Daily Sector Snapshot — 10/2/24
Chart of the Day – Some Value in AI
Fixed Income Weekly — 10/2/24
Searching for ways to better understand the fixed income space or looking for actionable ideas in this asset class? Bespoke’s Fixed Income Weekly provides an update on rates and credit each week. We start off with a fresh piece of analysis driven by what’s in the headlines or driving the market in a given week. We then provide charts of how US Treasury futures and rates are trading, before moving on to a summary of recent fixed-income ETF performance, short-term interest rates including money market funds, and a trade idea. We summarize changes and recent developments for a variety of yield curves (UST, bund, Eurodollar, US breakeven inflation, and Bespoke’s Global Yield Curve) before finishing with a review of recent UST yield curve changes, spread changes for major credit products and international bonds, and 1-year return profiles for a cross-section of the fixed income world.
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September 2024 Headlines
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 10/2/24 – ADP Does It, Nike Doesn’t
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.
“For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized” – Rod Serling
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Click on the image below to view yesterday’s CNBC interview discussing the market backdrop heading into October.
ADP Payrolls came in stronger than expected this morning putting to rest some fo the concerns markets have had in the last few weeks. Mideast tensions continue to boil, and oil prices are trading up over 2% in reaction, but US Treasury yields have been on the rise at the long end of the curve. Equity futures are modestly lower, and Nike (NKE) is partly to blame as the stock is down over 5% in reaction to earnings after the close yesterday. If these losses hold, it will be NKE’s fourth straight quarter of declining at least 5% in reaction to earnings. Before this current streak, the longest streak of 5%+ declines on earnings reaction days dating back to 2001 was just two.
Throughout the entire conflict in the Middle East, the price of crude oil has been remarkably sullen. While prices have rallied 6% from Monday’s close, since the attacks on Israel last October, crude oil has declined over 16%, and since the end of Q2, prices have dropped over 10%. On the other hand, natural gas prices have been trying to break out of a long funk. Natural gas tends to be much more volatile than crude oil, but since its low in late August, the former is up over 55% which is impressive no matter how volatile a commodity we’re talking about.
In looking at the chart below, two things stand out. First, even after a 55% rally, natural gas remains more than 20% from a 52-week high. Second, looking at the moving averages of natural gas, the 50-day moving average is about to cross up through the 200-day moving average. With both moving averages on the rise, that would make it the first golden cross for the commodity in two and a half years (3/8/22).
Natural gas has now gone 530 trading days without hitting a 52-week high. That ranks as the fifth-longest streak on record, and the longest since 2016. If the current streak lasts another three weeks, it will move into fourth place overall while it would take another three months without a 52-week high to overtake the 590-day streak that ended in 2016.
The Closer – Middle East, Transfer Politics, JOLTS – 10/1/24
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin with a rundown of the latest news out of the Middle East in addition to the latest earnings (page 1). We then review some data regarding patterns of government assistance (pages 2 and 3) before closing out with rundowns on the latest JOLTS report (page 4) and logistics data (page 5).
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 10/1/24
Dividend Stocks with Strong Q4 Seasonality
It’s the best time of year, at least for seasonality. As shown in the snapshot of our Seasonality Tool below, entering October is the strongest period of the year for three-month returns, and shorter term returns are also some of the best.
Looking at dividend stocks specifically, below is a list of the 30 in the S&P 500 that have been the best Q4 performers over the last ten years. The 30 dividend stocks below have all averaged a Q4 gain of more than 11.5% over the last ten years. At the top of the list is Tapestry (TPR) with an average Q4 gain of 17.4% and positive returns 80% of the time. TPR is already having a banner year with a 30% total return, but if history is any guide, it could tack on even more through year end.
Schwab (SCHW) and Citizens Financial (CFG) rank as the second and third best dividend stocks in Q4 with average gains of more than 15% and positive returns 90% of the time. French-fry maker Lamb Weston (LW) ranks fourth followed by KeyCorp (KEY), which is the highest yielding stock on the list. Notably, Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan (JPM), and BlackRock (BLK) rank 6th-8th, which means there are six Financials stocks in the top ten.
As you can see in the table, all but three of the dividend stocks shown are up year-to-date, with most of these names up double-digit percentage points entering Q4. It has been a strong year already for high-yielding stocks, and now they have Q4 seasonality as another tailwind.
As always, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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Bespoke Market Calendar — October 2024
Please click the image below to view our October 2024 market calendar. This calendar includes the S&P 500’s historical average percentage change and average intraday chart pattern for each trading day during the upcoming month. It also includes market holidays and options expiration dates plus the dates of key economic indicator releases. Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options.