Despite a seemingly endless number of events that investors could easily use as justification to take profits, US equities just keep marching higher.  While the magnitude of the gain this year has been far from record-breaking for a calendar year, the consistency has been without precedent by some measures.  The tables below from our most recent Bespoke Report serve as an example of how Teflon the market has seemingly become as the S&P 500 is in its second-longest bull market, the tenth longest streak without a 10% correction, the fourth longest run without a 5% decline, and the longest rally ever without even a 3% decline.  At some point the market’s luck will run out, but betting on when that will be has been tough on the wallet so far.

With the S&P 500 showing steady gains throughout the year, it seems a day doesn’t go by where we aren’t seeing new record highs.  The chart below shows the number of all-time record closing highs for the S&P 500 on an annual basis since 1929.  With 57 records (not including today) so far this year, 2017 ranks as the third most all-time closing highs for a calendar year behind 1995 (77) and 1964 (65).  Unfortunately, with 19 trading days left in the year, it is now mathematically impossible for this year to overtake or even tie 1995’s 77 record highs, but 1965’s total of 65 is still within reach.  Even that, though, will be tough as eight of the year’s final 19 trading days would need to be record highs to just tie for second all time.  If the final few weeks of 2017 simply keep up the current pace of the first eleven months of the year, 2017 would finish with a total of 62 all-time closing highs.  Still not a bad total by any stretch.

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.

See this week’s just-published Bespoke Report newsletter by starting a no-obligation two-week free trial to our premium research platform.

Investment Picks

The Winners of the New World by Jim Cramer (TheStreet)

Worth reading amidst booming prices for tech stocks and cryptocurrencies alike: Jim Cramer’s summary of the lay of the market and his picks just weeks before the peak of the Nasdaq in the year 2000. [Link]

50 startups that will boom in 2018, according to VCs by Julie Bort (Business Insider)

Not so helpful as a measure of where returns will be, but definitely interesting as a pulse-taking on sentiment and thematic focus for the venture space. [Link]

Tax Reform

Trump’s Tax Promises Undercut by CEO Plans to Help Investors by Toluse Olorunnipa (Bloomberg)

While a key assumption of the Republican tax bill is that lower corporate taxes will boost wages and investment, CEOs have different ideas. [Link; auto-playing video]

Current Tax Reform Bills Could Encourage US Jobs, Factories and Profits to Shift Overseas by Steven M. Rosenthal (Tax Policy Center)

We don’t want to do a disservice to the details (which Rosenthal cogently explains) but the bottom line is that provisions in both the House and Senate tax bills would create large incentives to shift production overseas, the opposite of their intended approach. [Link]

Bitcoin

Let’s Talk About Arbitrage – Bitcoin Futures Edition by Kid Dynamite (Kid Dynamite’s World)

The introduction of bitcoin futures will create an easy method for shorting the currency, but because of how arbitrage works, there’s unlikely to be anything but upward pressure based on the introduction of the new contracts. [Link]

Bitcoin’s Trading Star Is Chicago High-Speed Firm That Nods to the Grateful Dead by Alexander Osipovich (WSJ)

A look inside DRW’s high frequency trading unit focused on cryptocurrencies, which has bought cryptocurrency from governments, rejected the idea of making money mining crypto, and now makes markets in the space. [Link; paywall]

Sports

The Case For Lefty Driesell by Dave Kindred (The Athletic)

A strong argument that Duke player, former high school coach, and 786 NCAA D1 game winner doesn’t get the respect he deserves. [Link]

I Saw The Buttfumble Live And It Fractured My Family by Jon Eisman (Deadspin)

An oral history of the stupidest play in NFL history’s impact on a family, complete with desperate bids for family unity, seasons tickets to the Jets, and the last time a Jets fan goes to one of their games. [Link]

Commodities

Oil demand: Beware the gap by Jamie Webster (Petroleum Economist)

A comprehensive but digestible review of the shifting economics of the global crude industry. [Link]

Will Tesla Die for Lack of Cobalt? by Spencer Jakab (WSJ)

While demand for cobalt has surged thanks to the explosive growth of global battery demand, there are talks of a shortage; that said, we’ve heard this sort of “no supply left” story before. [Link; paywall]

Software

Huge security flaw lets anyone log into a High Sierra Mac by Devin Coldewey (TechCrunch)

Users are granted full access to a device running Mac OS (note: not iOS, the phone operating system) by simply entering ‘root’ as the user when attempting to authenticate. [Link]

Ignored By Big Telecom, Detroit’s Marginalized Communities Are Building Their Own Internet by Kaleigh Rogers (Vice)

40% of the population (including 70% of school children) do not have access to any internet service in Detroit, thanks to underinvestment in infrastructure by telecoms that don’t see building what’s needed as profitable given the economic backdrop. This group is DIYing its way into broader access to the internet in response to the problem. [Link]

Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs by Tatyana Shumsky (WSJ)

CFOs are leading the charge in reducing reliance on Excel as the workhorse software tool used by accountants, finance divisions, and other corporate analysts. [Link; paywall]

Shopping

The Triumph of the Latin American Mall by Nolan Gray (Citylab)

While mall construction is nonexistent in the United States with as many as 25% of the remaining 1100 expected to close over the next 5 years, Latin America is seeing an explosion of construction. [Link]

Best Tech Gifts 2017 by Wilson Rothman and Joanna Stern (WSJ)

Streaming, phones, laptops, Wi-fi, cameras, kids “toys”, remote controlled toys, cooking, tablets, games, and more. [Link; paywall]

Baltic News

For some Russian oligarchs, sanctions risk makes Putin awkward to know by Darya Korsunskaya, Katya Golubkova, and Gleb Stolyarov (Reuters)

US sanctions on Russian citizens are starting to pinch, and are putting at least some distance between powerful oligarchs and the President. [Link]

How 41 People in Lithuania Took Over Your Facebook Feed by Kevin Roose (NYT)

Inside a small boot-strapped startup that has become dominant in the world of digital publishing. [Link; soft paywall]

Food

The Fruit That Smells Like Gym Socks Is Skyrocketing in China by Anuradha Raghu (Bloomberg)

China is gobbling down durian at a staggering pace, creating an opening for non-traditional players to enter the booming market. [Link]

Wall Street

Inside the Race for the Top Job on Wall Street by Kate Kelly (NYT)

The Co-COOs of Goldman Sachs are neck-in-neck to replace CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and the two are a remarkable study in contrasts. [Link; soft paywall]

Have a great Sunday!

Below we take a look at one-year trading range charts for gold, silver, oil, and natural gas.  For each chart, the green shading represents between two standard deviations above and below the commodity’s 50-day moving average.  Moves to the top of or above the green shading are considered overbought, while moves to the bottom of or below the green shading are considered oversold.

While gold has been flat as a pancake lately, it has been holding just above the bottom of its uptrend support line.  Gold bulls are hoping this sideways period is just a re-charge for a big move higher back towards the top of the channel.

Silver looks much different than gold, with a slightly downward sloping pattern over the last year.  Just this week, we’ve seen silver move into oversold territory.  While oversold levels eventually result in mean reversion (to the upside), if we were trading silver, we’d wait for it to break out to a new 52-week high before buying.

Oil has had a very nice run over the last five months.  In October it finally broke out of a long-term downtrend channel, and it recently formed a new uptrend channel when it broke out to new 52-week highs.

Natural gas has been trading in a sideways range around the $3 mark for six months now.  The sideways trend is better than the downtrend that had been in place, and now natural gas bulls want to see a breakout above the top of this range so that a new uptrend can form.