The Bespoke Report Newsletter — 6/16/23
This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members. (Log in here if you’re already a subscriber.)
Continue reading this week’s Bespoke Report newsletter by starting a one-month trial, or click the image below to view our membership options page.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/16/23 – One Way Ride
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.
“Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you in for the ride?” – Robert Fulghum
Below is a snippet of content from today’s Morning Lineup for Bespoke Premium members. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium now to access the full report.
It’s looking like a flat open to cap off what has been a very strong week, and once again the Nasdaq is outperforming after Adobe (ADBE) reported better-than-expected earnings last night after the close. It’s a quiet day for data, but Fed Governor Waller had some relatively hawkish comments and the University of Michigan Sentiment report will be released at 10 AM. The key item to watch in that report is inflation expectations.
139 years ago today, the first roller coaster in the United States opened in Coney Island, and for ‘just a nickel’, customers could get on board for the thrill of riding six miles an hour through twists and turns of metal and wood. Roller coasters have come a long way since their first introduction in terms of both speed and ups and downs, but If the stock market is a ride, these days the only direction it goes is up.
The S&P 500 closed back above 4400 yesterday and finished in positive territory for the eighth time in ten days. For the last ten trading days now, the S&P 500 has closed more than two standard deviations above its 50-day moving average (what we call short-term ‘extreme’ overbought levels), and yesterday almost closed three standard deviations above its 50-DMA (+2.97). That was its most overbought close since November 2004 which was right after George W Bush won re-election over John Kerry.
Streaks of at least ten trading days of extreme overbought (OB) readings for the S&P 500 haven’t been especially common over the years. Since 1952 when the five-trading day week started, there have now been 35 such streaks. The most recent was in April 2021, and the longest was 17 trading days in December 1995.
Looking at more recent history, the chart below shows the S&P 500 going back to 2000 with the red dots showing each prior ten-day streak of extreme overbought closes (each dot represents the 10th trading day in the streak). While none of these prior streaks occurred near a market low, they didn’t represent short-term or long-term peaks either. The closest any of these streaks occurred to a peak was in April 2021- more than seven months before the ultimate peak.
Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to read today’s full Morning Lineup.
Chart of the Day: New High for Tech
The Bespoke 50 Growth Stocks — 6/15/23
The “Bespoke 50” is a basket of noteworthy growth stocks in the Russell 3,000. To make the list, a stock must have strong earnings growth prospects along with an attractive price chart based on Bespoke’s analysis. The Bespoke 50 is updated weekly on Thursday unless otherwise noted. There were no changes to the list this week.
The Bespoke 50 is available with a Bespoke Premium subscription or a Bespoke Institutional subscription. With Bespoke Premium, you’ll receive a number of daily market updates from us along with our weekly newsletter and a portion of our investor tools. With Bespoke Institutional, you’ll receive everything that’s included with Premium plus additional daily macro analysis and more stock-specific research.
To see all 50 stocks that currently make up the Bespoke 50, simply start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional.
The Bespoke 50 performance chart shown does not represent actual investment results. The Bespoke 50 is updated weekly on Thursday. Performance is based on equally weighting each of the 50 stocks (2% each) and is calculated using each stock’s opening price as of Friday morning each week. Entry prices and exit prices used for stocks that are added or removed from the Bespoke 50 are based on Friday’s opening price. Any potential commissions, brokerage fees, or dividends are not included in the Bespoke 50 performance calculation, but the performance shown is net of a hypothetical annual advisory fee of 0.85%. Performance tracking for the Bespoke 50 and the Russell 3,000 total return index begins on March 5th, 2012 when the Bespoke 50 was first published. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The Bespoke 50 is meant to be an idea generator for investors and not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities. It is not personalized advice because it in no way takes into account an investor’s individual needs. As always, investors should conduct their own research when buying or selling individual securities. Click here to read our full disclosure on hypothetical performance tracking. Bespoke representatives or wealth management clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/15/23 – Data Dump
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.
“A military is built to fight” – Xi Jinping
Below is a snippet of content from today’s Morning Lineup for Bespoke Premium members. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium now to access the full report.
China’s leader Xi Jinping turns 70 years old today, which in American politics would make him a spring chicken, and who better to celebrate his birthday with than US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Bill Gates who are both scheduled to visit with him in the next week. It’s just too bad that Xi couldn’t get some better economic data to celebrate over. Overnight, China reported that youth unemployment had hit a record high of 20.8%, but the PBoC’s gift to China’s leader came in the form of a rate cut in its key policy medium-term lending rate from 2.75% down to 2.65%.
