Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/12/25 – Disco Fever
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“Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’, and we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive” – Stayin’ Alive, Bee Gees
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Make sure to catch Bespoke co-founder Paul Hickey on Making Money with Charles Payne today at 2 PM Eastern on Fox Business.
Saturday Night Fever was released 48 years ago today, and when you think of that movie, “Stayin’ Alive” is the song that comes to everybody’s mind. With the S&P 500 closing at a new high yesterday, we can’t think of a song much better for the current market.
Ever since October 2022, the bull market has been ‘kicked around” by skeptics almost since the day it “was born.” The kicks came from all angles. Throughout the last three years, there have been repeated events that supposedly spelled the end of the AI rally. In the Summer of 2024, it was the unwind of the yen carry trade. Earlier this year, the haphazard rollout of US trade policy caused a tariff tantrum and raised concerns that Brand USA had lost its luster. Now, the fact that the Fed is cutting rates and rates at the long end of the curve aren’t falling has some arguing that the Fed has lost control.
With all these events and the scary headlines that accompany them, we can “understand the New York Times effect on man” and the potential to scare investors out of the market. Time after time (wait, that’s a Cyndi Lauper song), it felt like the market was “breaking and everybody shakin’”, but after the smoke cleared, that wasn’t Tony Manero on the dance floor striking the Disco Finger. No, that was the bull market hitting new highs and “ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive”.
The Closer – Oracle Credit Spreads, Trade, Postings – 12/11/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we lead off with a dive into the surge in Oracle (ORCL) credit spreads in addition to an update on Fed appointments and some earnings recaps (page 1). We then pivot the latest jobless claims data (page 2) followed by trade balance figures (pages 3 and 4). We close out by recapping the latest job postings data from Indeed (pages 5 and 6).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Vail Resorts (MTN)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Vail Resorts’ (MTN) Q1 2026 earnings call.
Vail Resorts (MTN) is the world’s premier mountain resort operator, managing 42 destinations, like Vail, Whistler Blackcomb, and Park City, across three continents. It revolutionized the industry with the Epic Pass, stabilizing revenue against weather volatility by locking in skiers before the season starts. With millions of global guests, MTN provides insight into high-end leisure travel and the economic impact of climate variability on outdoor recreation. On the earnings call, management reiterated full-year guidance despite a “slow start” due to snowfall down nearly 60% in key western regions. While pass units fell 2%, revenue grew 3% thanks to pricing power and a mix shift toward premium unlimited products. CEO Rob Katz discussed aggressive lift ticket discounting, specifically a new 30% discount for 30-day advance purchases, to capture price-sensitive vacationers who missed pass deadlines. The company is also modernizing marketing by moving spend from traditional email to social and influencer channels. Finally, MTN confirmed its “Resource Efficiency Transformation” is outpacing targets, expecting over $100 million in annualized savings to offset inflation and tariffs impacting its $215–$220 million capital plan. The company missed EPS and revenue estimates, but investors overlooked that news and focused on a more optimistic outlook as the stock rallied as much as 8% on 12/11…
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Cisco (CSCO) Returns to Dot Com Highs
At yesterday’s close, something happened that hasn’t in over a quarter of a century: Cisco (CSCO) closed at a record high. As shown below, the stock’s Dot Com era peak of $80.06 had stood in place for more than 25 years. While a hypothetical investor who bought right at the 2000 peak may finally see their share price in the green, we would note that the company’s valuation as of yesterday’s close is far smaller than it was back then (a $317 billion market cap versus $550 billion in 2000).
Cisco is not the only mega-cap of yesteryear to have recently touched fresh records. Back in September, General Electric (GE) finally eclipsed its August 28, 2000 high of $287.17. The stock continued to rally up through late October when it stalled out at $314.28 and today is back in the $280 price range. Again, like CSCO, General Electric may finally be in the green on a price basis, but its market cap remains a couple hundred billion dollars less from where it was in the year 2000. In fact, it’s not even back to levels it stood at during the Financial Crisis. This comes as GE has undergone a number of restructurings, divestures, and the likes in the past couple of decades. Whereas the company in the 2000s was an enormous industrial conglomerate, today GE is primarily its aerospace business. In other words, it is hard to compare GE of today to GE from 2000.
The Dot Com Era’s peak came in March 2000 when the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit its high. Using 3/10/2000 as the reference point, below we show the 10 largest stocks in the Russell 1,000 from that time. At the top of the list, the name should look familiar given it remains one of the world’s largest companies today: Microsoft (MSFT). This dominant stock has rallied over 700% since its late 1999 high although it had been in the red versus that peak up until October 2016. The next two largest stocks from back then are also the two that most recently returned to prior highs: CSCO and GE. Given this development, there are now only two former top 10 stocks that have yet to return to their 1999/2000 highs: Intel (INTC) and Nokia (NOK).
