apprehensive about putting new money to work after the massive tech rally and a coming avalanche of supply.

Outside of equities, treasury yields are modestly lower, with the 10-year yielding just below 4.47%. Oil is slightly higher with WTI at $93.25 per barrel as prospects of a peace deal with Iran continue to dangle just over the horizon that we can never seem to reach. Gold is slightly lower, and Bitcoin is down another 2% and approaching $62K.

In Asia, markets closed out a mostly negative week on a down note, with the Nikkei and Hong Kong falling over 1% while South Korea plunged 5%. In Europe, markets are moving in the other direction. The STOXX 600 is up 0.3%, led higher by Spain, which is up 1%. The gains come despite Q1 GDP being revised from growth of 0.1% to a contraction of 0.2%. That was the first negative quarter for the region since 2021.

Besides the declines in Asian stocks overnight, the Japanese yen and South Korean won have been weak. Just weeks after the BoJ intervened in the market to defend the currency, the yen has resumed its slide, pushing towards a psychologically important level of 160 versus the dollar. In South Korea, the won has shown steady weakness against the dollar for over a year now (rising line in chart), and just last night traded at its weakest level versus the dollar since 2009.

Many comparisons have been made between the current market environment and the late 1990s, and weakness in Asian currencies can just be added to the list. In 1997, we had the Asian currency crisis, which spawned a global market sell-off, so it’s only natural to raise an eyebrow when you see headlines about the South Korean won hitting multi-year lows versus the dollar.

A look at the long-term chart for the won, however, shows that at this point, the decline looks nothing like the weakness we saw in 1997 and 2008. In both of those periods, the weakness went parabolic, whereas the current period of weakness has been a steadier grind. If the slope of the line starts to steepen, though, put on your seatbelt.

While the won has been weakening, the rate of decline hasn’t been nearly fast enough to offset the rabid gains in the South Korean equity market. Over the last year, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) has more than tripled, rising from around $60 to over $200 earlier this week, and just under $195 in pre-market trading today. At these levels, EWY is holding right at the levels it was after its gap higher in late May after the Memorial Day weekend. If these levels can hold, the recent pullback will look benign, but even after this pullback, prices remain extremely elevated.

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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/4/26 – Reality Check

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“A good first impression can work wonders.” – J.K. Rowling

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

Markets are getting a bit of a reality check this morning as Nasdaq futures are down over 1%, while S&P 500 futures look at a more modest decline of 0.4%. The weakness comes despite crude oil prices trading down over 3% whle the 10-year yield trades down to 4.45%. Gold prices are rallying as investors take more of a risk-off approach, and Bitcoin is down another 3% to less than $64K.

Asian stocks were lower across the board overnight, following the lead of US equities on Wednesday and the follow-through into the overnight session. The Nikkei was down 1.4%, while South Korea fell 1.8%.  European stocks have much less exposure to Technology and are therefore experiencing a mixed picture rather than trading broadly lower. The STOXX is down 0.2% with the UK leading the way lower (-0.7%). On the upside, France is up 0.8% while Spain and Germany are both up over 0.5%.

In the US today, along with jobless claims at 8:30, we also got Non-Farm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs. Initial claims were higher than expected, while Non Farm Productivity and Unit Labor costs both came in light. Later today, we’ll also hear from a few Fed speakers.

The news of Alphabet’s (GOOGL) equity offering earlier this week reinforced the idea that AI investment will remain strong for quarters to come, but equity prices have rallied sharply and reflected much of that, so all it takes is one company to at least temporarily wreck the party. Yesterday, the party pooper was Broadcom (AVGO). While the company reported better than expected EPS, inline revenues, and raised guidance, the magnitude of the beats and the guidance raise wasn’t enough given the run in the stock over the last year.

As a result, the stock is trading down 15% in the pre-market, shaving more than $300 billion off its market cap and dragging the rest of the Technology sector down with it.  The S&P 500 Technology sector is on pace to gap down over 2% at the open, while Nasdaq 100 futures are down 1.4%. If you own a tech stock that was up a lot over the last few days, you’re looking at some relatively steep losses this morning.

