ETF Trends: US Indices & Styles – 6/3/16
Below is a look at the 20 best and worst performing ETFs (non-leveraged) over the last week. Gold-exposed stocks jumped, while biotech stocks continued steady gains. Among the worst performers were a number of the financial sector stocks, including KBE Banks and IYG Financial Services, IAI Broker Dealers, and KCE Capital Markets. Multiple Asian exposures were ranked high on top performers, while European exposures faltered, with Italy falling the most.
Bespoke provides Bespoke Premium and Bespoke Institutional members with a daily ETF Trends report that highlights proprietary trend and timing scores for more than 200 widely followed ETFs across all asset classes. If you’re an ETF investor, this daily report is perfect. Sign up below to access today’s ETF Trends report.
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S&P 500 Sector Breadth Levels
The S&P 500 is holding up relatively well today given that the economy printed its weakest monthly jobs reading versus expectations since January 2014. Below is a look at S&P 500 sector breadth levels as measured by the percentage of stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages.
As of this afternoon, 65% of stocks in the S&P 500 are trading above their 50-days, which is a solid reading. Sectors where breadth is strongest include Utilities, Energy, Financials and Health Care. While the Financial sector still has a stronger reading than the S&P 500 as a whole, its breadth was much stronger prior to today’s jobs number. The weak employment number has pushed rate-hike estimates further out, and Financials had been performing well due to increased hawkishness from the Fed prior to today. Start a free research trial below if you’d like to see more sector analysis from Bespoke.
Bespoke’s Weekly Chart Book: 6/3/16
Chart of the Day – ISM Commodities Survey Surges
In today’s ISM Services report, respondents noted increases in the prices for fifteen commodities and declines in just five. This follows Wednesday’s report for the manufacturing sector where eighteen commodities were up in price versus just one that was down. On a combined basis, thirty-three commodities were up in price in May and six were down, for a net of twenty-seven.
In today’s Chart of the Day, we look at how this month’s increase compares to recent and longer term history, and what impact (if any) it has on inflation.
Who’s Hated More?
Each month, Bespoke runs a survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers balanced to census for their views on the broad economy as well as their personal finances. (Please see bottom of post for more details on our survey work.) In this month’s survey, we added in a few questions about the upcoming Presidential election so we can work to determine how consumer habits may change depending on who gets elected.
While we’re keeping the bulk of our analysis on the Election topic on our paid Consumer Pulse platform, we thought Think B.I.G. readers would find our analysis below quite noteworthy/amusing/scary. One of the things we asked our Pulse survey takers to do this month was to fill in one word describing Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The answer form is intentionally left as a blank text box so that it’s truly a word that our survey takers come up with on their own.
Once we collected all 1,500 survey responses, we created a “word cloud” that highlights all of the responses — the larger the word, the more often it was used. Presented below without comment (other than to pardon any foul language used by our respondents) are the two word clouds for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton:
If you had to use one word to describe Donald Trump, what would it be:
If you had to use one word to describe Hillary Clinton, what would it be:
Along with our unique and thought-provoking stock market coverage, Bespoke has another research offering geared towards investors looking to stay ahead of economic and consumer-related trends. Each month, Bespoke surveys thousands of consumers balanced to census to get basically a real-time look at every aspect of the economy. We then package the survey results into our extremely insightful Consumer Pulse Report, which is available as part of our Pulse subscription offering. Below is a snapshot of page one of this month’s Pulse report that was just sent to Pulse subscribers. This is our interactive dashboard that subscribers use to browse through the report. As you can see, the breadth of coverage in the report is remarkable. If you’d like to read it, you can do so for free by signing up for a 30-day trial to our monthly or annual Pulse package below. Also included with a subscription is access to two Pulse Model Portfolios and additional content released throughout the month!
