Daily Sector Snapshot — 7/28/25
Chart of the Day: More Froth? + August-September Scenarios
Q2 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Comfort Systems USA (FIX)
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 Comfort Systems USA’s (FIX) Q2 2025 earnings call.
Comfort Systems USA (FIX) provides mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) contracting services for commercial, industrial, institutional, and healthcare facilities across the US. The company serves high-demand sectors like data centers, pharma, manufacturing, education, and healthcare. With a national workforce of 20,000+, FIX offers a window into US infrastructure buildouts tied to megatrends like data center expansion, electrification, and reshoring. FIX reported a record-breaking Q2 2025, with EPS of $6.53 (+75% YoY) and revenue surpassing $2.2B (+20% YoY). Technology-related work, particularly data centers, drove 40% of total revenue, up from 31% last year. Backlog hit an all-time high of $8.1B (+41% YoY), with strong visibility into 2026–2027. Modular construction reached 18% of revenue and will soon expand to 3 million sq ft of capacity. Management emphasized pricing power, margin strength (23.5% gross), and selectivity in customer partnerships. FIX sees demand far outpacing capacity, and shares soared 22.3% on 7/25 after posting results above estimates…
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Tech Sector Now 1/3rd of S&P
Amid the AI Boom, the Technology sector’s weighting in the S&P 500 has now eclipsed 1/3rd of the index. As shown in the first chart below, the only time the sector’s weighting has been higher was during a brief window in early 2000 at the peak of the Dot Com bubble.
But the first chart only tells part of the story. Back in 2018, those in charge of sector classifications reorganized many stocks in the S&P. Already-big stocks like Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta (META) — Facebook at the time — were shifted out of the Technology sector and into the newly classified Communication Services sector. This resulted in a big drop in the Tech sector’s weighting in September 2018 that you can see quite clearly in the chart.
In the second chart below, we’ve included a red line that shows where the Technology sector’s weighting would be right now if the pre-2018 sector classifications were still in effect. Tech would have a weighting in the S&P 500 of roughly 43% right now rather than 33.6% if pre-2018 classifications were in place. 43%!
While its sky-high weighting could be a warning sign, Tech remains the driving force for the US stock market, while every other sector plays second fiddle.
“Rest of World” Equities Finally Break Out
The plight of international equities for the last twenty years is well known to most investors, but in the last month or so, we’ve finally seen them break out to new all-time highs above two key resistance levels. Below is a chart of the MSCI All World ex US index, which basically tracks international equities as a whole. After a massive move higher in the first half of the 2000s, the Financial Crisis did a number on international stocks, and by the time COVID rolled around in early 2020, they had just barely gotten back to their pre-Financial Crisis highs. International equities recovered from the COVID Crash much more slowly than the US, and it has taken until this year for them to finally break out again. Are we now finally set for another big leg higher in international equities as the US works to make new trade deals with both friends and foes?
The massive underperformance of international equities versus the US can been seen in the chart below. Since the end of 1987, the US has beaten international equities by nearly 9x, with the S&P 500 gaining nearly 2,500% compared to a gain of 288% for the MSCI World ex US.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 7/28/25 – Data From All Directions
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.
“I want to live my life, not record it.” – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
We hope you had a restful weekend, because the last four days of July and the first trading day of August are going to be jam-packed with earnings and economic data. Among the hundreds of companies reporting earnings this week, Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) will report on Wednesday, followed by Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) on Thursday. Regarding economic data, besides the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday, we’ll also receive the ISM Manufacturing report on the same day, along with the Michigan Sentiment. However, these reports will be followed by Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, ADP, GDP, and PCE on Wednesday, and jobless claims on Thursday. Don’t forget that there’s also an FOMC meeting this week that ends on Wednesday and the August 1st deadline for trade deals on Thursday. We already need a break just thinking about everything on the calendar!
