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“In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Yesterday, it was Home Depot (HD) and Walmart (WMT) and today one of each company’s chief competitors released earnings, and they did not disappoint.  Lowe’s (LOW) reported a 34.2% increase in comp sales which was basically twice expectations while Target’s (TGT) comp sales came in nearly triple forecasts (24.3% vs 8.6%).  Whether they’re the result of stimulus or not, the results were astonishing.

Outside of those big earnings reports, there’s not a lot of data today besides the Fed minutes and Nvidia’s earnings after the close.  Futures were higher earlier following on the record closing high from Tuesday but have been drifting lower as we approach the opening bell.

Be sure to check out today’s Morning Lineup for a rundown of the latest stock-specific news of note, market performance in the US and Europe, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.

The S&P 500 just broke a streak of nearly six months without making a new high on a closing basis, but the Nasdaq made its first post-COVID record high more than two months ago on June 8th and since then has made 18 record highs compared to the S&P 500’s one new high yesterday.  For the entire year now, the Nasdaq (34) has made 20 more new highs than the S&P 500 (14).  Going back to 1980, there have only been three other years where the spread was wider in the first 159 trading days of the year, and they were all in the 1980s.  In other words, the gap between the number of record highs for the Nasdaq and S&P 500 hasn’t been this wide in more than 30 years.  It’s time for the S&P 500 to play catch up, and don’t even get us started on the Russell 2000.