Annual — Bespoke Consumer Pulse — $365/Year w/ 1-Month Free Trial
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Consumer Pulse: Snapchat Gaining Popularity
Snapchat More Popular Than Twitter: According to a Bloomberg article yesterday, Snapchat has 150 million people using the messaging app every day, which is a big increase from 110 million daily active users in December. On the other hand, Twitter sees less than 140 million daily active users. At one point, Twitter was the second largest social network behind Facebook, but it has since been overshadowed by other Facebook apps such as Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. When asked about Snapchat, Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said that messaging is “very modern” and admitted that Twitter can be confusing at times, which is an obstacle he’s looking to overcome.
Survey Says: Our Consumer Pulse survey has also identified this trend. We asked consumers about their most recent visit to social media sites, with both April and May’s readings showing Snapchat is more popular than Twitter.
You can see our entire data-set of proprietary survey analysis with a 30-day free trial to our Consumer Pulse offering. We have said it before, but we’ll say it again: The value in the Bespoke Consumer Pulse offering is tremendous. We strongly encourage you to give our Consumer Pulse subscription a try!
Click here to learn more about the Consumer Pulse offering, or go ahead and start a 30-day free trial using one of the checkout links below.
Annual — Bespoke Consumer Pulse — $365/Year w/ 1-Month Free Trial
Monthly — Bespoke Consumer Pulse — $39.99/Month w/ 1-Month Free Trial
The Closer 6/2/16 – “EIA Strong With Fed Hike Before Long”
Looking for deeper insight on global markets and economics? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke clients, we summarize the EIA data figures today on petroleum inventories, production, and demand. We also review the stance of the FOMC and the relationship between a summer hike and the USD.
The Closer is one of our most popular reports, and you can sign up for a trial below to see it and everything else Bespoke publishes free for the next two weeks!
Click here to start your no-obligation free Bespoke research trial now!
ETF Trends: Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities – 6/2/16
Biotech continues to trade well, as do small caps and small cap growth stocks. IWC (Microcaps) is also probably a good indicator of where market price action has been lately with the smallest (and usually most speculative) names up a healthy 2.5% over the past week. Oil-exposed stocks like XES or OIH feature prominently in the list of worst performers, as does hedged Japanese exposure which has gotten hit hard on combined USDJPY and Nikkei selloffs over the last few days. A number of other EMs have also underperformed over the past week.
Bespoke provides Bespoke Premium and Bespoke Institutional members with a daily ETF Trends report that highlights proprietary trend and timing scores for more than 200 widely followed ETFs across all asset classes. If you’re an ETF investor, this daily report is perfect. Sign up below to access today’s ETF Trends report.
See Bespoke’s full daily ETF Trends report by starting a no-obligation free trial to our premium research. Click here to sign up with just your name and email address.
Bespoke’s Sector Snapshot — 6/2/16
We’ve just released our weekly Sector Snapshot report (see a sample here) for Bespoke Premium and Bespoke Institutional members. Please log-in here to view the report if you’re already a member. If you’re not yet a subscriber and would like to see the report, please start a 14-day trial to Bespoke Premium now.
Below is our trading range chart for the S&P 500 that’s always included in the Sector Snapshot. The green area in the chart represents oversold territory for the index, while the red area represents overbought territory. The S&P 500 has basically traded sideways over the last week, and it remains slightly overbought. Due to the decrease in volatility and sideways action over the last two months, the S&P’s trading range has tightened significantly as well. Usually when this happens, the market is winding up for a big move either higher or lower!
To see our full Sector Snapshot with additional commentary plus six pages of charts that include analysis of valuations, breadth, technicals, and relative strength, start a 14-day free trial to our Bespoke Premium package now. Here’s a breakdown of the products you’ll receive.
Chart of the Day: S&P 500 Already At All-Time Highs?
In today’s Chart of the Day sent to paid research subscribers, we show that by one measure, the S&P 500 is already making new all-time highs, despite the price index remaining about 1.5% below the prior all-time high set back in May of 2015. Sign up for a 14-day free Bespoke research trial below to receive instant access to our Chart of the Day plus everything else we have to offer.