The Bespoke Report – 5/1/26 – Global Macro Update
To read our weekly Bespoke Report newsletter and access everything else Bespoke’s research platform offers, start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium. This week, we are sending out our Global Macro Update deck instead of our traditional Bespoke Report. This report is filled with dozens of charts reviewing the current state of the global economy and where it’s headed next. Our two biggest areas of focus are the AI boom and the war in Iran. We discuss a range of trade ideas based on those two themes as well as the outlook for the global economy writ large and the Federal Reserve going forward. Give it a read!
Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Alphabet (GOOGL)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Q1 2026 earnings call.
Alphabet (GOOGL) runs one of the world’s most influential digital ecosystems, spanning Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, and Google Cloud, along with a growing portfolio of AI models and infrastructure. Search grew 19% as AI Overviews and AI Mode drove higher usage and more complex queries, while also opening new ad opportunities. Cloud revenue grew 63% past $20B, with backlog nearly doubling to $460B, fueled by enterprise demand for Gemini models and infrastructure. That demand is so strong that compute constraints are limiting growth, pushing CapEx to $35.7B in the quarter. Ads are evolving with better targeting and early agentic commerce tests, while YouTube continues to benefit from TV viewing and subscription growth. The company is also monetizing its infrastructure edge, including selling TPUs externally, and strengthening its enterprise pitch with the Wiz cybersecurity acquisition. Shares rose 10% on 5/1 in reaction to strong EPS and revenue results versus estimates…
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Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Caterpillar (CAT)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Caterpillar’s (CAT) Q1 2026 earnings call.
Caterpillar (CAT) makes the heavy equipment and engines that keep the physical economy running. Think excavators for construction, trucks for mining, and large engines that power oil fields and data centers. Caterpillar put up a strong quarter with sales up 22% to $17.4B and backlog hitting a record $63B, largely driven by a surge in demand for power equipment tied to data centers. Management is leaning hard into that trend, planning to nearly triple large engine capacity versus 2024 as orders stretch years into the future. North America construction remains steady thanks to infrastructure spending and non-residential work, while mining is improving on stronger demand for copper and gold and an aging equipment base. Tariffs are still a drag (now expected at $2.2B–$2.4B this year), but came in lighter than expected this quarter. On better-than-expected results, CAT shares rallied almost 10% on 4/30…
Continue reading our Conference Call Recap for CAT by becoming a Bespoke Institutional subscriber. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read our newest Conference Call Recap. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below:
Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Generac (GNRC)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Generac’s (GNRC) Q1 2026 earnings call.
Generac (GNRC) makes backup power systems, from home standby generators to large-scale industrial units used in data centers, telecom networks, and construction sites. The company is at the center of rising power demand, grid instability, and data center expansion driven by AI, while also building a residential energy ecosystem that includes solar, storage, and smart home energy management. Q1 showed a pivot toward industrial growth, with C&I sales up 28%, due largely to data center demand, where backlog jumped to $700M+, and visibility now extends into 2027. Management emphasized being in the final stages of the approval process with a hyperscaler tied to a $600M opportunity, showing how the AI infrastructure buildout is shaping demand. Supply chain control and capacity are now the focus, with the Enercon acquisition addressing bottlenecks and discussions underway to scale toward $2–3B in capacity. Residential was steadier, with weather-driven demand (Winter Storm Fern) helping offset softer underlying conditions, though growth is expected to skew heavily to the second half on easier outage comps. Margins expanded meaningfully on price-cost and cost discipline, while tariffs remain a watch item but are currently modeled as neutral. Outside data centers, telecom and rental markets are improving, with re-fleeting cycles and network hardening adding support. GNRC shares were up 16.5% on 4/29 in reaction to better-than-expected EPS and revenue…
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Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Starbucks (SBUX)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Starbucks’ (SBUX) Q2 2026 earnings call.
