Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/18/26 – Gas Prices Fall Below $4
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“I don’t want to put a limit or a ceiling on what I think I can be.” – Josh Hart
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 markets got carried away and overreacted to new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s first meeting and press conference, futures are rallying this morning with tech leading the charge. Nasdaq futures are up over 1% with the S&P 500 looking to gain 0.65%. The 10-year yield is slightly lower, while crude oil falls more than 2% to $75 per barrel for WTI. Gold prices are plunging close to 3% while Bitcoin is down about 0.5% to just below $64K.
It was a mixed session in Asia as the Nikkei rallied 1.7% and South Korea surged 2.3% to a record high. At the other end of the performance spectrum, Hong Kong fell 1.6% while onshore Chinese stocks declined 0.4%. In Europe, trading is more one-sided, and it’s to the downside as the STOXX 600 is down 0.5% as it catches up with yesterday’s post-FOMC decline in the US. UK stocks are the biggest laggards, falling 1.1%, while Germany and Italy both only face modest declines of 0.2%.
In the US this morning, initial claims hit the tape at 8:30, along with the Philly Fed and then Leading Indicators at 10 AM.
With oil prices cratering since news of a peach deal surfaced last week, gas prices have also been falling. After hitting a peak of $4.56 per gallon just before Memorial Day, the national average price, according to AAA, fell below $4 yesterday for the first time since March 29th. While those declines are welcome, the national average is still more than a dollar, or 33%, above its pre-war level of $2.98. There’s still plenty of room for improvement.
Rising prices at the pump have a big impact on consumers’ wallets, and the more they spend on gas, the less they can spend on other things. As yesterday’s Retail Sales report showed, though, retail sales have held up well despite the surge in gas prices. At first glance, retail-related stocks also appear to have hung in relatively well. Since the war started, the VanEck Retail ETF (RTH) has declined 3.4%, which doesn’t seem all that bad against a backdrop of gas prices rising by more than a third.
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The Closer – A New Era of the FOMC, Reactions, EIA – 6/17/26
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- The Warsh era of the FOMC began with a 162 word statement, the shortest since 2007.
- In reaction to the FOMC decision, the 2-year yield experienced its biggest leap in 14 months and highest level since early 2025.
- As crude inventories reach historic lows due to SPR draws, refiner net production has surged by a record degree in the past few weeks.
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 6/17/26
Bespoke Baskets Update – June 2026
Chart of the Day – Cyclical Surge
B.I.G. Tips – Consumer Sentiment and Wallets Diverge
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/17/26 – Sales-Slump
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“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for the real.” – Tupac Shakur
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 the Nasdaq lagged yesterday, it leads the charge in the pre-market this morning, with a gain of 0.5% while the S&P 500 looks to gain just 0.05% and the Dow is slightly lower. Treasury yields are slightly higher, while crude oil bounces 1% after a four-day decline of more than 15%. Gold and other precious metals are modestly lower while Bitcoin trades down over 1%.
Asian stocks finished mostly higher after erasing earlier losses. The only decliner in the region was Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng declined 0.8%. South Korea, however, finished 1.6% higher, while Japan traded 0.7% higher. For both countries, the closing levels were record highs. In Japan, imports rose slightly less than expected while exports came in higher, rising by 17% y/y to a three-year high.
In Europe, the STOXX 600 is up 0.4% in midday trading, with Spain leading the charge, gaining 0.5%. Germany has been a laggard after BMW lowered guidance for the year on weaker expected margins. May CPI data for the Eurozone increased 0.1% m/m, which was right in line with expectations.
Besides today’s Fed meeting, we just got Retail Sales at 8:30, which came in higher than expected (0.9% vs 0.6%). Between now and the Fed announcement, we’ll get Business Inventories and Pending Home Sales at 10 AM. The real focus, though, will be on today’s Fed meeting and the press conference at 2:30. Given that Warsh is a Trump appointee, there’s already a consensus among many that he will bend to the President’s will. If anyone involved in the markets has learned anything in their experience, though, what the consensus thinks often doesn’t play out, so let’s at least give the new Fed Chair one meeting before drawing conclusions.
Sector performance has been broadly positive over the last week, but there has been some dispersion in where each one is trading relative to its trading range. Financials (XLF) and Industrials (XLI) both finished yesterday’s session in ‘extreme’ overbought territory, while another five sectors finished in overbought territory. Trailing those sectors, Consumer Discretionary (XLY) and Utilities (XLU) finished the day in neutral territory while Communication Services (XLC) and Energy (XLE) lagged in oversold territory.
With a gain of 3.14% over the last week, the Technology sector (XLK) is one of the five sectors in overbought territory, but just barely. That strength comes despite some major weakness in the software sector. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) has declined more than 1.5% over the last week, and some of the ETF’s largest components have seen big losses.
The snapshot below shows the performance of the top ten holdings in the IGV ETF. While Palo Alto (PANW) and CrowdStrike (CRWD) are both up over 5% in the last week, four other stocks are down over 5%, including Adobe (ADBE), Oracle (ORCL), and salesforce (CRM), which have all dropped more than 7.5%.
The weakness in CRM has been especially pronounced. While the stock experienced a big bounce in the late days of May into the first day of June, it’s been all downhill from there, as the stock has returned to 52-week lows.
The weakness in CRM has been relentless, and the stock heads into today’s session with an 11-day losing streak. Since Marc Benioff took the company public in 2004, this is easily the longest losing streak in the company’s history.
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The Closer – Discount Names, Construction Collapse – 6/16/26
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- AI picks and shovels stocks have begun to rebound over the past few days, spiking 10% since the lows last Wednesday.
- As massive AI and space stocks have come into focus recently., 63 S&P 500 members trade with much more attractive valuations.
- May residential construction saw a massive miss with Housing Starts down 15% MoM, largely due to multifamily categories.
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 6/16/26
The Triple Play Report: 6/16/26
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.