In the US this morning, futures point to a lower open as European equities trade lower and the ECB just hiked rates. There was just a ton of economic data released, and the key items in the data were that initial jobless claims came in higher than expected (262K) and at their highest level since October 2021, Retail Sales and Empire Manufacturing both surprised to the upside with positive readings, but the Philly Fed remained negative coming in at -13.7 vs forecasts for a reading of -14.0. Basically, there was a little for everyone, but more signs of strength than weakness.
For the last few months, investors have been waiting for the rally to broaden away from the mega-caps to the smaller members. While we started to see some of that in the first week of June, the mega-caps have moved back into the lead in the last week. To illustrate, the chart below shows the YTD performance spread between the S&P 500 market cap and equal-weighted indices. Believe it or not, earlier in the year, the equal weight index was actually outperforming the market cap-weighted index, but by February they were pretty much back to even. In early March, though, we all know what happened, and ever since SVB Financial started to collapse, the market cap-weighted index has blown the equal-weighted index out of the water.
At the start of June, the YTD performance spread between the two indices had widened out to a peak of 10.62 percentage points. In the week that followed, the spread narrowed down to as low as 8.62 percentage points, but this week the mega caps have once again started to take the lead. After yesterday’s trading, the spread had once again widened out above 10 percentage points. At some point, the rally will broaden out, but up until this point, there have been more than a few false starts.
Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to read today’s full Morning Lineup.
The Triple Play Report — 6/14/23
An earnings triple play is a stock that reports earnings and manages to 1) beat analyst EPS estimates, 2) beat analyst sales estimates, and 3) raise forward guidance. You can read more about “triple plays” at Investopedia.com where they’ve given Bespoke credit for popularizing the term. We like triple plays as an indication that a company’s business is firing on all cylinders, with better-than-expected results and an improving outlook. A triple play is indicative of positive “fundamental momentum” instead of pure fundamentals, and there are always plenty of names with both high and low valuations on our quarterly list.
Bespoke’s Triple Play Report highlights companies that have recently reported earnings triple plays, and it features commentary from management on triple-play conference calls, company descriptions and analysis, and price charts. Bespoke’s Triple Play Report is available at the Bespoke Institutional level only. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read this week’s Triple Play Report, which features 28 new stocks. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below:
Bespoke Institutional – Monthly Payment Plan
Bespoke Institutional – Annual Payment Plan
Broadcom (AVGO) is an example of a company that reported an earnings triple play recently back on May 17th. As shown below, AVGO’s share price has been trending higher since the October 2022 lows, and it really broke out following its triple play in May.
As shown in the snapshot from our Earnings Explorer below, Broadcom (AVGO) has now reported an earnings triple play for 12 consecutive quarters dating back to September 2020. Talk about triple-play consistency! You can read more about Broadcom and the 27 other triple plays in our newest report by starting a Bespoke Institutional trial today.
Bespoke Investment Group, LLC believes all information contained in these reports to be accurate, but we do not guarantee its accuracy. None of the information in these reports or any opinions expressed constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities. This is not personalized advice. Investors should do their own research and/or work with an investment professional when making portfolio decisions. As always, past performance of any investment is not a guarantee of future results. Bespoke representatives or clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.
Chart of the Day – More Inflation ‘Tepee’ Charts
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 6/14/23 – Time Changes Everything
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.
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol
Below is a snippet of content from today’s Morning Lineup for Bespoke Premium members. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium now to access the full report.
Futures are mixed this morning, but the Nasdaq is indicated to open higher, and the May read on PPI hasn’t hurt sentiment. Headline PPI fell 0.3% m/m versus expectations for a decline of 0.1%. Ex Food and Energy, they increased 0.2% which was right inline with expectations. On a y/y basis, headline PPI was up just 1.1% compared to forecasts for an increase of 1.5%, and ex Food and Energy, they rose 2.8% versus forecasts for an increase of 2.9%. PPI certainly isn’t as closely followed by markets as CPI, but these numbers suggest that the headwind of inflation pressures continues to wane.
A year ago today, the S&P 500 was just entering bear market territory following what was a sharp sell-off due to the Fed signaling to investors that not only were rate hikes coming, but they were coming in big bites. After a Michigan Confidence report showed consumer inflation expectations were rising more than expected, the FOMC went on to hike rates by an unprecedented 75 basis points for four consecutive meetings.
