The Closer – MPC, Immigration, Freight – 6/12/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, first up is commentary regarding the latest CBO analysis of the tax and spending bill (page 1) followed by a discussion on claims data and impacts of deportations on labor supply (page 2). We move on to discuss the latest freight data released by Cass Information Systems (page 3) and the latest performance of the Dow Transports (page 4). Over the remaining pages, we given an update on the Federal Reserves’ quarterly update of sectoral balance sheets (pages 5 and 6).
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Sentiment Around New Highs
In Tuesday’s Closer, we provided an update on monthly sentiment gauges, noting broad improvements since the April low. Of those inputs that have perked up is the weekly AAII survey. This week’s release saw the percentage of respondents reporting as bullish rise once again, to a two-week high of 36.7%.
The other side of the equation—the percentage of respondents reporting as bearish—had a more notable move this week. Only 33.6% of respondents were bears, which was the lowest reading since the week of January 23.
Put together, the bull-bear spread came in at 3.1, or alternatively, bulls outnumber bears by 3.1 percentage points. There was another positive reading in the spread a couple weeks ago, but this is the highest spread since the last week of January when it was at 7. In all, this indicates that investors have begun to shift more bullish rather than the consistent bearish tones from the past few months.
Also worth noting is that investors’ sentiment has made this improvement in tandem with a push in stock prices back near record highs. As the S&P 500 is about 1.5% below its February 19 peak, the current level of sentiment is actually lower than what might be expected. Historically, AAII sentiment (measured by the bull-bear spread) has averaged more bullish readings when the S&P is closer to a record, and readings become more bearish as it falls further from the highs (save for extreme drawdowns where sentiment actually begins to pivot to be more bullish). For the present distance from a high, the bull-bear spread has historically averaged in the high single digits compared to 3.1 today. In other words, sentiment does not appear to have gotten over its skis as the index attempts to break out.
Chart of the Day – Blue Chips That Fell Behind
Q2 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Oracle (ORCL)
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 Oracle’s (ORCL) Q4 2025 earnings call.
Oracle (ORCL) is a global leader in enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, and database technology. Best known for its Oracle Database, ORCL’s offerings span cloud applications (SaaS), infrastructure (IaaS), and advanced data management tools that support artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and analytics at scale. ORCL’s Q4 results showed accelerating demand across its cloud infrastructure and applications, with total revenue rising 11% YoY to $15.9B and cloud revenue (SaaS + IaaS) jumping 27% to $6.7B. OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) revenue grew 52%, while autonomous database consumption climbed 47%. Management emphasized overwhelming demand for cloud capacity, forcing ORCL to turn customers away and ramp CapEx to $25B+ for fiscal 2026. ORCL’s vector-based AI platform (Oracle 23ai) and its ability to serve LLMs with private enterprise data were a major focus, positioning the company as a key enabler of real-world AI deployment. The $138B RPO backlog (+41% YoY) and new mega-contracts with firms like Temu reflect explosive interest in ORCL’s cloud stack and multi-cloud flexibility. Shares of ORCL hit an all-time high, up more than 14%, on 6/12 after posting better-than-expected results…
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/12/25 – Perfect Ten
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 will never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.” – George H.W. Bush
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After some modest losses on Wednesday, US equity markets remain weak this morning as S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are indicated to open down by about 0.5%. In comparison, the Dow is even weaker with declines of about 0.70%. The added weakness in the Dow stems from an 8%+ decline in Boeing (BA) following news of an Air India 787 crash shortly after takeoff. Whether the tragedy was a Boeing issue is far from certain, but given the company’s troubles over recent years, investors aren’t waiting for details over what happened.
After yesterday’s weaker-than-expected CPI, investors are now focused on the May PPI and weekly jobless claims. PPI came in weaker than expected, but more concerning was jobless claims. Initial claims came in at 248K which was unchanged from last week’s revised reading and was the highest level since last October. Continuing Claims were more concerning as they shot up to 1.956 million and was the highest level since 2021. In response, equity futures have seen little in the way of moves, but yields have moved lower.