If current levels hold until the open, today will be the Nasdaq 100 ETF’s (QQQ) 9th downside gap of at least 1% this year and the 533rd since its inception in 1999. In other words, these types of declines are relatively common.

What makes this morning’s decline somewhat more unique is that it comes after QQQ traded at an all-time high on an intraday yesterday. Since the ETF’s inception in 1999, there have only been fifteen other occurrences when it gapped down 1%+ the day after hitting an all-time high. Ironically, though, this is the second occurrence in less than a month. Less than three weeks ago, QQQ gapped down 1.34% the day after hitting an all-time high the day before.

The chart below shows each of those occurrences going back to 1999. The first occurrence was in March 2000, coinciding with QQQ’s peak from the dot-com bubble. From there, QQQ fell more than 50% over the next year and ultimately declined more than 80%. First impressions tend to linger, so investors around at the time have nightmares about that type of setup. Besides the March 2000 occurrence, most of the other times that we saw QQQ gap down 1%+ after hitting an all-time high occurred in the middle of longer-term bull markets rather than at the end.

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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/3/26 – Streaks Everywhere You Look

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“I never learned anything while i was talking.” – Larry King

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

We’ve seen a mixed picture in equity futures this morning, with the S&P 500 indicated to open less than 10 bps lower while the Nasdaq looks to open 0.2% higher as strength in tech stocks continues to drive the market higher. Treasury yields are slightly higher, with the 10-year up 2 bps to 4.48% while the 30-year yield once again flirts with 5%. Oil prices are 2% higher as the US and Iran traded military strikes overnight, threatening to upend any hopes for a resolution in the war. Gold prices are down almost 1% while Bitcoin is basically unchanged.

Asian markets were mixed again overnight. The Nikkei surged 2.5% to a record high, fueled by technology stocks. Stocks in Hong Kong moved in the opposite direction, falling 1.6%, while China was up slightly and South Korea was closed for a holiday. Service sector PMI indices for May were released and generally were in line with or better than expected.

European stocks have been moving in more unison this morning, and the direction is lower. The STOXX 600 is down 0.5% with a 1.1% decline in Germany leading the way lower, while Spain bucks the negative tide with a rally of 0.3%. The weakness comes despite stronger-than-expected PMIs for the services sector, as renewed tensions between the US and Iran and new proposed tariffs from the US take on a greater significance.

In the US this morning, we’ll also get updated PMI readings for the Services sector along with Factory Orders and Durable Goods, but all that will come after the 8:15 release of the ADP Employment report, which just hit the tapes and came in stronger than expected at 122K versus forecasts for an increase of 120K.

There’s been some incredible streaks unfolding over the last several weeks.  Heading into the start of tomorrow’s Memorial Tournament, the world’s number one golfer, Scottie Scheffler, had finished within the top 25 of all 11 tournaments he played in this season, extending his streak dating back to August 2024 to 32. In the modern era (since 1983), Tiger Woods holds the title for most consecutive top 25 finishes with 38 in a streak that stretched from the 1999 Buick Invitational to the 2001 Phoenix Open.

In the NBA, the New York Knicks have won 11 straight playoff games heading into the start of today’s NBA Finals. The only two other teams to win more straight playoff games in a single postseason were the Golden State Warriors (15) in 2017 and the San Antonio Spurs (12) in 1999.  Both teams ultimately won the championship, with the Warriors beating the Cavaliers in five games and the Spurs beating the Knicks in 5.

Within the market, we’ve also seen some incredible streaks. In Monday’s Chart of the Day, we highlighted the back-to-back monthly gains of more than 5%, and then on Tuesday, we provided an analysis of the S&P 500’s streak of 21 straight days of closing more than 5% above its 50-DMA.  Some other notable streaks worth noting involve the number nine. Heading into this week, the S&P 500 was up for nine straight weeks, and yesterday, the index closed higher for the 9th day in a row!

The chart below shows prior daily winning streaks for the S&P 500, and with yesterday’s gain, the current streak ranks as tied for the longest since 1995.  That streak in 1995 lasted 12 trading days and was tied for the second-longest since at least late 1952, when the five-trading-day workweek in its current form started. The longest streak on record was 14 days ending in April 1971.

