Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 9/22/25 – More Defensive
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“A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.” – Michael Faraday
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
The S&P 500 closed at its 27th record high of the year on Friday as investors continued to bask in the light of the Fed’s rate cut on Wednesday. The 28th record high of the year will likely have to wait at least another day, though, as futures on all three major averages are indicated to open down by a little more than 0.30%. Small caps, which also hit a record high last week after a long drought, are also lower but not by as much (0.23%) as the S&P 500.
Asian stocks were mixed overnight, with the Nikkei rallying 1% to another record high, while Hong Kong was down close to 1% and China was marginally higher. While Japanese stocks keep hitting record highs, JGBs keep falling as the 10-year yield hit the highest level since 2007.
In Europe, the tone is more one-directional with the STOXX 600 down 0.2% while Germany leads the way lower with a decline of 0.7%. There’s no economic data in the region this morning, but auto stocks are weaker with both Volkswagen and Porsche trading lower after lowering guidance.
As we noted in last week’s Bespoke Report, we’re in a data lull. While multiple FOMC members will speak today, last week’s cut is behind us, and earnings season doesn’t kick off for another two weeks. Newton’s first law of motion says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by force, so that would suggest more gains ahead. However, it is late September, which is historically a weak time of year, and investors have seen some large gains over the last five months, so you can’t fault anyone for wanting to take some profits.
Crypto will be one place to watch for a measure of risk appetite in the market, and this morning’s action is showing a more defensive posture. Bitcoin is trading down over 2% this morning as it has broken below $113,000 and below its 50-day moving average (DMA). With today’s decline, Bitcoin is essentially trading right where it was back in May.
Unlike Bitcoin, which has been moving sideways, Ethereum prices had a much steeper run-up over the Summer, even as it has traded in a sideways range for the last month. This morning’s weakness in Ether has been more magnified with a decline of over 6%, and it too is below its 50-DMA for the first time in months.
Brunch Reads – 9/21/25
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.
Benedict’s Betrayal: On the morning of September 21, 1780, Benedict Arnold’s long-simmering betrayal of the American Revolution came to a head. By then, Arnold was already a celebrated war hero turned embittered officer, furious at what he saw as a lack of recognition and plagued by financial troubles. Stationed at West Point, a critical American fortress on the Hudson River, he had secretly arranged to hand it over to the British in exchange for money and a commission in the British Army. His contact was Major John André, a British officer operating under disguise.
That day, André and Arnold met near the Hudson, where Arnold passed along detailed plans of West Point’s defenses. The scheme began to unravel almost immediately. On André’s return south, he was stopped by American militiamen, who searched him and uncovered the incriminating papers. Taken into custody, André’s fate was sealed, but Arnold, tipped off at the last moment, fled downriver to a waiting British ship, narrowly escaping capture.
News of the treason spread like wildfire. George Washington, who had trusted Arnold deeply, arrived at West Point only hours after the plot was exposed and was shaken to find how close the Revolution had come to disaster. André was later hanged as a spy, while Arnold lived on in exile, forever branded in America as the name synonymous with betrayal.
AI & Technology
ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners (Futurism)
When it comes to relationships, ChatGPT is turning into a constant third voice in the room, siding with one partner’s prompts and helping push fights toward breakups. A Stanford addiction doctor says the bot rewards validation, not reflection, creating a feedback loop that fuels one-sided narratives, derails therapy, and in some cases coincides with domestic blowups and spirals that families link to “AI psychosis.” OpenAI claims it’s adding safeguards and crisis routing, yet the stories reveal how lengthy, intimate chats can overwhelm guardrails and leave people feeling outnumbered by a machine that behaves more like a digital intoxicant than a therapist. [Link]
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Investors Buying Apple (AAPL) as Consumers Buy the iPhone
In last Monday’s Chart of the Day we discussed the performance of Apple (AAPL) surrounding the release of their staple product: the iPhone. While the newest version of the phone, the iPhone 17, was announced officially in a reveal back on September 9th, it finally hit the shelves today.
As shown below, AAPL rallied 1.5% from the close of the day of the announcement through yesterday’s close. That is right in line with the median performance for that period for prior iPhone releases.
As for today where consumers are actually able to get the phones in their hands, AAPL is rallying an impressive 3% on the session. As shown below, median performance on those days has actually been negative on a median basis historically.
We will eventually learn how successful the launch was in terms of sales, but as for the stock price reaction on iPhone release dates, today is the second strongest response by AAPL behind the 3.32% gain in 2011 when the iPhone 4s launched.
