June 2023 Headlines
The Bespoke Report Newsletter — First Half Review — 6/30/23
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members. (Log in here if you’re already a subscriber.)
Continue reading this week’s Bespoke Report newsletter by starting a one-month trial, or click the image below to view our membership options page.
Daily Sector Snapshot — 6/30/23
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/30/23 – That’s a Wrap
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.
“Perfection is a theory.” – Mikhail Baryshnikov
Below is a snippet of content from today’s Morning Lineup for Bespoke Premium members. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium now to access the full report.
It’s been a quiet overnight session in terms of US-centric news, but European stocks have rallied to close out the first half as inflation data for the Eurozone was lower than expected. Headline CPI dropped from 6.1% down to 5.5% on a y/y basis, while core ticked up to 5.4% from 5.3%. Both reports, however, were lower than expected.
The only data on the calendar today is Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE inflation data at 8:30. Then at 10 AM, we’ll get the final reading of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan. Personal Income came in at 0.4% versus forecasts for a gain of 0.3%. Personal Spending was weaker than expected rising just 0.1% versus forecasts for an increase of 0.2%. Headline PCE was right in line with forecasts at 3.8% while Core PCE rose 4.6% which was slightly below the 4.7% forecast.
With the Nasdaq having the third-best first half in its history, it has been as close to a perfect year as one could imagine for the index. The only two years that were better were 1975 (45.5%) and 1983 (37.1%), and with the Nasdaq up 29.9% heading into today, those two years are out of reach. Similarly, the next closest year behind this year is 1991, and back then the Nasdaq was up 27.3% in the first half. Therefore, unless the Nasdaq falls over 2.5% today, its ranking in the third spot seems safe. If this were the NFL, we’d be sitting Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA), and Meta (META) today. Although AAPL may just get the start so it could cross the $3 trillion threshold.
It has also been a steady year for the Nasdaq as well. So far this year, the maximum peak-to-trough decline for the index has been 8.7%. That doesn’t sound too benign, but it’s well below the 12.5% first-half average dating back to 1972. It’s also the smallest first-half decline since 2017 when it fell just 2.9% in the first half. Looking back throughout the history of the Nasdaq, while years with sub-10% drawdowns in the first half haven’t been very common in the years since 2000 (just 8 in 24 years), prior to that they were much more common with 17 in 28 years.
Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to read today’s full Morning Lineup.
The Closer – QTD Deciles, Q1 GDP Revised, Payrolls Plummet North of the Border – 6/29/23
Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.
Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we start off with a decile breakdown of quarter to date performance of Russell 1,000 stocks headed into the final day of Q1 (page 1). We then dive into the latest GDP figures for Q1 (pages 2 – 4) before closing with a look at the latest housing market data (page 5).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Bespoke’s Weekly Sector Snapshot — 6/29/23
Chart of the Day – July and Second Half Seasonality
The Bespoke 50 Growth Stocks — 6/29/23
The “Bespoke 50” is a basket of noteworthy growth stocks in the Russell 3,000. To make the list, a stock must have strong earnings growth prospects along with an attractive price chart based on Bespoke’s analysis. The Bespoke 50 is updated weekly on Thursday unless otherwise noted. There were two changes to the list this week.
The Bespoke 50 is available with a Bespoke Premium subscription or a Bespoke Institutional subscription. With Bespoke Premium, you’ll receive a number of daily market updates from us along with our weekly newsletter and a portion of our investor tools. With Bespoke Institutional, you’ll receive everything that’s included with Premium plus additional daily macro analysis and more stock-specific research.
To see all 50 stocks that currently make up the Bespoke 50, simply start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional.
The Bespoke 50 performance chart shown does not represent actual investment results. The Bespoke 50 is updated weekly on Thursday. Performance is based on equally weighting each of the 50 stocks (2% each) and is calculated using each stock’s opening price as of Friday morning each week. Entry prices and exit prices used for stocks that are added or removed from the Bespoke 50 are based on Friday’s opening price. Any potential commissions, brokerage fees, or dividends are not included in the Bespoke 50 performance calculation, but the performance shown is net of a hypothetical annual advisory fee of 0.85%. Performance tracking for the Bespoke 50 and the Russell 3,000 total return index begins on March 5th, 2012 when the Bespoke 50 was first published. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The Bespoke 50 is meant to be an idea generator for investors and not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities. It is not personalized advice because it in no way takes into account an investor’s individual needs. As always, investors should conduct their own research when buying or selling individual securities. Click here to read our full disclosure on hypothetical performance tracking. Bespoke representatives or wealth management clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.
