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.

“If a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.” – Warren Buffett

Below is some introductory commentary of today’s Morning Lineup.  Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to get full access.  

As you might expect, it’s a snoozer in US markets this morning.  There are no earnings reports to speak of, and the only economic data on the calendar are preliminary PMI readings for the US Manufacturing and Services sectors.  US equity markets will close at 1 PM this afternoon in what is likely to be a very quiet session.

Overnight in Asia, we saw a mixed but mostly lower session.  The Nikkei was up 0.5% after a lower-than-expected reading in CPI, but Chinese, India, and South Korean stocks were all lower.  For the entire week, though, the tone was more positive.  Moving over to Europe, trading is more positive as the UK is the only major benchmark in the red for the day while most other countries are modestly higher. On the rates front, Bank of France Governor Villeroy de Galhau said that barring an unexpected event, there will be no further rate hikes while BoE economist Huw Pill commented that even with economic data weakening, high inflation is keeping the central bank from cutting rates.

For this Thanksgiving weekend, more Americans than ever were expected to fly providing more evidence that the world is finally back to normal (or as normal as it will ever be) after three years of various Covid restrictions and precautions.  While air traffic has more than fully rebounded, though, the same can’t be said for airline stocks.  As shown in the chart below, while the US Airlines ETF (JETS) initially plunged 65% from its 2019 highs in the early days of COVID, three and a half years later, it’s still down 48% and in what has been a long and turbulent downtrend.

Sign up for a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to continue reading more of today’s macro analysis.

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.

“In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” – John F Kennedy

Below is some introductory commentary of today’s Morning Lineup.  Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to get full access.  

Heading into the last trading day before Thanksgiving (and the last day of the week for many others), equity futures are higher this morning, treasury yields are lower, and crude oil is down sharply following news that Saudi Arabia may cancel this weekend’s meeting citing disappointment with members not aboding by production quotas.  There’s also a decent amount of economic data to squeeze into the day with Thursday’s holiday, and those reports include jobless claims, durable goods, and Michigan Sentiment as well as crude oil and natural gas inventories.  On the earnings front, shares of NVIDIA (NVDA) are basically flat on the morning even after reporting blowout earnings last night while Deere (DE) is down 6% after dramatically lowering guidance as high-interest rates crimp the financing environment for heavy equipment.

Thanksgiving week has historically been a positive one for stocks, and that has also been true for the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. Since 1945, the S&P 500’s average daily change has been 0.03% while the median gain has been 0.05%.  The scatter chart below compares the S&P 500’s performance on the day before Thanksgiving to its YTD performance heading into the week.  For all years since 1945, the S&P 500’s median change on the day before Thanksgiving has been a gain of 0.27% with positive returns 74% of the time. When looking at the S&P 500’s YTD performance heading into Thanksgiving week, there has been little impact on how the market performs around Thanksgiving.  As shown in the chart, while the median gain on Wednesday has been 0.27%, performance in those years when the S&P 500 was up 18% or more YTD was right around the same at 0.25% with gains 78% of the time.

Like the day before Thanksgiving, performance the day after has also been positive.  For all years since 1945, the S&P 500’s average performance the day after Thanksgiving has been a gain of 0.24% with positive returns two-thirds of the time.  In those years when the S&P 500 was up 18% or more YTD, the median change has been a gain of 0.20% with positive returns just 58% of the time. That also includes the two worst Fridays after Thanksgiving when the S&P 500 fell 2.27% in 2021 (remember the Omicron scare?) and 1.72% in 2009 (concerns of a debt default in Dubai).

Sign up for a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to continue reading more of today’s macro analysis.

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.

“Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire

Below is some introductory commentary of today’s Morning Lineup.  Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to get full access.  

Outside of a number of retail-related earnings reports with some mixed results, it’s been a quiet morning so far with little in the way of earnings results.  The only major report on the calendar today is Existing Home Sales at 10 AM, and that will be followed by the minutes from the latest FOMC meeting at 2 PM.  Perhaps the most notable event for today (and the rest of the week for that matter) is NVIDIA’s (NVDA) earnings report after the close.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans traveling by car this weekend, filling up the car has become a lot less painful than it was in the summer.  Since Labor Day, the national average price of a gallon of gas has cratered for a total decline of just over 15% through yesterday, and that includes 54 straight days of declines since 9/28. After being up by more than 20% on a YTD basis back in mid-September, average gas prices throughout the country are now up less than 3%.  Now, that’s something to be thankful for!

While prices are down sharply since Labor Day, the 13.5% decline isn’t unprecedented.  As shown in the chart below, it’s typical for prices to fall at this time of year.  Since 2004, the national average price has only risen between Labor Day and Thanksgiving six times, and the average change has been a decline of 8.3%.  This year’s decline though is the largest since 2015 and ranks as the sixth-largest decline during this period of the last 20 years.

Sign up for a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to continue reading more of today’s macro analysis.