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“What America needs now is a drink.” – Franklin Roosevelt, 12/5/33

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

It’s been a modestly positive week already, and futures are looking to modestly add to those gains with the S&P 500 up 0.20% and Nasdaq futures pointing to a gain of 0.3%. Bond yields are marginally higher on the day ahead of important (but stale) inflation data, and the 10-year yield is just below 4.12%. Crude oil and gold are little changed, but silver prices are up another 1.5% while copper is up just over 1%. Lastly, crypto prices are lower across the board, but the losses are contained at just 1.3% for Bitcoin.

In Asia, the Nikkei fell 1.1% but still managed to finish the week up 0.5% as yields at the long end of the curve continue to hit multi-year highs. Outside of Japan, though, other indices in the region are trading higher, finishing in positive territory for the week.

European stocks are higher across the board again this morning. The STOXX 600 is poised to close out the week with a gain of nearly 1%, while German stocks lead the region higher as factory orders rose more than expected. Q3 GDP for the entire Eurozone also rose slightly more than expected (0.3% vs 0.2% forecast).

It may have been a Tuesday, but for many Americans, December 5, 1933, probably felt like a Friday. Earlier in the day, Pennsylvania and Ohio had already ratified it, but at 5:32 PM Eastern time, the state of Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment. The amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, and with Utah’s passage, the 21st Amendment achieved the three-fourths majority required for it to become law, ending the nearly 14-year period of national Prohibition in the United States.

Liquor and tobacco stocks have historically been considered recession-proof investments for most of the last 100 years. However, in the last few decades, tobacco stocks have fallen out of favor due to escalating health concerns and heavy government regulation. In recent years, many of the same pressures surrounding tobacco have begun to affect the stocks of alcohol companies. Between emerging health concerns, the proliferation of GLP-1 treatments that suppress the urge to drink, and the rising popularity of cannabis, alcohol stocks have been taking punches from multiple directions.

As the snapshot illustrates, the majority of major alcohol purveyors have experienced significant Year-To-Date (YTD) declines, with most falling over 20%. While Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) may appear to be an outlier and is not down by the same extent, the broader trend is one of sharp underperformance across the sector. More recently, individual stock performance has been mixed: Brown-Forman (BF/B) has seen a multi-week rally, and Constellation Brands (STZ) is also currently trading marginally above its 50-day moving average (50-DMA).

The one-year charts of these six stocks are a sobering picture of underperformance, making you want to grab a drink and drown your sorrows rather than celebrate. Even BUD, while up YTD, is down sharply off its high, but the other five stocks remain mired in steep downtrends.

Finally, just because tobacco stocks have fallen out of favor, you could have done worse. As shown in the chart below, from a price perspective, shares of Altria (MO) underperformed the S&P 500, but not by a ton.  What the price chart doesn’t account for is dividends. MO has a much larger dividend than the S&P 500, and when you take those dividends into account since the start of 2005, they add up. Had you reinvested dividends back into the stock, MO’s total return would have been over 1,300% compared to a total return of 730% in the S&P 500. Whatever you think of tobacco stocks and their impact on the health of the population, investing in them over the last twenty years has been anything but putting your money up in smoke.  See you all at 5:32!

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.

“It’s not the pace of life I mind. It’s the sudden stop at the end.” – Thomas Hobbes

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

There’s very little going on in futures trading this morning as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both indicated to open ever so slightly higher. Treasury yields, meanwhile, are moving up about 3 bps across the curve, with the 10-year yield up near 4.10%. Crude oil is modestly higher, up 0.7%, but the big move remains in the natural gas space as prices are now above $5 for the first time in close to three years. In the metals space, gold and other precious metals are all lower, but the losses are contained at less than 1%. Even the crypto space is quiet as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are all up or down less than 1%.

In Asia, equities were mixed. While South Korea and China were marginally lower, Hong Kong finished up 0.7% while Japan surged 2.3%. Two catalysts behind the move were a strong 30-year JGB auction and a rally in tech stocks. Shares of Softbank rallied more than 9% following reports that it plans to increase its investment in OpenAI before the end of the year.