Starbucks (SBUX) is a global coffee retailer operating over 41,000 stores. The company reported revenue up 8% to $9.5B, global comps +6%, and EPS +22%, driven by a rebound in US transactions (+4%) and broad-based demand across income cohorts. Operational fixes, including better staffing, faster service, and tighter execution, are translating directly into traffic gains, while new drinks like energy refreshers and cold foam (+40% sales) are pulling customers into more dayparts. Rewards are reaccelerating (35.6M active users), boosting frequency, and management says consumers still view Starbucks as an “affordable luxury” even amid macro uncertainty. Costs remain a headwind from coffee prices and tariffs, but are expected to ease later this year. International markets all turned positive for the first time in nine quarters. Shares rallied 8.5% on 4/29 on better-than-expected results…
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School’s Out… Forever
3 PM has always been a significant time of the day. Looking back on our childhoods, the hand on the clock in the classroom seemed to turn slower after 2:30 as it made the uphill climb to the end of the school day at 3 PM.
In our adult lives, there’s the afternoon dip, which usually sets in around 3 PM when we grab a cup of coffee to help slow the downhill pace of mental alertness. In Christianity, 3 PM is also a significant time as it is considered the time that Jesus died on the cross.
In the last year, 3 PM has taken on new significance. A year ago tomorrow, after a five-hour Q&A session at Berkshire Hathaway’s 60th annual meeting, Warren Buffett decided it was time. For six decades, Buffett treated the world like a classroom, remaining not only a dedicated student but also an effective and patient teacher.
Besides managing capital as well as anyone who ever lived, his legacy of educating millions of investors on the virtues of discipline, logic, and the compounding power of time will endure just as long as his track record.
But at 3 PM on May 3rd, Buffett finally rang the bell, and school was out. He ended the meeting by saying, “I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the Chief Executive Officer of the company at year end.” With that, the most successful investment run in American history came to an end, dismissing his students and setting the stage for a new era.
They say the market never rings a bell at the top, but Buffett’s announcement last year was as close as you can get. While markets were closed when he announced his retirement, when they opened for trading the following Monday, shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/b) immediately gapped lower and kept dropping from there.
On the Friday before Berkshire’s 60th annual meeting, the stock closed at an all-time high, and three months later, it was down around 15%.
In the nine months since then, they haven’t recovered any ground.
Relative to the S&P 500, the reversal looks even more extreme. Shares of BRK/b handily outperformed the S&P 500 in the run-up to Buffett’s last meeting, and then plummeted right after, and the stock now sits at multi-year lows on a relative strength basis.
The charts below illustrate what a tough year it has been for Berkshire.
With a 12.3% decline between annual meetings, the stock is on pace for its fourth-worst performance between meetings since at least 1985.
It’s interesting to note how the stock had a 14-year run of positive returns following its 1985 meeting through the year after its 1998 meeting, and since then, returns have been much less consistent, or more normal.
Students of history will remember that the prior peak period of underperformance for BRK/b preceded the 2000 peak in the stock market. Berkshire investors probably wish they could ask their teacher what he thinks, but unfortunately, the oracle won’t be speaking this year, and he hasn’t posted any office hours either.
3 PM will never be the same.
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An April to Remember for Stocks
Below is a snapshot of key ETF performance across asset classes for the month of April and so far year to date.
The S&P 500 (SPY) jumped more than 10% in April for its best month since November 2020. The Tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) did even better with a gain of 15.7%, while the Dow 30 (DIA) was up a more modest 7.7%.
Growth outperformed value, and dividend stocks lagged badly.
The Tech sector ETF (XLK) gained more than 20%, while the semis (SMH) gained 32%! On the downside, both Health Care (XLV) and Energy (XLE) actually finished the month in the red.
Country ETFs gained in April, but they didn’t gain nearly as much as the US. Oil (USO) rallied 15.6%, but natural gas (UNG), gold (GLD), and silver (SLV) were all down. Longer duration Treasury ETFs were slightly lower in April, but the bond market as a whole (AGG, BND) was up 15 bps.
There were some historic moves for individual stocks in April, including two Russell 1,000 stocks that more than doubled: Organon (OGN) and Intel (INTC).
Intel began April with a market cap of roughly $222 billion. It ended the month with a market cap of $474.9 billion.
