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“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” – Elie Wiesel

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 another flat morning for US equity futures, as S&P 500 futures are flat while the Nasdaq is indicated to open down 0.20%.  Treasury yields are down over 5 bps, taking the 10-year yield down to 4.12% as the monthly ADP Employment report came in roughly in line with expectations. Crude oil is lower and trading down to $57 per barrel as the US just announced that Venezuelan sanctions will be rolled back to enable the sale of additional oil. In the precious metals space, gold is down 1%, while silver, copper, and platinum look at much steeper losses as volatility in that space continues.

Asian stocks took a more mixed path overnight, with the Nikkei and Hang Seng both falling close to 1%, while the Shanghai Composite had a marginal gain. South Korea led the way to the upside once again, rallying 0.6%. The index has now closed at record highs every day this year as memory stocks like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have surged 17.6% and 14.0% YTD, respectively. It also comes just a day ahead of earnings from Samsung Electronics tomorrow.

European stocks are mixed. While the STOXX 600 is up 0.1%, the only major country benchmark trading higher is Germany (+0.6%). CPI for the Eurozone came in at 2.0% y/y, which was right in line with forecasts and down modestly from November’s reading of 2.1%.

For years, memory was an afterthought in the technology investment space and considered nothing more than a commodity. Based on the last year, though, Elie Wiesel may have been right all along in terms of its importance as stocks tied to the sector have gone berserk. Yesterday, we noted that despite the last numbers on the calendar changing a week ago, not much else has changed in terms of stock price performance this year.  The two top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 last year were Western Digital (WDC) and Micron (MU), which both rallied over 200%. Three days into the new year, both stocks are up over 20%! Sandisk (SNDK), which didn’t even trade for a full year in 2025, was up 560% from its IPO in February through year end. This year, it’s already up 47% – in three trading days, one of which was a down day!

Of the main memory stocks, WDC has the longest history, so we wanted to highlight some charts showing how extreme the moves have been.

First, simply looking at a one-year chart, the stock was under $65 per share a year ago, but after falling more than 40% from its February high through its April low, the stock hasn’t looked back. Even the biggest winners have their fair share of volatility.

From a longer-term perspective, the price chart looks like a hockey stick, or the inverse of the US turkey population on a YTD basis through Thanksgiving. From 1986 through earlier last year, the stock never traded about $100 per share (on a split-adjusted basis), but yesterday it closed above $200.

Looking at the stock’s price history using a log scale where each gridline represents a doubling of the stock price, the chart looks more reasonable, but the slope of the move in the last year is still unprecedented.

The next chart is perhaps the most incredible regarding WDC’s recent rally. Through yesterday’s close, WDC’s share price rallied 393%, which was up from a 200-day move of 318% the day before. With that move, the stock’s rally over the last 200-days is larger than any other 200-day rally since at least 1986. That’s over 40 years!