There’s Something About June 29th
There must be something about June 29th. Besides being a significant day of the year from a seasonal perspective (as discussed in Wednesday’s Chart of the Day), two crucial events related to some of the most significant business stories of the past two decades took place on this day, two years apart. The first involved Bernie Madoff, who infamously orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in history, although it is worth noting that Madoff once described the Federal Government as another Ponzi scheme, so by his logic, he would have only overseen the second largest Ponzi scheme ever. On this day in 2009, Madoff, once a highly respected and well-loved figure on Wall Street, stood alone in a Manhattan courtroom, devoid of any familial or friendly support, and received a sentence of 150 years in prison.
On a much brighter note, two years earlier in 2007, Apple fans lined up and, in some cases, camped outside of stores for days to be among the first to get their hands on the first-generation iPhone. The fact that people were willing to pay over $500 for a heretofore unproven smartphone should have been all we needed to see to know that this was going to usher in a revolution in the entire computing industry.
Given the success of the iPhone and the scandal of Madoff, you would think that the launch of the iPhone would have been a positive market event and the Madoff sentencing would be associated with a negative market environment. As the chart below illustrates, though, the exact opposite was the case. The first iPhones didn’t just go on sale within four months of any ordinary market peak; the formal launch preceded a 56%+ peak-to-trough drop in the S&P 500 that was the largest drawdowns since the Great Depression. Conversely, Madoff’s sentencing came less than four months after that same largest drawdown since the Great Depression ended.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, but investing based on the headlines can be one of the worst investment strategies known to man.
See more of Bespoke’s equity market research with an All Access membership.
Bespoke’s All Access research package is quick-hitting, actionable, and easily digestible. Bespoke’s unique data points and analysis help investors better visualize underlying market trends to ultimately make more informed investment decisions.
Our daily research consists of a pre-market note, a post-market note, and our Chart of the Day. These three daily reports are supplemented with additional research pieces covering ETFs and asset allocation trends, global macro analysis, earnings and conference call analysis, market breadth and internals, economic indicator databases, growth and dividend income stock baskets, and unique interactive trading tools.
Click here to sign up for a one-month trial to Bespoke All Access, or you can read even more about Bespoke All Access here.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/29/23 – Strong Economic Data
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.
“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.” – William Shakespeare
Below is a snippet of content from today’s Morning Lineup for Bespoke Premium members. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium now to access the full report.
While Micron reported a wider-than-expected loss and gave mixed guidance after the close last night, commentary from the company suggesting that the semiconductor market bottomed has provided a boost to futures, especially in the tech space, and that has overshadowed any hawkish commentary from Fed Chair Powell.
There’s a decent amount of economic data this morning. GDP was revised much higher coming in at 2.0% versus 1.4% expected. Personal Consumption was stronger than expected (4.2% vs 3.8%), and the GDP Price Index was lower than expected at 4.1% vs 4.2% expected. All these numbers are backward-looking from Q1, though. Timelier was jobless claims, and on both an initial and continuing basis, they came in lower than expected. Initial Claims were especially strong, dropping to 239K versus forecasts for a level of 265K, and that has pushed the yield on the 10-year from 3.74% up to 3.8%.
In Asia overnight, equities were generally flat with a negative bias, although economic data was mostly better than expected. Ironically, Europe is trading with a more positive tone even as economic data in the region hasn’t been particularly market-friendly.
Within the commodities space, one of the only bright spots in an otherwise dark sector had been precious metals, but even this area has started to weaken.
In early May, gold looked like it was on the verge of a breakout, but more hawkish commentary by the Fed and pricing out of rate cuts this year has reversed that positive momentum, and over the last two weeks we’ve seen a downside break of the uptrend off the October lows.
It’s a similar story for platinum which was also trading at 52-week highs in the spring but has since broken down in an even more dramatic way than gold. Right now, it’s on the verge of making a lower low.
Silver traditionally has a connotation of playing the bridesmaid role, but while the commodity has pulled back from its spring highs and traded at a series of short-term lower highs and lows, it is the only one of the three commodities here where the uptrend off the October lows remains intact.
Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to read today’s full Morning Lineup.