The Closer – Cuts vs. Rates, Fedspeak, Energy Prices – 12/15/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin tonight’s report with a dive into how markets have responded to rate cuts (pages 1 and 2). We then review the latest Fedspeak and corporate news (page 3) before finishing with a checkup on energy prices (page 4).
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Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: RH (RH)
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 RH’s (RH) Q3 2025 earnings call.
RH (RH) is a luxury lifestyle brand curating high-end home furnishings, lighting, and textiles through immersive physical “Galleries” rather than traditional stores. Serving affluent consumers and interior designers, it integrates hospitality venues like its restaurants to drive traffic and offset rent, offering insights into the luxury housing market and the “experience economy.” In Q3, RH delivered 9% revenue growth despite battling the “worst housing market in 50 years” and chaotic tariff fluctuations that pressured operating margins to 11.6%. CEO Gary Friedman emphasized the brand’s “long game,” highlighting the strong initial performance of RH Paris and a massive upcoming “Classic” product launch expected to drive multi-billion dollar growth. While navigating supply chain volatility, including 16 tariff announcements in 10 months, management continues to aggressively invest in international expansion (Milan, London) and RH’s own design ecosystem, viewing current macro headwinds as a rare opportunity to gain market share while competitors retreat. RH beat revenue estimates but missed the mark on EPS, sending shares 8% higher on 12/12…
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Weak NY Manufacturing
It was a light morning for economic data to start the week. One of the two releases was the New York Fed’s monthly Empire Manufacturing Survey. After coming in at 18.7 in November, the second highest reading since April 2022, the index pulled back sharply to contractionary territory in December. Albeit back into contraction, there was a lower reading as recently as September. Countering that negative outlook for the region’s manufacturers was solid six month expectations. As shown below (red line), expectations continued to climb in December with the 16.6 point month-over-month jump, ranking in the 96th percentile of all monthly moves on record. Additionally, that is at the high end of the past few years’ range and nearly back to the historical median.
Looking under the hood, the weakness in the headline index comes on broad declines across most categories for current conditions. In fact, of the eleven indices including general business conditions, only two rose month over month. Further, eight of the eleven experienced bottom quartile monthly declines, which has resulted in roughly half of categories sitting in contraction.
Again, expectations were much better. Not a single category fell into contraction in December. In fact, the lone category formerly in contraction, Supply Availability, moved back into expansion. As all expectation readings are now expansion, six of the eleven saw top quintile monthly gains. That includes big moves higher from ever-important categories like new orders, shipments, and unfilled orders. In other words, the December survey indicates that the region’s businesses observed weakness, but don’t see that weakness to be lasting.
To help quantify just how large of a disconnect there has been between current and future indices, below we show averages of those categories going back through the history of the survey. As shown, expectations generally hold a positive bias and it has been rare for current condition indices in aggregate to come in stronger than future expectations. That most recently happened this past May, and in 2022 before that, but as of December, things have shifted the opposite direction. The spread between current and future categories is now at the widest level since January. Compared to one month ago, that spread fell 0.93 standard deviations, which ranks in the first percentile of all monthly moves over the survey’s history. That means it was a historic month for shifts of positive expectations and negative current conditions.
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Q4 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Costco (COST)
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 Costco’s (COST) Q4 2025 earnings call.
Costco (COST) operates a global chain of membership-only warehouses, serving over 81 million households with high-quality, low-priced items ranging from fresh food to clothing to fuel. Costco delivered strong Q1 results for the quarter that ended November 23, with $65.98 billion in net sales (+8.2%) and a 20.5% surge in digital sales, led by app enhancements and AI integration in pharmacy and logistics. Management addressed macro concerns by detailing strategies to mitigate potential tariffs, including sourcing adjustments and inventory optimization. While overall inflation remained stable, specific commodity costs like beef rose. Interestingly, a slight dip in global renewal rates to 89.7% was attributed to an influx of younger, digital-first members. The company reaffirmed plans for 30+ annual openings, including creative mixed-use sites, and highlighted record-breaking holiday demand, selling 4.5 million pies in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Shares were flat on Friday, 12/12, despite better-than-expected results…
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/15/25 – Midpoint
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.
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.”- Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After a rough end to last week, bulls are shaking the dirt off their shoulders and looking to make a stand as we head into the final half of the month. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down fractionally so far this month, but with the seasonally strong second half of the month now here, will the bulls show up?
So far, they’re coming out on the offensive. Futures on all three of the major averages are higher by roughly 0.5%. The 10-year yield is moving lower and picking up in pace to the downside following a weaker-than-expected Empire Manufacturing report. Crude oil is fractionally higher, while gold and Bitcoin move higher.