As shown in the table below, Tech stocks dominated the list of April winners, making up 19 of the top 25 performers. Other notable winners include Astera Labs (ALAB), Advanced Micro (AMD), and Sandisk (SNDK) — all up 70%+.
Of course, not all stocks went up in April. Below are the 25 worst performers in the Russell 1,000 during the month, led by Lucid (LCID) with a 33% drop. Charter (CHTR), Liberty (LBRDK), and Tractor Supply (TSCO) all fell more than 20%, while other notables on the list of April losers include NIKE (NKE), Wayfair (W), ServiceNow (NOW), and Northrop Grumman (NOC).
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New York Alone at the Top
S&P Cotality released its monthly Case Shiller home price data earlier this week, and below is a table highlighting some of the recent trends (through February) across the 20 major metros they track.
Thirteen of twenty cities were up month-over-month, with San Francisco seeing the biggest jump at 1.9%. A few cities had minor m/m declines like Minneapolis, Boston, Dallas, and Phoenix.
On a year-over-year basis, just eight of twenty cities are higher, led by Chicago, New York, and Cleveland.
Tampa, Denver, and Seattle are down the most y/y with declines of just over 2%.
Lastly, we wanted to point out where cities stand relative to all-time highs. After a brief dip in prices from late 2022 to early 2023, most cities bounced back and made a series of higher highs throughout 2024 and early 2025.
But prices peaked for most cities in the middle of last year, and they’ve seen a slow trickle lower since.
As shown in the table, the only city that’s still at all-time highs for home prices is the Big Apple, where current NYC Mayor Mamdani has just recently proposed a new pied-à-terre tax on second homes worth more than $5 million.
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 5/1/26 – Now What?
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.
“If The Headline Is Big Enough, It Makes The News Big Enough.” – Citizen Kane
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Equity futures are slightly higher this morning as investors look to breathe a sigh of relief after a wild couple of weeks. Besides the massive gains in April, the massive deluge of earnings reports this week in terms of both quantity and market cap had the potential to create waves. But we got through it just about as well as you could ask for, as none of the major mega-caps blew up and Wednesday’s Fed meeting was a non-event despite all the pearl-clutching over the number of dissents regarding, not the policy decision, but the phrasing of forward guidance. The media needs something to talk about, though!
The bigger question is, with the most consequential earnings reports and Powell’s last meeting as Fed Chair behind us, what will be the next catalyst? Iran again? That may be the case, though, as just now reports are crossing the tape that Iran has sent a new proposal to Pakistan.
Treasury yields are slightly lower in the US this morning, with the 10-year yield at 4.38%, crude oil is slightly lower, gold is down nearly 1%, and Bitcoin is up 1.5%. International markets are mostly closed this morning in observance of the May Day holiday, but Japan and the UK were both open, and the former saw a modest gain while the UK is down about 0.6%
The S&P 500 rallied 10.43% in April, marking the largest monthly gain for the index since November 2020 and the 14th month since WWII that the S&P 500 had a monthly gain of more than 10%. While moves of this magnitude were rare in the immediate years after WWII, they have been somewhat more frequent, but still uncommon, in recent decades.
The scatter chart below compares the S&P 500’s monthly change since 1945 to where it was trading relative to a 52-week high at the start of each month. Below that, we have zoomed in on the months that had double-digit percentage gains. At the start of this April, the S&P 500 was just over 6% below its 52-week high, and while that wasn’t the closest the index was trading to a high at the start of a double-digit percentage month, it was close. For all months with double-digit gains, the S&P 500 was trading an average of 15.0% (median: -10.7%) from a 52-week high at the start of the month.
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The Closer – Hyperscalers, New Low in Claims, ECI – 4/30/26
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- The S&P 500 booked a 10% gain in April for its best month since November 2020, and a big part of that was Alphabet (GOOGL).
- The Tech sector has ended its longest streak of consecutive closes in extreme overbought territory since November 2019.
- Initial jobless claims cratered to 189K last week, taking out the lows from the white-hot labor market of the pandemic reopening for the lowest reading since 1969.
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