We’ve extensively covered the Technology sector’s outperformance since the March lows. Heading into today’s trading, it’s clearly been a tech and everyone else market. As shown in the snapshot below from our Trend Analyzer, Technology is the only sector trading in “extreme” overbought territory, let alone merely even overbought territory. Further, in the last five trading days, the sector is up over 7%, outperforming the next closest sector by more than seven full-percentage points! Tech doesn’t necessarily have to go down from here, but it’s highly unlikely to keep up this degree of outperformance in the near term.

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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/2/26 – Software: Grabbing the Baton or Flash in the Pan?

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“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.” – Thomas Hardy

Morning stock market summary

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 Dow futures point to a 0.45% decline at the open, futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down much less, indicating a decline of less than 0.2%…for now. Crude oil is down 1.5% but still above $90 per barrel, while the 10-year yield declines 5 bps to 4.43%. Gold prices are up over 1% while Bitcoin is down over 3% and back below $70 as traders increasingly lose patience with the crypto space in search of greener pastures.

It’s a quiet day for economic data today, with the 10 AM JOLTS being the only report on the calendar. We’ll also get May vehicle sales data from the major OEMs throughout the day.

Overnight in Asia, it was a mixed session with the Nikkei down 0.3% while Hong Kong and China both rallied. South Korea’s KOSPI experienced a marginal gain of 0.2%, which, relative to recent moves, seems like a decline!

In Europe, the tone is more positive as the STOXX 600 rallies 0.7%, led higher by Italy and Germany. May CPI for the Eurozone increased 3.2% y/y, which was right in line with expectations, while Core CPI was slightly ahead of consensus forecasts (2.5% vs 2.4%).

Since the market low at the end of March, the S&P 500 is up just under 20%, but as we are all aware, breadth has been narrow. The lion’s share of the gains has been in the Technology sector, which has rallied over 45%, and the only other sector outperforming the S&P 500 over that time is Communications Services, which is ahead of the index only just barely. The nine other sectors in the S&P 500 are all underperforming the index by a wide margin, including three – Energy, Utilities, and Consumer Staples – which are lower.

One way to illustrate the dominance of tech since the March low is in the performance of each S&P 500 component. Since the March 30 low, 38 of the top 50 performing stocks are from the Technology sector, including 23 of the top 25 and all of the top 13. It’s been Technology and everyone else.

Of the top performing stocks since 3/30, the tech stocks dominating the list have primarily been – you guessed it – semiconductor stocks, and more specifically memory stocks. Many of these names doubled or tripled in the span of just two months!

In yesterday’s trading, Technology was once again the top performing sector in the S&P 500 and one of just two sectors to trade higher. In looking at the top performing stocks yesterday, Technology stocks once again dominated the list, but it wasn’t semis. In fact, of the top 30 performing stocks in the S&P 1500 yesterday, not a single semiconductor stock made the list even though Technology was one of only two sectors to trade higher.

As shown in the list below, yesterday’s dominant group within the Technology sector was software stocks. Of the 30 top performing stocks, more than half were from the Software and Services Industry Group.

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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/1/26 – The Year of Semis

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“People talk about AI reducing jobs – complete nonsense. It’s causing more software engineers to be hired.” – Jensen Huang

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

It’s a new month, but the market rally continues to roll on. S&P 500 futures are priced to open 0.2% higher, while the Nasdaq is fractionally higher. Treasury yields are unchanged right around 4.45% while crude oil trades back above $90, as there don’t seem to be any signs of an imminent peace deal or ceasefire. Gold prices are down 1.4% but still above $4,500 per ounce, while weakness in Bitcoin persists as prices fall to their lowest level since April.

Asian and European markets have been mixed to kick off the month, as manufacturing PMI indices have started to hit the tape. Here in the US, we’ll get the S&P 500 and ISM reads on the manufacturing sector at 9:45 and 10:00 AM, respectively.

In a speech from Taiwan overnight, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang called 2026 “the year of agents”. In the evolution of AI, that’s definitely been the case, and the side-effect of that trend in AI is that in the stock market, 2026 has been the year of semiconductors. With a year-to-date gain of 81.1% through the end of May, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) has easily had its best start to a year in its history.

