Apr 23, 2024
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“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”– William Shakespeare
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
If you missed yesterday’s segment on CNBC’s Overtime, check it out here.
Some of the positive tone from yesterday’s gain has followed through to this morning as equity futures are modestly higher and gold and oil both continue to give up ground. Yields are higher, so we couldn’t quite get the trifecta, but two out of three isn’t bad. Earnings reports have finally taken the spotlight, and this morning’s results have been positive with encouraging reports from General Motors (GM) and UPS. After the close, we’ll hear from Tesla (TSLA), Texas Instruments, and Visa (V). On the economic calendar, today’s reports include S&P PMIs for the Manufacturing and Services sector, New Home Sales, and the Richmond Fed reports.
A lot of the noise coming from the market is ultimately meaningless, but investors crave to find a cause for every effect. Analysts have blamed everything from the tax deadline to geopolitics, higher rates, or an overbought market. The fact that gold and the dollar – two of the biggest haven assets – both rallied throughout much of the decline suggests that geo-political concerns could have been a large factor. If, as gold’s price suggests, these anxieties are easing, it could bode well for future market performance.
Whatever the cause, 5% pullbacks in the stock market are incredibly ordinary. Since WWII, there have been 230 different periods where the S&P 500 declined 5% or more on a closing basis without a gain of 5% in between. That works out to once every four months, and besides the one we’re dealing with now (so far), every one of them has been followed by a new high. Some new highs took longer than others to achieve, but eventually, the market got there.
Yesterday was an interesting day for the market. The S&P 500 opened higher, quickly sold off in the morning, gave up nearly all its early gains, and then rallied into early afternoon only to drift lower into the close. For a nervous investor watching every tick, the emotional swings probably went something like the comments in the chart below.
We have no idea whether Friday’s close was the low point of this month’s decline, but what we can tell you is that yesterday’s intraday pattern is very common and the type of action you often see as the market is coming out of a low point in the decline. Going back over the last 30 years, we looked at the intraday performance of the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY) on the first trading day after the closing low of each of the 106-prior 5%+ S&P 500 declines. On a median basis, SPY has gapped up 0.58% at the open, but at some point, the market tended to dip and shake out the weak hands. At the intraday low, SPY’s median decline was 0.18% versus the prior day’s close, but it tended to finish the day with a median gain of 1.75%. Even though that first trading day after a closing low was positive, the median decline at the close from the intraday high was 0.36%. In other words, roller coaster patterns like Monday’s intraday chart frequently follow a market low.
Continue reading today’s Morning Lineup.
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Apr 22, 2024
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“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?” – Bob Marley
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Can we finally get an up day today? Equity futures are higher this morning, but as the last week has shown, that means nothing. There’s not much of a catalyst for the rally this morning, besides the market reaching short-term oversold levels. The only economic report on the calendar is the Chicago Fed National Activity Index, and even though this week’s earnings calendar is jammed-packed, today is relatively quiet with Verizon (VZ) and Truist (TFC) being the only major reports so far. After the close, things will also be relatively quiet, but we will get reports from SAP (SAP), Nucor (NUE), Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), and Ameriprise Financial (AMP).
The S&P 500 had its worst week in over a year (-3.05%), so you would think that pretty much everything was down on the week. That wasn’t the case, though. In the S&P 500, there were actually 179 stocks that finished higher on the week (35.8% of the index), and four of the eleven sector ETFs finished the week higher. Utilities (XLU) and Consumer Staples (XLP) were both up over 1%, Financials (XLF) were up nearly 1%, and Health Care (XLV) was marginally higher. Granted, these aren’t the leadership sectors that market rallies are made of, so you know it’s a tense environment whenever you see defensive sectors leading, but it does show that investors aren’t just exiting equities en masse.
On the downside, the big drag was Technology. With a drop of over 6%, the sector had its worst week since early November 2022 just as the sector was bottoming. Behind Technology, Consumer Discretionary (XLY) and Real Estate (XLRE) were both crushed with declines of over 3.5%.
Technology is the biggest sector in the market, and its chart has started to show signs of breaking down. After last Monday’s break below the 50-DMA, the sector hasn’t been able to come up for air since, and it’s now trading closer to its 200-DMA than its 50-DMA. One potential silver lining is the fact that last Friday’s decline came to a close right at levels that coincide with the high before the late December peak that was followed by a brief but sharp pullback of nearly 5%. For comparison, the current decline in the sector has been nearly twice that at roughly 9%.
Continue reading today’s Morning Lineup.