ChatGPT and Netscape Keep Track
If history does not repeat itself, it can at least rhyme. One good example of this has been the performance of the Tech-heavy Nasdaq since the AI era began in earnest with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. In our chart below that we first published in early 2024, we show the move in the Nasdaq Composite since ChatGPT’s release and compare that to the move in the index following the release of the first modern web browser, NetScape, in December 1994.
As the chart shows, the moves in the Nasdaq following the release of ChatGPT and Netscape have been eerily similar. Putting a number to it, the two lines have an astoundingly high correlation coefficient of 0.95. For a refresher from your 101 statistics class, a coefficient of 1 would indicate the two lines move identically; so for real world statistics, this is about as close as it gets!
In terms of absolute performance, the rally in the Nasdaq has been slightly weaker this go around than it was in the 1990s. Since the release of ChatGPT, the Nasdaq has risen 105%, which compares to a 132.5% gain for the index from December 19, 1994 up through the next 703 trading days (through 9/29/1997). The index doubling in a little more than a two and a half year span is impressive in its own right. With that said, if these two lines were to continue to track one another down the road, history would suggest that there is still plenty of steam left in the rally.
Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: FedEx (FDX)
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 FedEx’s (FDX) Q1 2026 earnings call.
FedEx (FDX) is a global logistics company spanning express air, ground parcel, and LTL freight, plus digital supply-chain platforms (Dataworks, fdx, Surround). It serves SMBs, large enterprises, and healthcare, moving about 17 million packages per day and generating roughly 2 petabytes of data and 100 billion transactions that offer a real-time read on trade flows and consumer demand. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, management balanced a resilient US parcel market with mounting global trade frictions tied to the removal of de minimis exemptions: consolidated revenue grew 3% YoY while Federal Express Corporation revenue rose 4%. FedEx reduced trans-Pacific Asia outbound capacity by roughly 25% and shifted lift to Asia–Europe, helping International Priority and Economy Freight revenue grow 14%, and it deepened domestic share with small business and healthcare wins, including Best Buy as primary national parcel carrier and Amazon onboarding targeted for completion by the third quarter. Network 2.0 has optimized about 360 stations with roughly 18% of US volume on the model. FDX shares were up as much as 7.4% after hours on 9/18 in reaction to better-than-expected results…
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Bespoke Stock Profile: Credo Technology (CRDO)
Small-Caps Finally Make New High
Yesterday, the small-cap Russell 2,000 finally managed to close at a new all-time high when it broke above prior peaks made in December 2024 and December 2021. The last time the index had a breakout after a long period without one was in late 2020 following the COVID Crash. Back then, the index made a huge leg higher after the breakout. Small-cap bulls would love to see a repeat.
Yesterday also marked the end of a 967-trading day streak without a new all-time high for the Russell 2,000. It was the second-longest streak without a new all-time high in the index’s history behind the 1,177 day streak that ended in November 2004. The only other comparable streak was the 954 trading days it went without a new high that ended on April 27th, 2011.
Below is a log chart of the Russell with red dots marking the end of the two prior long streaks without new all-time highs mentioned above. Following the 2004 streak, the index continued to chug along higher, but the index saw a pretty nasty sell-off in the months following the end of the 2011 streak.
Bespoke Morning Lineup – 9/19/25
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.
“Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.” – William Golding
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
It’s important to continue to note that the S&P is trading in extreme overbought territory, but there hasn’t been a similar move with underlying breadth. Yet another breadth indicator that remains totally neutral is the percentage of stocks in the S&P trading at new 52-week highs.
The Bespoke Report – 9/19/25 – “It’s About Time”
To read our weekly Bespoke Report newsletter and access everything else Bespoke’s research platform offers, start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium. This week, we review the consistently overbought nature of the market, demand for equities, the FOMC’s resumption of rate cuts, the state of the economy, where breadth stands, and finally, a review of one and five-year charts of the major indices, sectors, and asset classes. Give it a read!
The Closer – Russell’s New High, Courts, Valuations – 9/18/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin with a look at the Russell 2,000’s breakout to fresh all time highs, comparing its streak without a high to similar streaks of the past (page 1). Next, we review today’s news surrounding the Supreme Court, Fed Governor Cook, and tariffs (page 2). We then delve into equity market valuations (pages 2 and 3) before shifting into macro data that includes claims (page 4), TICS (page 5), regional Fed Manufacturing gauges (page 6), and freight volumes and prices (page 7).
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