Before 2026, the best start to a year for the SOX was its first full year in 1995, when it rallied 52.8%, or nearly 30 percentage points less than this year’s gain. An 81% gain to start the year is impressive under any circumstances, but when you consider the size of the sector, 81% is almost unbelievable.

Besides having a monster gain at the index level, the rally in semis has been broad. Of the index’s 30 components, eight have more than doubled, including three that are up over 200%. The average gain of all 30 components has been modestly better than the index itself (+87%), indicating that, unlike the S&P 500, it hasn’t been just the biggest stocks in the index driving the gains. Participation has been so broad, in fact, that every stock in the SOX has outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year.

What really stands out about the chart below, though, is NVDA’s performance relative to all the other members of the SOX. With a gain of 13.2% YTD, it’s easily the worst performer in the index and outperforming the S&P 500 by less than three percentage points. So, while all of the major financial outlets are focusing endlessly on last night’s announcements from NVDA out of Taiwan, investors have been looking elsewhere.

Relative to the rest of the semis space, NVDA has been giving up ground for nearly a year now. The chart below shows the stock’s relative strength versus the SOX since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. While the stock saw blistering outperformance in the first two years after ChatGPT’s launch, it moved sideways relative to the SOX for nearly a year, and since last August, it has been steadily giving up ground to the index’s other 29 components.

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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 5/29/26 – Nine For Nine

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“In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy

Morning stock market summary

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

Futures are modestly higher this morning following a mostly positive session in Asia, where South Korea rallied 3.6% to take its weekly gain to 8%. The Nikkei also rallied 2.5% for a weekly gain of nearly 5%. Asia’s positive moves have flowed through to Europe this morning, and the STOXX 600 is up 0.6%, led higher by Spain, Italy, and France.

Outside of equities, treasury yields and crude oil are modestly lower on reports that the Iran-US ceasefire will be extended, and gold is bouncing after briefly trading below its 200-DMA yesterday.

An AI compute deal between Anthropic, Alphabet (GOOGL), Broadcom (AVGO), Apollo (APO), and Blackstone (BX) was reported on by Bloomberg last night. The deal has a lot of moving parts to it, and raises concerns over complex transactions and whether it’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors. We broke it all down in the commentary section of today’s Morning Lineup and explained why it’s nothing like the transactions that took place leading up to the Financial Crisis, so make sure to check that out.

In our experience, we’ve seen enough to know never count anything out, but with the S&P 500 up over 1% already this week, it’s looking likely that the S&P 500 will finish higher this week, extending its weekly streak of gains to nine. The last time the S&P 500 traded higher for nine straight weeks was in December 2023, and the last time there was a longer streak of weekly gains was way back in 1985!

The chart below shows S&P 500 winning streaks in the post-WWII period, and while there have been eleven other nine-week streaks, only four made it to a tenth week or longer. In 1985, the S&P 500 went 12 straight weeks without a decline, and in 1957, the index went 13 weeks, or 3 months, without a weekly decline.

The chart below shows each prior streak on a long-term chart of the S&P 500.  Besides the fact that none of these prior periods occurred right near a major top in the market, it’s also interesting to note that they didn’t really occur early on in bull markets coming out of extended bears.

While the S&P 500 keeps chugging along, gold prices have been under pressure for months now, which is a stark contrast to earlier this year when the metal could do no wrong. From the peak in late January, gold prices briefly dropped into bear market territory (on an intraday basis) before rallying intraday. In the process of that decline, gold prices also briefly dipped below the 200-day moving average (DMA) for the first time in 2.5 years.

While the streak of trading without a breach of the 200-DMA on an intraday basis ended yesterday, the streak of closes above that level remains intact, and at 638 trading days, it ranks as the second-longest streak on record, trailing only a 729 trading day streak that ended in December 2011. In order for the current streak to break the record, gold would have to stay above its 200-DMA through the summer months and into late October, but it has been an impressive streak.

The decline in gold since its January high, however, should serve as an important reminder that the tide on a trade that can seemingly do no wrong can quickly go out.

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