Asian stocks started the week with broad-based losses. The South Korean Kospi led the losses with a decline of 1.8%, but both the Nikkei and Hang Seng finished down 1.3%. China also finished lower, but the losses were more contained at 0.6%. Besides follow-through from Friday’s losses in the US, the declines in the region also followed weak economic data out of China, where Industrial Production (4.8% y/y) and Retail Sales (1.3% y/y) both missed expectations.
Unlike Asia, European stocks are higher across the board with the STOXX 600 trading up 0.8%, with the UK, France, Italy, and Spain all up over 1% while Germany lags as peace talks in Ukraine continue to drag on.
On Friday, Nasdaq announced the annual changes to the Nasdaq 100, and for this year’s shakeup, six stocks will be added and six removed. The new class of 2025 includes Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), Ferrovial (FER), Insmed (INSM), Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR), Seagate Technology (STX), and Western Digital (WDC). The six stocks being removed to make room are Biogen (BIIB), CDW (CDW), GlobalFoundries (GFS), Lululemon Athletica (LULU), ON Semiconductor (ON), and The Trade Desk (TTD).
The two charts below show the performance of the six stocks being added and removed from the Nasdaq 100 on a YTD basis, and judging by their performance, one factor that appears to be part of the criteria is popularity. All six of the stocks being added this year have positive returns since the start of the year, and the median gain is 127.2%. Leading the way higher, Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate Technology (STX) have both rallied more than 200%. Even the worst performer of those stocks being added – Ferrovial (FE) – was 38.8%.
Turning to the six stocks being removed, they haven’t exactly shone this year. Five out of six of the stocks are down on the year, and the only winner – Biogen (BIIB) – is up only 13.9%. All totaled, the median performance of the six stocks is a decline of 14.8%.
While six stocks are being added and removed this year, last year, there were only three. With one exception, the performance of both the stocks being added and removed from the Nasdaq 100 wasn’t particularly good. As shown in the chart below, shares of Palantir (PLTR) have rallied 141.3% since last year’s announcement that it was being added to the Nasdaq 100, but shares of Strategy (MSTR) and Axon (AXON) are both lower. Likewise, all three of the stocks removed last year are also lower, with declines in the range of 6.3% for Illumina (ILMN) to 29.6% for Moderna (MRNA).
Finally, since we’re talking about the Nasdaq 100, it’s worth pointing out that the index closed below its 50-day moving average again to close out last week as the latest rally off the November lows failed to make a higher high. With megacaps like Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL) faltering recently, it’s showing up in the performance of indices they dominate, like the Nasdaq 100.
Brunch Reads – 12/14/25
Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of some of our favorite articles over the past week. The links are mostly market-related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
The Quantum Question: On December 14, 1900, German physicist Max Planck presented a paper to the German Physical Society in Berlin that solved how energy is emitted by a “blackbody,” an idealized object that absorbs and radiates energy perfectly. Physicists had been studying how hot objects glow, like a piece of metal heated in a fire or the filament inside a light bulb. According to the physics of the day, the math predicted that as objects got hotter, they should release infinite energy at certain wavelengths. That clearly didn’t happen in the real world, so something in the theory was broken.
Planck’s solution suggested that energy doesn’t flow out smoothly, like water from a faucet. Instead, it comes out in tiny, fixed-size packets. He called these packets “quanta.” The key idea was simple: energy could only be released in certain amounts, not just any amount continuously.
This small change made the math work and matched what experiments actually showed. Planck even introduced a new number to describe how big these energy packets are, now known as Planck’s constant. At the time, it didn’t seem especially important. Even Planck himself thought of it as a mathematical workaround, not a deep truth about nature. But that idea turned out to be a big deal. If energy comes in packets, then the universe isn’t perfectly smooth at its smallest levels. That insight became the foundation of quantum physics. Over the next few decades, other scientists built on Planck’s work to explain atoms, light, electricity, and eventually technologies like semiconductors, lasers, and computers.
Markets & Investing
401(k)s Are Minting a Generation of ‘Moderate Millionaires’ (WSJ)
Three straight years of market gains have pushed a record number of retirement accounts past the million-dollar mark. While these savers hit a massive financial goal, many find that seven figures no longer buys the lavish lifestyle they once imagined. It seems the new face of being a millionaire looks less like owning a yacht and more like hunting for grocery deals. [Link]
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Annual Outlook — 2026 Global Macro Outlook
Our Bespoke Report – 2026 Global Macro Outlook is now available for Bespoke subscribers. This report is a top-down perspective on the global economy and the big narratives driving financial markets around the world as we head in to the new year.