European stocks have been trading broadly positive this morning. The STOXX 600 is up 0.4%, and every major country’s benchmark index is trading up on the day. Germany is leading the way higher, up 0.8% as auto stocks rally following yesterday’s announcement from the Trump Administration that it would lower fuel-efficiency standards. Italy and the UK, however, are just barely hanging on to gains of 0.1%. In economic data, Retail Sales for the Eurozone were unchanged in October, and slightly higher than expected on a y/y basis (1.5% vs 1.4% forecast).

Getting back to Softbank, shares rallied 9% overnight, following a 6% gain on Wednesday. The chart below shows the performance of Softbank ADRs over the last year, and the last three months have been, to put it mildly, a roller coaster. Heading into today’s session, the stock is down 39% from its high in late October. Yet, despite that plunge, it was still 26% above its 200-DMA and 4% above where it closed 3 months ago. It’s hard to remember a stock that has plunged that much over six weeks, yet was still well above its long-term moving average and positive over the last three months.

The volatility in Softbank is also evident in the day-to-day moves of Softbank stock. With last night’s 9% rally, the stock has now moved 5% or more in 20 of the last 50 trading days. To find a period where the stock saw more volatility in its day-to-day moves, you have to go back to November 2008. In the stock’s entire history, there have only been three periods when the stock had more 5% daily moves in a 50-trading-day span. The other two were in December 2003 and May 2000, when there were 41 in 50 trading days! It’s not like Softbank is a small-cap stock either. With a market cap of over $150 billion, it’s the fourth-largest stock in the Nikkei 225!

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“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” – Jean Luc Godard

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

To view this morning’s Squawk Box interview, please click the image below.

Yesterday was a true turnaround Tuesday as the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and even Bitcoin erased most, if not all, of Monday’s declines. This morning, risk assets continued to move higher as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both look to open 0.2% higher while Bitcoin tests $93K.  Gold and other metals are also up 0.5% to 1%, and even crude oil is up 1% and back above $59 per barrel. Treasury yields are also moving lower for the second day in a row, with the 10-year yield back down to 4.06%.

After being starved of economic data for several weeks, this morning we’ll get ADP Employment and PMI readings for the services sector, both current reports. In addition, the backlog of data will continue to ease as September reports covering Import Prices (8:30), Industrial Production (9:15), and Capacity Utilization (9:15) will also hit the tape.

In Asia overnight, the Nikkei rallied over 1% as Hong Kong fell 1% while South Korea added on another 1.0% after Q3 GDP came in higher than expected (1.3% vs 1.2% q/q). In Europe, the picture is more muted as the STOXX 600 gains 0.2%, and the only other countries moving up or down 0.2% or more are Italy (+0.5%) and Spain (+1.5%).  Europe’s gains come as PMI reading for the services sector generally surprised to the upside. The only exception was Spain, which ironically is also the country with the largest gain on the day so far.

In last night’s Closer, we highlighted multiple equity baskets, which shed some light on how the economy is doing, and their performance is especially important given the lack of official economic data. Another index we follow closely as a gauge of the economy is semiconductors, which, many years ago, we branded the transports of the 21st century. When semis rally and outperform the market, it usually serves as a confirmation of a rally in the broader market and economy. Conversely, when semis falter and underperform, it serves as a red flag.

As shown in the chart below, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) has performed extremely well since the April low.  In retrospect, it’s been a smooth ride higher, although there were two speed bumps – in September and just recently – where the trend higher and the 50-DMA was briefly violated. In the moment, both pullbacks felt concerning, but as semis recovered, the selloffs were chalked up to consolidation. The SOX isn’t out of the woods yet, but through yesterday’s close, it was less than 3% from a new high.

On a relative strength basis, semis have also bounced back nicely. In late October and early November, the relative strength of the SOX briefly made a new high, and now just seven trading days after the recent low, it’s back within a 3% range of that high.

What really stands out about the rally in the SOX off the closing low on 11/20 is the breadth. Since the low, every stock in the index has traded higher, and the median gain has been 14.3%. What’s most impressive, though, is that Nvidia (NVDA) has sat out the rally with a gain of just 0.45% making it the worst-performing stock in the index. NVDA is the largest stock in both the SOX (by a wide margin) and the S&P 500, and during a period when it has essentially been flat, the two indices rallied 12.55% and 4.44%, respectively. It looks like the market can, in fact, rally without NVDA.