Below is an updated look at the 35 largest S&P 500 companies.  It’s worth noting that recent gains have put four companies into the $800+ billion market cap club.  Apple (AAPL) is still on top with a market cap of $933 billion, followed by Amazon (AMZN) at $873 billion, Alphabet (GOOGL) at $830 billion, and Microsoft (MSFT) at $826 billion.  It’s easy to forget that Microsoft (MSFT) was a company left for dead in the early part of this bull market.  Its turnaround over the last few years driven by its shift to the Microsoft 365 “software as a subscription” model has been impressive to watch in real time.

You’ll notice that the five largest companies are all Tech-related, while the 6th through 14th largest companies are non-Tech.  You have to move down to the #15 spot — Intel (INTC) — to find the next Tech company, and after that the next Tech company is Cisco (CSCO) at #24.

For each stock on the list, we also show where its market cap stood 3 years ago on July 23rd, 2015.  The seven largest companies right now have all seen their market caps rise by at least 30% over the last 3 years.  Even JP Morgan (JPM) — which ranks 7th — has seen its market cap jump nearly 50% from $257.5 billion up to $383 billion.  Three years ago, a market cap of $383 billion would have ranked as the 3rd largest company in the US.

Netflix (NFLX) and NVIDIA (NVDA) are the two other stocks worth pointing out.  Netflix has seen its market cap jump from $46.7 billion up to $157 billion over the last 3 years, which makes it the 31st largest company in the S&P.  The rise for NVDA has been even more impressive, as it has seen a jump from just $10 billion up to $147 billion — a gain of 1,318%.

Below we show a snapshot of the 35 largest companies as of three years ago on July 23rd, 2015.  For each stock on the list, we include where it ranked then in terms of market cap and where it ranks now.  Apple (AAPL) ranked #1 then and it ranks #1 now, but the next six largest companies as of three years ago have all dropped in the rankings.

Amazon.com (AMZN) has seen the biggest jump from 12th place up to 2nd — increasing its market cap by $648 billion over the last 3 years!

On the downside, the biggest drop has been General Electric (GE) — which has fallen from 9th place down to 45th place (it used to be in first place too!).  Along with GE, six other stocks have fallen out of the top 35 over the last 3 years — GILD, IBM, PM, AMGN, CVS, and AGN.

Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium for a look at the changing landscape of S&P 500 sector weightings over the years.

Mark August 10th on your calendar.  That is the day when the current streak of trading days without a new bull market closing high will move into third place overall going back to March 2009.  The chart below shows the longest streaks that the S&P 500 has gone without closing at a new bull market high.  While the current drought is just about six months long, there have been four streaks since March 2009 that were longer.  The longest of these streaks lasted more than a year when the S&P 500 went 285 trading days ending in early July 2016 without a new high.  The reason that streak lasted so long was largely due to China’s yuan devaluation in August 2015, and it ended surprisingly enough when US equities actually surged in the days that followed the surprise Brexit vote.

After the 2015/2016 streak, the only other streak of 200+ trading days without a new closing high ended in February 2012.  The catalyst for that dry spell of new highs was when the US was stripped of its AAA rating in early August 2011 amid the debt ceiling debate.  Then, in the fall of 2011, FOMC chair Ben Bernanke announced “Operation Twist” which helped to get financial markets back on a firmer footing.

With the S&P 500 down just 2.56% from its prior bull market high in January, all the bulls need is a few good days strung together in order for this streak to end.  Then again, it is the middle of earnings season, so a run of a few bad days would easily extend this streak to third place overall.

On the subject of earnings season, our most recent Bespoke Report newsletter provided a detailed look at this quarter’s trends so far and what to expect for the remainder of the reporting period.  To check out the report and also gain access to tools like our interactive Earnings Calendar, start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium.

More than a third of the entire US stock market (based on market cap) is set to report earnings this week.  And the 40 largest companies set to report make up more than $7 trillion in market cap!  Needless to say, it’s going to be a busy week for earnings.

Find out when stocks in your portfolio report and how they typically trade with a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium.  You’ll be able to access our interactive Earnings Calendar to pull up all of the key stats.

Below is a table of the largest stocks set to report this week sorted by date and time.  For each stock, we also include its historical earnings “beat rate,” which represents the percentage of the time that the stock has reported EPS that are stronger than consensus analyst estimates.

Alphabet (GOOG) — the third largest company in the world at $827 billion — is the big report today after the close.  On Tuesday, we’ll hear from big Dow stocks like VZ, MMM, and UTX, followed by BA, KO, and V on Wednesday.  We’ll also hear from key Tech companies like Facebook (FB), PayPal (PYPL), and Qualcomm (QCOM) on Wednesday after the close.

MasterCard (MA) and McDonald’s (MCD) are among the biggest reports on Thursday morning, while Amazon (AMZN), Intel (INTC), Amgen (AMGN), and Starbucks (SBUX) will be on everyone’s radars on Thursday after the close.  Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and Merck (MRK) close out the week with reports on Friday morning.

Of the stocks listed, UTX, LMT, FB, V, and MA have historically beaten EPS estimates the most often (all more than 92% of the time).  If you’d like to see more earnings stats like revenue beat rates, guidance, and stock price reactions, head on over to our Earnings Screener.

Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.