This morning, equity futures are in a modestly positive position leading up to the onslaught of events and following a perfect week for the S&P 500 where it traded higher and at a record close every day last week. European stocks are also higher in the wake of the US–EU trade deal announced yesterday, and the STOXX 600 is up just over 0.5%. In Asia, it was more of a mixed session where Australia traded slightly higher, Japan was down over 1%, while China was fractionally higher.
Outside of equities, treasury yields are slightly higher, crude oil is up over 1%, while natural gas is down 1%. Gold, silver, and copper are basically unchanged to start off the week, but platinum and palladium are both up over 2%. In crypto, Bitcoin is trading just under $119K while the rally in Ethereum continues as it trades just below $3,900.
With all the talk about how market performance has been unbalanced between the mega-caps and everyone else, we wanted to look at performance within the S&P 500 on a YTD basis. At the sector level, most sectors (6) have outperformed the S&P 500 on YTD basis. Yes, Technology is one of the sectors that’s ahead of the S&P 500, but other non-tech sectors like Industrials, Utilities, Financials, and Materials have also outperformed on a YTD basis. On the other side of the performance spectrum, Health Care and Consumer Discretionary are the only two sectors in the red on a YTD basis.
Brunch Reads – 7/27/25
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 Inception of Insulin: On July 27, 1921, a laboratory at the University of Toronto became the birthplace of one of the most transformative medical breakthroughs of the 20th century that would go on to save millions of lives from the devastating grip of diabetes.
Before this discovery, a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was essentially a death sentence. The only available “treatment” was a starvation diet that could prolong life briefly but offered no real hope. Dr. Frederick Banting, a young surgeon with little research experience, believed that insulin was produced in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas and that it could be extracted by tying off the ducts of the pancreas to preserve those cells while letting the rest degenerate.
With the reluctant support of physiology professor John Macleod and the help of Banting’s assistant Charles Best, Banting spent that summer experimenting on dogs. On July 27, their efforts paid off. They managed to isolate a substance from the pancreas that dramatically lowered blood sugar in a diabetic dog. That substance was insulin. Within a year, the team had refined the extract enough to treat a human patient, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson, who became the first person to receive insulin in early 1922. The breakthrough earned Banting and Macleod the Nobel Prize in 1923.
AI & Technology
Drones, AI and Robot Pickers: Meet the Fully Autonomous Farm (WSJ)
Autonomous farming is inching closer to reality as AI-guided tractors, drones, and robots begin to handle everything from planting to weeding without much human involvement. While the tools already exist, like Deere’s weed-targeting sprayers or berry-picking bots built with NASA-style precision, scaling them across farms is still slowed by cost, labor transition, and patchy rural internet. But with every drone flight and soil scan feeding into smarter, self-learning systems, the future of agriculture looks less like a field full of farmers and more like a network of machines. [Link]
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The Bespoke Report – 1,000+ Day Bulls
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Q2 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: HCA Healthcare (HCA)
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 HCA Healthcare’s (HCA) Q2 2025 earnings call.
HCA Healthcare (HCA) is one of the largest for-profit hospital operators in the US, with a portfolio of over 180 hospitals and 2,300+ care sites across 20 states and the UK. The company serves millions of patients annually through a diversified mix of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency services, with a strong presence in high-growth, non-Medicaid expansion states like Texas and Florida. HCA reported 6.4% YoY revenue growth and improved payer mix. Supplemental Medicaid payments and better-than-expected performance in hurricane-impacted markets added $300M to EBITDA guidance. Managed care volumes rose 4%, with exchange admissions up 15.8%, while Medicaid and self-pay volumes underperformed. HCA emphasized its cost resiliency plans in light of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the looming expiration of enhanced premium tax credits. Management pointed to tight labor in select regions like North Carolina and growing physician costs, but noted overall labor stability and progress on automation and digital efficiency. HCA shares fell more than 2% on 7/25 despite EPS and revenue beats…
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