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.

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Autos

Rivian Is Close to Raising Funds at $25 Billion Valuation by Katie Roof and Edward Ludlow (Bloomberg)

The electric truck company is adding to its total capital raise by “several billion”, bringing total to-date capital raised to at least $8bn; deliveries on its trucks and SUVs are planned to start this year. [Link; soft paywall]

Honda cuts car production on massive chip shortage by Ryosuke Hanada (Nikkei)

Semiconductors are in short supply for the global auto industry, with surging demands for chips used in computers and phones leading to a supply bottleneck for other industries like autos. [Link]

Renewables

The New Green Energy Giants Challenging Exxon and BP by Katherine Blunt and Sarah McFarlane (WSJ)

Utilities based in Florida, Spain, and Italy have become monsters in the world of green energy, going in many ways unnoticed as they accrue tens of billions in capital investment in solar and wind energy projects across the world. [Link; paywall]

Vaccine Rollouts

NC governor activates National Guard to help with COVID vaccine distribution by Adam Wagner and Martha Quillin (News & Observer)

Concerned that North Carolina may be falling behind on vaccinations has lead Governor Roy Cooper to activate the state’s National Guard in order to assist local health departments rolling out access to the inoculations. [Link]

Why West Virginia’s Winning The Race To Get COVID-19 Vaccine Into Arms by Yuki Noguchi (NPR)

A focus on local pharmacies instead of national chains has let West Viriginia administer a huge number of vaccines in a very short amount of time. [Link]

66% of New York City’s Vaccine Doses Sit Unused as Virus Numbers Soar by Joseph Goldstein (NYT)

As a result of Governor Cuomo’s decision to aggressively prioritize vaccine access with huge penalties attached, there are huge numbers of unused vaccines sitting in storage, unused. [Link; soft paywall]

Policy

Most Second Stimulus Payments Reach Household Bank Accounts by Richard Rubin and Laura Saunders (WSJ)

$600 relief payments from the US Treasury have been two-thirds paid out already with more than $112bn hitting consumers accounts over the last week and a half. [Link; paywall]

Comparison of Utilization, Costs, and Quality of Medicaid vs Subsidized Private Health Insurance for Low-Income Adults by Heidi Allen, Sarah H. Gordon, and Dennis Lee (JAMA Network)

In a study comparing the health care received by Marketplace (ACA exchange) and Medicaid recipients, Marketplace users paid 83% more with mixed impact on quality of care and a reduced number of emergency department visits. [Link]

Labor Movement

Google workers launch unconventional union with help of Communications Workers of America by Nitasha Tiku (WaPo)

Tech worker organizing has taken the next step with more than two hundred Google employees launching a union; notably, that union will not seek ratification with a federal agency and therefore won’t have collective bargaining rights. [Link; soft paywall]

Living

Amazon Pledging More Than $2 Billion for Affordable Housing in Three Hub Cities by Nicole Friedman (WSJ)

Amazon has said it will use low-cost loans to build or preserve affordable housing in areas that it has a tech hub presence in. [Link; paywall]

United Van Lines’ National Migration Study Reveals Where and Why Americans Moved in 2020 (United Van Lines)

A fascinating review of where movers are flowing to and from around the country with states like South Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, and Arizona seeing the biggest inflows while New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and California seeing the biggest outflows. [Link]

Hawaii’s Beaches Are Disappearing by Ash Ngu and Sophie Cocke (ProPublica)

Coastal seawalls are key drivers of coastal erosion, with waves that hit them and rebound dragging sand out to sea instead of washing over it as on a natural beach. The result is that Hawaii’s legendary sands are disappearing. [Link]

Novel Structures

A Tiny Hedge Fund Just Made History by Turning Into an ETF by Katherine Greifeld (Bloomberg)

A Nashville-based hedge fund with $3mm in assets decided to convert its tech-oriented portfolio into an exchange traded fund, the first such transaction in the history of the investment management industry. [Link]

Food

To Make Japan’s Original Sushi, First Age Fish for Several Months by Clarissa Wei (Atlas Obscura)

A fascinating history of the now-ubiquitous raw fish which was originally a cured product that fermented in barrels or other vehicles for months or even years before being served. [Link]

Security

FBI Questioned A Michigan Senate Staffer After Zoom Call About Banning Tear Gas by Alice Speri and Sam Biddle (The Intercept)

A legislative strategy call related to a proposed bill in Michigan was somehow put on the FBI’s radar, either through a report by someone that overheard it or more concerning means. [Link]

Pro-Trump Mob Livestreamed Its Rampage, and Made Money Doing It by Kellen Browning and Taylor Lorenz (NYT)

An alternative to classic social media networks called Dlive offers users the ability to tip livestreamers, and as a mob wrecked the Capitol earlier this week, that’s just what they did. [Link; soft paywall]

Modern Families

The Sperm Kings Have a Problem: Too Much Demand by Nellie Bowles (NYT)

Sperm donors who are most in-demand are having a hard time keeping up with the demand for their product amidst a dramatic uptick in the number of people who are looking for babies. [Link; soft paywall]

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Have a great weekend!