- The AI boom has been the most pivotal driver of markets in 2025, and we don’t see that changing next year…though there are some key hurdles being set up that promise to make the AI trade much more volatile.
- US labor markets weakened in the middle of the year. We have a clear view on where they head next year, as well as how that will inform the Federal Reserve’s rate path.
- Around the world foreign central banks are starting to hike. That’s despite economic weakness in China. We explore why hikes are coming and the implications for the US and other global markets.
- We also cover commodities, credit, and much more in this snapshot of what lies in wait during 2026.
You can read our 2026 Pros and Cons by signing up for a two-week trial to our Bespoke Premium plan. You can review our membership plans here to help make your decision.
Q4 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Adobe (ADBE)
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 Adobe’s (ADBE) Q4 2025 earnings call.
Adobe (ADBE) defines the standard for digital creativity and document productivity, serving solo artists to Fortune 500 marketers. Known for powerhouses like Photoshop and Acrobat, the company is aggressively pioneering the “agentic web” with Firefly AI and GenStudio. In ADBE’s Q4 2025 ended 11/28, the company reported record revenue of $23.77 billion, signaling a major inflection point in AI monetization. “AI-influenced” solutions now drive over one-third of their business, with generative credit consumption tripling quarter-over-quarter. Management discussed “agentic experiences,” autonomous interfaces that execute complex tasks, and the pending acquisition of Semrush to secure brand visibility in the age of AI search. With a bullish FY26 forecast targeting $2.6 billion in net new ARR, ADBE demonstrated that integrating third-party models alongside its proprietary Firefly engine is successfully converting AI hype into durable enterprise revenue. ADBE shares rose 2% on 12/11 after posting EPS and revenue beats…
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Broadcom (AVGO) Earnings Disappoint
“Broadcom Suffers Worst Stock Drop Since 2020 on Slow Chip Sales” – Bloomberg
“Tech Slides as Broadcom Adds to AI Disillusionment” – DJ
“Broadcom sees dip in quarterly margins due to AI” – Reuters
Shares of Broadcom (AVGO) are having a rough go this morning after the company reported earnings after the close yesterday. Despite reporting better-than-expected EPS and sales, as well as raising guidance, the stock is down around 9% this morning as management comments concerning margins and backlog spooked investors. Several analysts have said the comments were misinterpreted, but the stock’s reaction this morning tells another story.
Based on where the stock is trading this morning, today would be just the 7th time since at least 2009 that the stock declined more than 5% on an earnings reaction day, and if it stays at current levels through the close, it would go down as its second-worst earnings reaction day on record.
What’s interesting to note about the performance above, however, is that heading into today, the stock’s two worst earnings reaction days were in 2024. Despite those two clunker earnings reports, heading into today, AVGO has rallied over 275% since the start of 2024, making it the seventh-best-performing stock in the S&P 500!
Getting back to those headlines at the top, all three were written in reaction to AVGO earnings reports, but not yesterday’s. Only the Reuters headline was in reference to the most recent report, but the Dow Jones headline was written in response to its September 2024 report, while the Bloomberg headline pertained to its March 2004 report. In both cases, there was widespread concern over AVGO’s results, but the declines are barely visible on the chart.
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/12/25 – Disco Fever
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“Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’, and we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive” – Stayin’ Alive, Bee Gees
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Make sure to catch Bespoke co-founder Paul Hickey on Making Money with Charles Payne today at 2 PM Eastern on Fox Business.
Saturday Night Fever was released 48 years ago today, and when you think of that movie, “Stayin’ Alive” is the song that comes to everybody’s mind. With the S&P 500 closing at a new high yesterday, we can’t think of a song much better for the current market.
Ever since October 2022, the bull market has been ‘kicked around” by skeptics almost since the day it “was born.” The kicks came from all angles. Throughout the last three years, there have been repeated events that supposedly spelled the end of the AI rally. In the Summer of 2024, it was the unwind of the yen carry trade. Earlier this year, the haphazard rollout of US trade policy caused a tariff tantrum and raised concerns that Brand USA had lost its luster. Now, the fact that the Fed is cutting rates and rates at the long end of the curve aren’t falling has some arguing that the Fed has lost control.
With all these events and the scary headlines that accompany them, we can “understand the New York Times effect on man” and the potential to scare investors out of the market. Time after time (wait, that’s a Cyndi Lauper song), it felt like the market was “breaking and everybody shakin’”, but after the smoke cleared, that wasn’t Tony Manero on the dance floor striking the Disco Finger. No, that was the bull market hitting new highs and “ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive”.