Unemployment

Why did long-term unemployment rise in June 2018? by Ernie Tedeschi (Medium)

Former Bespokecast guest and ISI researcher Ernie Tedeschi takes a look at the very unusual spike in the number of workers who are long-term unemployed in last months’ Employment Situation Report. [Link]

Chicago May Become Largest City In U.S. To Try Universal Basic Income by Zaid Jilani (The Intercept)

The controversial social support mechanism universal basic income is being considered in Chicago. While its effects on work incentive, general welfare, government budgets, and other dimensions is at best uncertain, this possible experiment may provide some more evidence as to its worth. [Link]

China Charts

Chinese real estate, charted by Jamie Powell (FTAV)

A review of the sheer scale and potential risks of the Chinese real estate sector, which is rapidly shifting from a story of urbanization to pure speculation. [Link; registration required]

Notes on the Global Condition: The “Rise of China” – semi-regular scrapbook (2018 July) (Adam Tooze)

A sweeping picture of the advent of the Chinese economy, how it is managed, and the implications of its rapid, historically unprecedented ascent. [Link]

Real Estate

Even the cheapest homes are waiting for buyers (Bloomberg/Crain’s New York Business)

New York City real estate, especially Manhattan, is in the process of gearing down and in some cases significantly. That’s not just the high end either. [Link]

How dirty is Miami real estate? Secret home deals dried up when feds started watching by Nicholas Nehamas and Rene Rodriguez (Miami Herald)

After the federal government imposed a special disclosure review on Miami and Manhattan real estate markets in 2016, cash buys by shell companies collapsed to nothing. [Link]

ETFs

Hate ETFs? Quants Say They Found Anomaly to Profit on Their Flows by Lu Wang (Bloomberg)

Taking the other side of passive ETF flows delivered factor returns 2x the size of any other factor tracked by Bloomberg, per new Deutsche Bank research. [Link; soft paywall]

Do Passive Investors Move Markets? They Can by Asjylyn Loder (WSJ)

New research from S&P suggests that the $6.9 trillion in passive funds (both exchange traded and mutual funds) can have a very significant impact on the performance of markets overall due to flows in and out. [Link; paywall]

Shoe Tech

Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster. What if That’s Actually True? by Kevin Quealy and Josh Katz (NYT Upshot)

A new quantitative analysis by the Upshot team based on publicly available Strava data suggests that a new kind of running shoe sold by Nike delivers a 4% improvement in marathon times. [Link]

Europe

E.U. Fines Google $5.1 Billion in Android Antitrust Case by Adam Satariano and Jack Nicas (NYT)

The largest economic bloc on the planet has delivered a remarkable rebuke to Alphabet’s business practice in the mobile phone market, adding to another multi-billion fine last year related to Google’s practice of promoting its own services in business results. [Link; soft paywall]

How EEC membership drove Margaret Thatcher’s reforms by Nauro Campos and Fabrizio Coricelli (Voxeu)

Conventional wisdom claims that structural reforms to the UK economy in the 1980s helped the UK keep pace with continental economic growth. This new review of the literature and econometric study, however, finds European Economic Community (an EU precursor) membership was far more important. [Link]

Extremism

Austrian State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat (Haaretz)

A far-right politician in the Austrian state of Lower Austria (the only member of his party involved in that government) responsible for animal welfare has proposed creating lists of Jews and Muslims. He claims the list will be insured to make sure that kosher or halal butchering practices are kept to a minimum, but the method is recalling despicable historical practices from the region during the rise of the Third Reich. [Link]

Alt-Right Troll To Father Killer: The Unraveling Of Lane Davis by Joseph Bernstein (BuzzFeed News)

The gruesome, depressing, and grim story of a leading voice of the online alt right who eventually murdered his father when his parents asked him to leave their home. [Link]

Crypto

Coin-Operated Capitalism by Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman, Jeremy Sklaroff, and David A. Wishnick (SSRN)

A comprehensive review of initial coin offering white papers and contracts, before comparing them to actual code. The results show a huge gap between protections claimed and what was actually offered in hard code, suggesting that in contrast to claims of “trustless” architecture, the ICO and larger crypto markets are actually highly reliant on trust. [Link]

BlackRock’s Fink Says Clients Have Zero Interest in Crypto by Erik Schatzker (Bloomberg)

The CEO of one of the world’s largest asset managers says that none of its massive array of clients has sought exposure to cryptocurrency. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]

Social Media

Bloomberg Launches a Twitter Feed Optimized for Trading (PR Newswire)

A new algorithmic trading product is being introduced by Bloomberg in order to more cleanly facilitate digestion of Twitter data. [Link]

Congratulations, Mr. President: Zuckerberg Secretly Called Trump After The Election by Ryan Mac and Charlie Warzel (BuzzFeed News)

In a revelation sure to stoke controversy for Facebook, internal documents show CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling President Trump to congratulate him on his victory. Given the size and importance of Trump’s Facebook ad buys, this might not be so surprising. [Link]

Health Care

The incredibly frustrating reason there’s no Lyme disease vaccine by Brian Resnick (Vox)

Ever wondered why you can’t get a vaccine for the terrifying prospect of a tick-borne bout of Lyme disease? Here’s the backstory. [Link]

Potential DNA Damage from CRISPR “Seriously Underestimated,” Study Finds by Sharon Begley (Scientific American)

The extremely promising gene editing protocol CRISPR (which we’ve included links to in the past) may have disastrous consequences, potentially creating artificial cancer or similar cellular dysfunction. [Link]

More

Tesla Model 3 Critic Flips View, Sees Sedan Being Profitable by Tom Randall (Bloomberg)

While Munro & Associates’ initial teardown of Tesla Model 3s saw them as unprofitable and facing massive quality issues, newer teardowns have suggested ~30% gross margins. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]

Plutonium went missing in San Antonio, but the government says nothing by Patrick Malone and R. Jeffrey Smith (My San Antonio/Center of Public Integrity)

Two Department of Energy employees retrieved a briefcase containing plutonium and cesium from San Antonio, Texas, but had the briefcase stolen from their car while they stayed at a hotel overnight. [Link]

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Have a great Sunday!