Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 5/21/26 – Stocks High, Sentiment Low
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“To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.” – Mr. T
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 this morning are lower, but it’s not because of Nvidia (NVDA) earnings. Those are basically shaping up to be a non-event. The culprit this morning is news out of Iran, as the country’s Supreme Leader said that the country will not let its enriched uranium leave the country. That lowers the odds of a peaceful solution, which has oil prices moving higher and equity prices lower. The S&P 500 looks to open down about 0.4% while the Nasdaq is down 0.6%.
As mentioned, crude oil is up about 3%, treasury yields are higher, gold is down about 0.6%, and Bitcoin is fractionally lower.
In Asia, Japan rallied 3.1% while South Korea surged more than 8% as the strike at Samsung was averted. China bucked the positive tone, though, and fell 2%. In Europe, equities are lower across the board with the STOXX 600 down 0.3% as flash PMI indices for the region largely missed expectations.
It’s been a busy morning for data already in the US, and the results have been mixed. Jobless claims were basically in line with forecasts, the Philly Fed for May missed expectations, while Building Permits and Housing Starts came in better than expected.
For all the focus the media puts on Nvidia (NVDA) earnings, the stock is poised to gap up 0.52% today as the market rates the report a snoozer. To put that in perspective, shares of Walmart (WMT) are priced to gap down 2.4% at the open. Today’s moves continue a trend where a relatively ‘boring’ stock like WMT has had a more volatile initial reaction to earnings than NVDA. Including today’s reaction, shares of WMT have had a larger gap (in terms of magnitude) than NVDA for six of the last eight quarters. While NVDA’s average gap on earnings reaction days in the last eight quarters has been 2.6%, WMT’s average gap has been +/-3.6%.
The S&P 500 closed within 0.2% of a 52-week high yesterday, so you would expect investors to feel more optimistic, but the latest sentiment survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) showed the opposite. In this week’s survey, bullish sentiment declined from 39.3% down to 31.7% while bearish sentiment spiked up to 43.6% for a bull-bear spread of -11.9. Historically, when the S&P 500 was within 1% of a 52-week high, the bull-bear spread was positive 14.6!
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Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Home Depot (HD)
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 Home Depot (HD) Q1 2026 earnings call.
Home Depot (HD) is the world’s largest home improvement retailer with 2,360+ stores serving both homeowners and professional contractors across virtually every repair, renovation, and construction category. It’s the first call to make if you want a read on the American housing market. Q1 was steady but uninspiring, with sales up 4.8% to $41.8B and same-store sales up just 0.6%. The housing market freeze remains the central drag. With mortgage rates elevated and existing home sales below 4 million, homeowners are avoiding big renovation projects, and management was candid that their improved second-half outlook is essentially a bet on storm activity returning to normal after a historically quiet 2025. The biggest news was the acquisition of Mingledorff’s, an HVAC distributor across five Southeastern states, opening up a $100B market and pushing HD’s total addressable market to $1.2T. Professional contractors remain the bright spot, with online sales up 10%+ for the fourth straight quarter and contractor credit programs gaining traction. Tariffs and rising fuel costs are quietly building margin pressure, though HD has filed for tariff refunds as a potential offset. Full-year guidance was left unchanged at flat to 2% same-store sales growth. HD moved up 0.8% on better-than-expected results…
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The Closer – Fed Minutes, NVIDIA (NVDA) Earnings, Stockpiles – 5/20/26
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- Today’s release of the FOMC Minutes confirmed that a rump of hawkish members believe that the FOMC should remove the dovish bias from their statement.
- NVIDIA (NVDA) earnings showed that data center revenues continue to power growth with compute up 76.8% YoY and networking up 199% YoY.
- Petroleum inventories have drawn by a record degree over the past month while net exports hover near record highs.
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 5/20/26
The Triple Play Report: 5/20/26
An earnings triple play is a stock that reports earnings and manages to 1) beat analyst EPS estimates, 2) beat analyst sales estimates, and 3) raise forward guidance. You can read more about “triple plays” at Investopedia.com where they’ve given Bespoke credit for popularizing the term. We like triple plays as an indication that a company’s business is firing on all cylinders, with better-than-expected results and an improving outlook. A triple play is indicative of positive “fundamental momentum” instead of pure fundamentals, and there are always plenty of names with both high and low valuations on our quarterly list.
Bespoke’s Triple Play Report covers what each company does, what this quarter’s results say about their growth outlooks, and their histories of delivering triple plays. Bespoke’s Triple Play Report is available at the Bespoke Institutional level only. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read today’s Triple Play Report. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below:
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Bespoke Investment Group, LLC believes all information contained in these reports to be accurate, but we do not guarantee its accuracy. None of the information in these reports or any opinions expressed constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities. This is not personalized advice. Investors should do their own research and/or work with an investment professional when making portfolio decisions. As always, past performance of any investment is not a guarantee of future results. Bespoke representatives or clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.
Chart of the Day – Three Headed Monster vs. Breadth
Bespoke Baskets Update – May 2026
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 5/20/26 – Higher Ahead of Nvidia (NVDA)
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“Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.” – Jensen Huang, May 2017
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 have been moving higher all morning, and both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to open firmly higher. Treasury yields are modestly lower, with the 10-year yield still at 4.65%, while crude oil falls over 2% to $101.80. Gold is basically flat, and Bitcoin is up 1% to $77,500.
Overnight, Asia was lower across the board with the Nikkei down 1.2%, while other countries in the region were down by smaller amounts. In Europe, the tone has been more positive with the STOXX 600 up 0.4%, led higher by a 0.7% gain in France. The gains have been fueled by reports that the EU has reached a trade agreement with the US to sidestep additional tariffs.
There’s no data on the calendar today, but we will hear from a few Fed speakers before the main event after the close when Nvidia (NVDA) reports results. While the company’s embrace of AI has been a major contributor to the stock’s rally, we were struck by the quote above regarding AI and software. AI’s impact on software may have only been realized by the market in the last six months or so, but Jensen Huang was warning of its impact all the way back in 2017!
Just given its roughly 7.5% weight in the S&P 500, how NVDA reacts to earnings will have a material impact on the market’s performance tomorrow. NVDA has been on a roll heading into the report as the stock rallied more than 33% off its March low and closed yesterday more than 11% above its 50-day moving average (DMA).
You’ve probably heard people saying, “as goes Nvidia, so goes the market,” and while the magnitude of the stock’s move has been larger than the S&P 500, the patterns of the two over the last two years have been remarkably similar.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, NVDA’s relative strength versus the S&P 500 has followed a steady upward trend with periods of sharp outperformance followed by periods of consolidation. After trading sideways versus the market for nearly a year, since the March low, the stock appears to be attempting a new leg of outperformance. How the stock reacts to today’s earnings report could go a long way in determining if the latest attempt is successful.
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The Closer – Best of Breed, Rate Rise, Delinquencies – 5/19/26
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- Moves higher despite negative breadth have been a feature of the rallies in both the broad market and our Best of Breed basket.
- As the surveyed 30 year mortgage rate reached 6.75%, 10y real yields have surged 17 bps in three sessions.
- Delinquency and charge off rates for all loans and credit cards have improved, but rates for commercial and industrial loans hit multi-year highs.
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