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Apr 19, 2024
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“The best kept secret in the investing world: Almost nothing turns out as expected.” – Harry Browne
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 has formed a downtrend that is clear as day over the last three weeks, as shown in the 15-day intraday chart of the index below:
As we noted in last night’s Closer, the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has opened higher and then closed down from that opening level for four straight trading days. This is a reversal from the intraday strength that we generally saw during the slow-and-steady rally seen from last October through March.
This morning, at least, it looks like SPY is set to open lower, and bulls will be looking for that gap down to be bought.
We discussed the Israel/Iran conflict in more detail in this morning’s Commentary, but notably, oil prices have pulled back significantly after an initial spike on news that Israel was indeed retaliating against Iran last night. Oil popped 4% on the news last night, but it’s down 5% from those levels and now trading lower on the day. You can see this action in the candlestick chart of oil below. For now, oil’s 50-day moving average has still not been breached.
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Apr 18, 2024
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“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch
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 trading slightly higher this morning, but that’s nothing new as we’ve seen a number of days in the last week or two start higher only to roll over and sell-off into the close. We cover the recent intraday selling on page four of this morning’s report.
At the end of March, most US equity index ETFs were trading in overbought territory, but now it’s the opposite as shown in the snapshot from our Trend Analyzer below. Small-caps and the Dow are at the most extreme oversold levels.
The percentage of stocks in the S&P 500 that are overbought versus oversold has completely flipped as well, with 46% of the index now oversold compared to just 6% that remain overbought.
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Apr 17, 2024
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“Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” – Jack Swigert, Apollo 13 Astronaut
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
There’s not a lot of news to speak of this morning, but that isn’t stopping futures from drifting higher. Treasury yields, crude oil, and gold are all little changed with a negative bias. Mortgage applications increased in the latest week even after yields surged, but other than that, the economic calendar is empty for the rest of the day.
54 years ago today, Americans were glued to their TVs anxiously watching as Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a troubled six-day mission in space. While the world breathed a sigh of relief as Apollo 13 returned safely from orbit and down to Earth, investors today are nervously watching the market as it comes back down to earth. After trading at overbought levels for months, major indices around the world are pulling back and falling from overbought levels and back below their 50-day moving averages. Yesterday, it was the STOXX 600’s turn as the index closed below its 50-DMM for the first time since November 14th.
Yesterday’s decline ended the longest streak of closes above the 50-DMA since June 2017 and just the 11th streak that lasted more than 100 days. The longest of those streaks ended in April 1997 at 160 trading days and also occurred within a year of the second longest streak on record (142 trading days ending on 6/7/1996).
So, when these streaks come to an end, is it a sign of a market calamity on the way? Not necessarily. For more details check out today’s Morning Lineup!
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Apr 16, 2024
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“Don’t hope. Hope is for people who aren’t prepared.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
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 higher this morning as positive earnings results lift the mood of investors even as interest rates are higher. Housing Starts and Building permits were just released, and both reports came in lower than expected. Housing Starts were a big miss coming in at 1.321 million compared to forecasts for 1.485. Building Permits were also weaker at 1.458 million versus consensus forecasts for 1.510 million. These reports should have been friendly to rates, but so far there has been very little movement in the 10-year yield. Besides these two reports, the only other items on the calendar are Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization at 9:15. We’ll also be hearing from Fed Chair Powel at 1:15 Eastern.
After the last two trading days, and all of April for that matter, there are probably a lot of overexposed traders and investors hoping for an up day or two. We don’t know where the market will go from here in the short term, but at this point, the S&P 500 is only down 3.66% from its closing all-time high at the end of March. That’s not even close to what most people would call a correction, let alone a pullback. While the current decline is the first of that magnitude since late last year, since 1953 there have been 455 declines of 3% or more on a closing basis without a 3% rally in between. That works out to one about every two months. In other words, the fact that we hadn’t had a pullback of 3% in over five months was more unusual than the fact that the S&P 500 is now down over 3% from its high. In fact, since 1953, there have only been ten other periods where the S&P 500 went longer than the just-ended streak without falling 3% from a local closing high.
Looking at the four major US indices across the market cap spectrum, the Russell 2000 is the only one not up YTD, although it was in the black just a week ago. What’s also notable is that a week ago all four indices were above their 50-day moving averages (DMA) and two (MDY and SPY) were overbought. As of yesterday’s close, all four indices are not below their 50-DMA, and two (QQQ and IWM) are oversold. Change tends to happen fast in the markets.
The fact that all four of the indices shown above closed below their 50-DMA yesterday was notable because it was the first time since November 2nd that all four of them closed below their 50-DMAs. Since 1990, that streak was on the extreme side, but it wasn’t unheard of as eleven streaks were longer and another six lasted longer than 100 trading days. The most recent ended in August of last year (106 trading days), and the longest was 262 trading days ending in January 1996.
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