As we noted in yesterday’s Sector Snapshot, cyclical sectors are leading the way higher in 2021 as Energy, Materials, and Financials are all up around 5% or more compared to the S&P 500’s gain of a more modest 1.65% YTD.  That outperformance has led to some sharp moves in the relative strength lines of several sectors. As shown below, the Materials sector and Financials have both seen sharp moves higher in their relative strength lines versus the S&P 500.  For Materials, this has been part of a broader trend of outperformance (upward trending line) that has been in place over the past year. For Financials, prior to this most recent upswing, the line first began to trend higher in the late Fall but then took some pause in December. Meanwhile, Consumer Discretionary, Energy, Health Care, and Industrials have also made moves higher, albeit more modest than those of Materials and Financials.

As for the other sectors’ relative strength lines, there have been some sharp moves in the opposite direction.  Starting with what had been market leaders at various points of the past year, Communication Services and Technology are perhaps some of the most notable negative reversals.  For the former, the relative strength line has generally moved sideways over the past year, but since mid-December, the line has been on the decline with one of the most dramatic legs lower taking place in the past week. Tech was a consistent outperformer in the first half of 2020, but since the summer that outperformance has faltered.  The sector’s relative strength line peaked and has been trending sideways since the start of September and the move so far in 2021 has brought the line down towards the low end of the past few months’ range. As for other sectors, Real Estate, Utilities, and Consumer Staples have been trending lower for the better portion of the past year, but with cyclical sectors flying, the relative strength lines of these more defensive sectors have made new lows this week in dramatic fashion.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

Several measures of market breadth have been showing strength recently as we noted in yesterday’s Sector Snapshot. Over 80% of S&P 500 stocks trade above their 50-DMAs, more than half are overbought (at least two standard deviations above its 50-DMA), and over 20% of S&P 500 stocks reached new 52-week highs yesterday.  Additionally, shorter-term breadth as measured by the 10-day advance-decline line has also been strong.  Pretty much across the board, every sector’s 10-day A/D line has tipped into overbought levels. That doesn’t apply to only Consumer Staples and Real Estate which have more modest readings, though breadth for these sectors has still been positive recently.  At the moment, Materials, Health Care, and Financials are the most overbought sectors by this measure.  Overall, the sharp moves higher in the 10-day A/D lines does flash a warning sign for the very near term that things are running a bit hot.

As previously mentioned, several sectors are reaching new 52-week highs, and given breadth has been strong to match, cumulative advance-decline lines are confirming the moves higher.  As shown in the charts below, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care, Industrials, Materials, as well as the broader S&P 500 all closed at 52-week highs last week and so too did those sectors’ cumulative A/D lines.  While price did not close at new highs, Tech, Financials, and Communication Services also all saw new highs in their cumulative AD lines.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

The average stock in the Russell 3,000 is already up 5.24% year-to-date after just four trading days.  And to think, major indices were down ~1% on the first trading day of the year this past Monday.  Below we highlight the average YTD performance of stocks by sector in the Russell 3,000.  Remember, the Russell 3,000 contains large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps, and it covers roughly 98.5% of all US-traded market cap.  As shown, Energy stocks have jumped out to the strongest start to the year with an average gain of 13.26%.  Materials rank second with a gain of 9.1%, and then Industrials, Financials, Health Care, and Consumer Discretionary are all bunched together with gains between 5% and 6%.  Technology stocks — last year’s big leaders — are ‘only’ up 4.34% on average so far in 2021, while the Real Estate sector is the only one that has averaged declines.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

Looking at Industry Groups, while Technology as a whole is underperforming a bit, the Semiconductor group (which are part of the Tech sector) is up big with average YTD gains of 9.4%.  Autos are also performing very well with a gain of 9.2%.  Thank you Tesla (TSLA).

There are already more than 600 stocks in the Russell 3,000 that are up more than 10% year-to-date.  That represents 20% of the index.

Below is a look at the top-performing stocks so far in 2021.  Usually, it takes weeks or months to see YTD gains like these, but we’ve gotten here in just four trading days.  3D Systems (DDD) ranks first with a gain of 119%, followed by Atomera (ATOM) at 70%, ViewRay (VRAY) at 59.5%, Arcturus (ARCT) at 54%, and Akerna (KERN) at 52%.  We don’t fault you if you have never heard of these names!