Investor sentiment has improved as stocks have recovered in the last several weeks, but based on the results of the AAII weekly sentiment survey, complacency has yet to set in. In this week’s survey, bullish sentiment improved from 32.7% to 36.7%, which is hardly an elevated reading. At the other end of the spectrum, just over a third of investors are still bearish (33.6%)/
In looking at the 52-week high list the last couple of days, we thought we stepped into a time machine seeing IBM on the list. The stock broke above resistance last week and continued to run higher all week, consistently closing higher than it opened.
With the gains this week, yesterday was IBM’s 9th straight day of trading higher. A nine-day streak may not sound all that impressive, but over the last 50 years, there have only been seven other streaks of nine or more days. Strangely enough, though, of the now eight streaks of nine or more positive days in a row, four have occurred in the last two years, while the prior 48 only had four!
The chart below shows where each of the prior streaks occurred on IBM’s historical chart. While two of the streaks were followed by steep declines in the days, weeks, months, and even years ahead, these streaks haven’t been indicative of any definitive forward trend.
The Closer – Testimony & Treasuries, CPI, Oil – 6/11/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we start out with a review of what can be perceived as positive catalysts (page 1) followed by an update of the latest CPI release (page 2) including a look at the tariff impacts on prices (page 3). We also check in on real wages (page 4) and finish with a review of the latest oil supply data (page 5).
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Chart of the Day: Tech Breakouts
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/11/25 – Inflation Day
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.
“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” – Maurice Sendak
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
There have been some positive developments in the US-China trade talks as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that both parties agreed to a consensus in trade talks that now only have to be agreed upon by President Trump and Xi. The President just truthed that the deal is ‘done’. Despite the positive headlines, futures have been drifting lower as the terms of the deal really only bring us back to where we were after the Geneva meeting, so this drama is anything but done, even if things are moving in the right direction.
Markets are also a bit anxious heading into the release of the May CPI report. Will this be the month that the impact of tariffs starts to show up in the data, or will we once again hear that it’s a ‘next month’ story?
The S&P 500 closed within 2% of an all-time high yesterday, and overall breadth has likewise been strong. Let’s start with the cumulative advance/decline. The S&P 500’s cumulative A/D line has already hit a new high since “Liberation Day”, and after a brief dip in late May, it has rebounded right back within a hair of its high. If the market takes out its February high, it would be good to see breadth confirming the move.
One big contributor to the strong breadth in the market is the Technology sector, which has already taken out its late May high in the last few days, reaching a new high yesterday.
While the S&P 500 and Technology have seen new highs in terms of breadth as they wait for new highs in price to follow, the Industrials sector has been the opposite, as price has already made a new high, while breadth remains just shy. Back in late May, the sector’s cumulative A/D line just barely missed making a new high, and after a brief dip in late May, is now back on the rebound as it looks to take out those highs once again.
The Closer – Inflation Pricing, Ludicrous, CRE – 6/10/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, after a review of inflation pricing and forecasts of energy production and demand (page 1), we check in on investor sentiment (page 2). Next, we give an update on the “Ludicrous List”; stocks that have seen extremely large moves with extreme valuations (page 3). Next, we provide a look at CRE loan performance (page 4) and then close out with some charts on Employee Sentiment indices from Glassdoor (page 5).
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CPI on Tap
Tomorrow’s report on May CPI will help to shape the inflation narrative for the rest of the summer. A stronger-than-expected report will be quickly seized upon by the anti-tariff contingency, and if there’s a weaker-than-expected report, you can bet that President Trump will be on Truth Social singing the praises of tariffs. Earlier today, we tweeted that the Fed’s CPI Nowcast was predicting headline CPI to rise 0.13% compared to a Wall Street consensus forecast of 0.2%, so if the Nowcast is right, get ready for some Truth Social posts!
Besides the Nowcast, seasonal trends suggest that a stronger-than-expected inflation print is less likely. The table and chart below show the frequency of stronger-than-expected, weaker-than-expected, and inline headline CPI prints from 1999 through 2024. Since 1999, the May CPI report (released in June) has only been stronger than expected 31% of the time. That ranks as the fifth-highest percentage of higher-than-expected readings of any month. Weaker-than-expected reports, however, are more common at 46% of the time. The only other month with a higher frequency of lower-than-expected headline CPI reports is November (released in December) at 50%.
