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“People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

If you didn’t see yesterday’s segment on CNBC, you can view it here.

Bulls are taking a breather this morning as futures traded modestly lower ahead of the June CPI.  We’re starting to get the first batch of earnings results for the season with reports from Pepsi (PEP), Delta (DAL), and Conagra (CAG), and the first impressions aren’t particularly positive. All three stocks are down at least 2% with DAL leading the losses with a decline of 8%.

The big report of the morning, though, was CPI which came in lower than expected at a level of negative 0.1% m/m. That’s the lowest level since May 2020. On a core basis, CPI increased 0.1% which was the lowest level since February 2021. Jobless claims were also lower than expected.  While the earnings data left a lot to be desired for bulls, you couldn’t have asked for results in the economic data. In response, futures have erased their earlier losses and are now positive while the 10-year yield plummets to 4.20%.  Thinking back to the surge into yesterday’s close, did somebody know something?

In a typical year, a net daily breadth reading of +311 for the S&P 500 wouldn’t raise much in the way of attention, but in 2024 which has been a year when leadership has been extremely narrow, a reading that positive stands out as one of the most positive breadth readings of the year. As shown in the chart below, there have only been six other trading days this year where the net daily advance/decline reading for the S&P 500 was higher. If it wasn’t for yesterday’s surge in the final 15 minutes of yesterday’s session, the breadth reading would have been much weaker at a level closer to +250.

Yesterday was also the sixth straight day that the S&P 500 closed at a record high which now ranks as the longest streak since an eight-day streak that ended in November 2021. Since late 1953, when the five-day trading week in its current form started, the current streak is the 23rd streak of six or more days with the longest being an eleven-day streak that ended on 7/10/1964.

With six record closing highs in a row, the total for 2024 is starting to pile up.  With just one record closing high in 2022 (the first trading day of the year) and none in 2023, so far in 2024, there have already been 37 record closing highs. That already ranks as tied for the 14th most since 1954, but if the current pace keeps up between now and year-end (a big if), there would be 70 record closes which would be tied with 2021 for the second most trailing only the 77 records from 1995.