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 free trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.
“The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.” – Warren Buffett
Besides the Powell speech coming up in a half-hour, we have a bunch of economic data to contend with this morning. Revised GDP for Q2 showed a modestly lower decline than expected (-31.7% vs -32.5%). Initial jobless claims were essentially right in line with forecasts, although continuing claims were higher than expected.
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, economic data out of Europe and Asia, trends related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and much more.
August is on pace to be a month unlike any other for the S&P 500 over at least the last 25 years. Through Wednesday’s close, the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY) was up 6.4% month to date. Even more impressive than the gain, though, has been the consistency of the rally. So far this month, SPY has only finished the day lower three times in eighteen trading days. That’s an 83% win rate!
How does that stack up to history? The chart below shows SPY’s percentage of up days by month dating back to its inception in 1993. Not only has there never been a month with a higher percentage of up days, but there have only been six others where the percentage of up days even touched 75%. There are still three trading days left in August, but even if all three days finish lower, SPY will have finished higher on more than 70% of all trading days this month. Rallies like the one we have seen in August are obviously great if you are long equities, but enjoy them while they last because they won’t last forever.