The snapshot from our Trend Analyzer below shows where the major US equity index ETFs stood relative to their trading ranges as of the close on 6/13/22. Leading the way to the downside, the Nasdaq 100 was down over 30% YTD, but nine indices were down over 20%. The week leading up to June 13th had been especially painful as every index ETF in the screen was down over 7% in the prior week, and most were at least 10% below their 50-day moving averages (DMA) and trading at ‘extreme’ oversold levels.
What a difference a year makes. As we head into the June FOMC rate decision this year, the Fed has signaled that after ten straight meetings where they hiked rates, today will be the first time in over a year that the committee leaves rates unchanged. Instead of inflation expectations surging, this week’s NY Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations showed that one-year inflation expectations are at the lowest level since May 2021, and three-year expectations are actually slightly below their ten-year historical average.
From a market perspective, whereas the S&P 500 was just entering bear market territory at this time last year, it is now just entering bull market territory as the S&P 500 finally closed 20% above its October 12th closing low last Thursday. Contrast the way the snapshot of index ETFs from our Trend Analyzer one year ago looked with the way it looks as of today. Now, the Nasdaq 100 is leading the way to the upside with a gain of over 30%. All but three of the index ETFs are up over 2% in the last week, and most of them are trading at least 5% above their 50-DMAs, and every single one of them are trading at ‘extreme’ overbought levels.
Historically, the market’s reaction to short-term ‘extreme’ oversold levels is very different in magnitude to how it responds to short-term ‘extreme’ overbought levels but given the sharp rally of the last couple of weeks, it shouldn’t be a surprise, if the rally we’ve seen experiences at least a pause for the next several days.
Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to read today’s full Morning Lineup.
More Balanced June
Heading into the month of June, stock market performance this year was a clear case of the haves and the have-nots. The chart below shows the performance of S&P 500 sectors on a YTD basis through the end of May. As of 5/31, just three sectors – Technology, Communications Services, and Consumer Discretionary – were outperforming the S&P 500 YTD, and the eight other sectors were not only underperforming the S&P 500’s YTD gain of 8.9%, but they were also all down on a YTD basis.
The flip of the calendar has seen the trend of uneven YTD returns flip as well. Besides the fact that every sector is up on a MTD basis, the number of sectors outperforming the S&P 500’s 4.6% MTD gains are much more evenly split with five sectors outperforming and six underperforming. Surprisingly, one of those sectors lagging behind the S&P 500 is Technology! Uneven market returns have been a key complaint of bears all year. If the pattern of June continues, though, what will they blame next?
Have you tried Bespoke All Access yet?
Bespoke’s All Access research package is quick-hitting, actionable, and easily digestible. Bespoke’s unique data points and analysis help investors better visualize underlying market trends to ultimately make more informed investment decisions.
Our daily research consists of a pre-market note, a post-market note, and our Chart of the Day. These three daily reports are supplemented with additional research pieces covering ETFs and asset allocation trends, global macro analysis, earnings and conference call analysis, market breadth and internals, economic indicator databases, growth and dividend income stock baskets, and unique interactive trading tools.
Click here to sign up for a one-month trial to Bespoke All Access, or you can read even more about Bespoke All Access here.
B.I.G. Tips – Fed Day Performance Trends
The FOMC is set to announce its next interest rate policy decision tomorrow at 2 PM ET. After ten straight hikes, futures markets are currently pricing in a 91.9% chance that the Fed will leave rates unchanged for the first time since its January 2022 meeting, according to the CME’s FedWatch Tool.
We do a ton of analysis on historical performance around major market-moving events like Fed days. One data point you may or may not have noticed is that US equities have really struggled on Fed days recently. In fact, the S&P has averaged a one-day decline of more than 1% across the last six Fed days, and as shown in the chart below, those declines have primarily come in the final hour of trading following Fed Chair Powell’s press conferences.
In our newest B.I.G. Tips report for Bespoke Premium and Bespoke All Access subscribers, we provide an in-depth examination of the S&P 500’s performance on past Fed days since 1994. From the market’s resilience on Fed days during the 2022 bear market to the recent late-day slides on Fed days during the current bull, the narrative is as surprising as it is informative. This premium post offers not just important data but insightful charts that visualize the S&P’s average change and intraday paths on Fed days broken down by rate decision. We also explore the love-hate relationship the market has had with Fed Chair Jerome Powell as well as the late-day selling tendencies that have characterized his tenure. Unlock the rest of our newest B.I.G. Tips report with a one-month trial to Bespoke Premium for just $1. With Bespoke Premium, you’ll also receive our pre-market Morning Lineup, our daily Chart of the Day, our weekly Sector Snapshot, and our Bespoke Report newsletter published every Friday. Get started for just $1 today!
