Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/24/25 – Crude’s Cruddy Reversal
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 start early and I stay late, day after day, year after year, it took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.” – Lionel Messi
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Investors may have been puzzled by the lack of any material weakness to kick off the week yesterday, but news overnight of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was likely what the market was sniffing all along. Following yesterday’s intraday rebound, equity futures are indicated to open sharply higher, even as they have given up some of their prior gains. The key to watch today will be how the market trades throughout the trading session. Can it build on the early gains, or will investors look to take profits?
Besides the Mideast crosscurrents, investors will also have to contend with some economic reports, including the 10 AM releases of the Richmond Fed Manufacturing report (expected to weaken modestly) and Consumer Confidence, which is expected to build on last month’s much better than expected report. Besides the data, several FOMC members are scheduled to speak, with the most notable being Chair Powell when he testifies at 10 AM to the House Financial Services Committee. We’ve already seen three members of the FOMC strike a more dovish tone than Powell (Bowman, Goolsbee, and Waller), so will he dig in his heels or strike a more dovish tone? There’s only so long that tariff-induced inflation can be a ‘tomorrow’ story.
After rallying as much as 1.3% intraday yesterday on the back of a rally in crude oil, the S&P 500 Energy sector sold off over 4% on an intraday basis in what turned into a wild intraday range, even in a sector known for its volatility. The result was what technicians call an outside day, where the intraday high exceeds the intraday high of the prior session while the intraday low is below the prior day’s intraday low. Not only was yesterday an outside day for the Energy sector relative to the prior session, but it was also an outside day relative to the sector’s range over the prior five trading days! This morning futures are continuing the weakness from Monday as WTI trades down over 3.5% to just under $66 per barrel.
Days when the Energy sector’s intraday range exceeds the trading range of the sector’s prior five trading days have been very uncommon. While there was another similar “Mega” Outside Day for the sector back in March, since 1990, there have only been six other such days. There was one in April 2024, but before that, you have to go back to October 2018 to find the next occurrence. The chart below shows each of those prior “Mega” Outside Days. Outside of the first two in May 2003 and March 2005, all of the other occurrences have taken place during the 10+ year period where the sector has essentially been rangebound as the sector is at the same levels now as it was in 2008.
The Closer – Clear Verdict, Housing Affordability, Oil Ranges – 6/23/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we start out with commentary on what the market’s verdict is for the Iran situation (page 1). We then review the latest housing data (page 2) including a look at affordability (page 3). We then finish with a rundown into crude oil’s volatile session (page 4).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Chart of the Day: Earnings Streaks and Guidance
Daily Sector Snapshot — 6/23/25
Ever Volatile Tesla (TSLA)
Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo now has competition as Tesla (TSLA) rolled out its robotaxi software this weekend. The EV giant’s autonomous taxis took their inaugural rides in Austin, Texas for a limited number of invite-only customers. Given that limited initial release, it’s fair to say that the robotaxi still has some time left until they are a common site like Ubers (UBER), Lyfts (LYFT), and Waymos in select cities, but nonetheless, robotaxis are now on the road. In response to this news, shares of Tesla (TSLA) are surging. At intraday highs, the stock was up 10%+, and although it has pulled back since then, it is still up an impressive 9.4% as of this writing. That ranks in the 98th percentile of daily gains since the stock first hit the public market 15 years ago this month.
As shown in the chart above, while the move today is large, there’s actually been plenty of precedent for as large, if not larger, moves in the past several months. In fact, today’s move is only the largest gain since April 25th when it was up 9.8%, and it was up an even larger 22.7% on April 9 after the announcement of the reciprocal tariff suspension by President Trump. Putting all this context together, in the chart below we show TSLA’s average daily change (in absolute terms) on a rolling six-month basis. As shown, the only time daily volatility has been higher for TSLA was during the early days of COVID.
Along with high daily volatility, Tesla (TSLA) has had a roller-coaster ride over the last year with four 20%+ rallies and four 20%+ declines. After rallying 150% in the back half of 2024, TSLA fell more than 50% earlier this year. The stock most recently fell 21% over a 9-day stretch from May 27th through June 5th when Elon Musk was fighting with President Trump online. Since the 5th, things have settled down, and the stock has quickly bounced back by 23%.
To get a read on how common it is for Tesla (TSLA) to see this sort of volatility, in the charts below we show the number of TSLA 20%+ rallies and declines by year since its IPO 15 years ago. Since its IPO, TSLA has averaged 4.25 bull/bear market cycles per year. It has already seen five in 2025.
In the second chart below, we show the number of these rallies and declines per year only through the month of June. Again, 2025 has already seen 5 of these rallies and declines, which surpasses the four seen in 2021 and 2022 for a new record.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/23/25 – Anything Happen This Weekend?
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.
“At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.” – Alan Turing
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 can all give good rationalizations of why futures have seen such a muted reaction to the Iran news over the weekend, but isn’t that the way hindsight always works? If you had asked anybody to predict how markets would react to a US bombing of targets in Iran, no one would have said a gain of less than 1% in crude oil and no change in S&P 500 futures.
This morning’s muted reaction to the weekend’s events is also a microcosm of the market’s YTD performance. Heading into the final week of the first half, there has been no shortage of market catalysts and subsequent volatility, but here we are with the S&P 500 little changed (up less than 1.5%) on the year. Since WWII, 2025 ranks as just the 12th time (out of 81) that the S&P 500 has been up or down less than 2% heading into the final week of the first half.
The chart below shows the S&P 500’s performance during the last week of the first half in each year since 1945. Overall, the median performance has been a decline of 0.13%, with positive returns just 51% of the time, so it hasn’t typically been a positive week for stocks. More recently, performance has been even weaker with negative returns in nine of the last eleven years and a median decline of 0.29%.
Brunch Reads – 6/22/25
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.
Operation Barbarossa: On June 22, 1941, the largest land invasion in history began. Adolf Hitler’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, began with over three million German soldiers, 3,000 tanks, and waves of Luftwaffe bombers streaking across the sky. For months, Stalin ignored warnings from Western intelligence and even his own spies. Despite the German buildup along the border, the Soviet leader clung to the illusion that the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 still held weight. He was wrong.
The German offensive stretched across a thousand miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. Soviet airfields were decimated in the opening hours. Entire divisions were encircled and destroyed before they could organize. The Wehrmacht, hardened from campaigns in Poland and France, advanced with scary speed, aiming to crush the Red Army before winter set in.
But winter came early, brutal, and unforgiving. German troops, ill-equipped for the subzero temperatures, froze in place outside Moscow. Their engines stalled, weapons jammed, and frostbite spread through the ranks. Desperation set in. Civilians and soldiers alike burned villages for warmth, while food shortages became catastrophic. In some encircled units, reports of cannibalism emerged. That was grim evidence of the campaign’s collapse. Meanwhile, the Red Army, better adapted to the cold and fighting for survival on its own soil, launched a fierce counteroffensive. The tide had turned.
In Moscow, Stalin reemerged and rallied his people, framing the conflict as a patriotic war for Russia’s existence. What had begun as a lightning strike meant to decapitate the Soviet Union devolved into a grinding, merciless war of attrition. It would bleed Germany dry and ultimately help seal Hitler’s downfall.
Science
New blood test can detect cancer 3 years before you start showing symptoms (New York Post)
Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a blood test that spotted signs of cancer up to three years before diagnosis by detecting bits of tumor DNA in the bloodstream, offering a glimpse of how early detection could improve survival odds. The test isn’t FDA-approved yet, but it’s part of a growing push to catch deadly cancers like colon and pancreatic far earlier than current screenings allow. [Link]
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