Bespoke’s Weekly Sector Snapshot — 12/11/25
Chart of the Day: Don’t Throw GPK Out With The Trash
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/11/25 – Passing the Baton
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“In today’s regulatory environment, it’s virtually impossible to violate rules.” – Bernard Madoff
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
17 years ago today, all hell was already breaking loose in financial markets as the banking sector had imploded three months earlier. Lehman’s bankruptcy accelerated a chain of failures and near-failures in some of the country’s most well-established banks. As if the market needed any more bombs hurled at it, along came the “Breaking News” interruptions on the news channels of a Ponzi scheme surrounding a man named Bernie Madoff. We’ve come a long way in the last 17 years, and after yesterday’s Fed meeting, the S&P 500 is back right near record highs and has rallied nearly 10-fold after accounting for dividends.
This morning, equity futures are taking a breather. Oracle (ORCL) earnings after the close last put renewed doubt on the AI trade, and the stock is down 13% as investors question whether the company can fund its ambitious capex plans. If that magnitude of decline, it would be the stock’s largest downside gap in reaction to earnings since at least 2001. Make sure to read our detailed discussion of ORCL earnings and investor concerns regarding the stock and the AI trade in the commentary section of today’s report.
After trading down close to 1% overnight, though, S&P 500 futures have rebounded and are now down just 0.3% while the Nasdaq is down 0.5%. Treasury yields are down another 3 basis points (bps) to 4.13%, and crude oil is down below $58 per barrel, falling over 1%. Gold is fractionally higher, but Bitcoin and other crypto assets have reversed all of their gains from the prior 24 hours.
In Asia, stocks traded mostly lower, with the Nikkei down 0.9% and South Korea down 0.6% as ORCL’s earnings dragged on the region. In Europe, though, we’re seeing modest gains across the board with the STOXX 600 trading 0.2% higher.
In the US, the only economic data release on the calendar this morning was jobless claims. Initial claims came in higher than expected at 236K (versus 220K), erasing all of last week’s surprising decline. Meanwhile, continuing claims showed a sharp decline, falling to 1.838 million, or 100K less than expected. The continuing claims number is lagged a week, so the sharp drop in initial claims last week was likely a holiday quirk.
The S&P 500 closed within fractions of a new high yesterday, and the same sectors that have driven the market this year are the ones that have driven the rally over the last week. As shown in the snapshot below, Technology, Communication Services, and Industrials are the only two sectors up over 1% in the last five trading days, and they’re also the three best-performing sectors this year.
While the S&P 500 closed within whiskers of a new high and tech has led the rally, the Technology sector still has a ways to go before hitting a new high, as yesterday’s close was more than 2% below the late-October high. What stands out about the chart, though, is how much green there has been in the candles since the November low.
In fact, with 13 straight days of gains and 13 straight days of positive returns from the open to close, the Technology sector ETF (XLK) is knocking on the door of history. The 13 days in a row of daily gains are tied for the longest in the ETF’s history, dating back to 1999. The only other streak as long ended in February 2017. Similarly, the streak of open-to-close rallies is just one shy of the 14-day streak that also ended in February 2017.
What surprised us most about the Technology sector’s recent run is the stocks that have been driving the bus. Nine Technology sector stocks are up over 25% since the close on 11/20, and the majority are semiconductor stocks. One semi-stock not on the list of winners, though, is Nvidia (NVDA). While it’s not down since 11/20, NVDA’s 1.74% gain ranks as the eighth-worst performance in the sector. Also on the list of laggards is Microsoft (MSFT), which is barely higher since 11/20 (+0.03%). These two stocks collectively account for about 25% of the entire Technology sector, but as they have tread water over the last two weeks, the sector they dominate has still rallied over 9%. Is the baton being passed?
The Closer – FOMC, SEP, ECI – 12/10/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we start out with a recap of the Fed day including the SEP update (page 1), the development of bill purchases (page 2), and market reactions (page 3). We then provide an update on the Employment Cost Index and Oracle (ORCL) earnings (page 4) before closing out with a look into the latest sentiment data (page 5).
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 12/10/25
The Triple Play Report — 12/10/25
An earnings triple play is a stock that reports earnings and manages to 1) beat analyst EPS estimates, 2) beat analyst sales estimates, and 3) raise forward guidance. You can read more about “triple plays” at Investopedia.com where they’ve given Bespoke credit for popularizing the term. We like triple plays as an indication that a company’s business is firing on all cylinders, with better-than-expected results and an improving outlook. A triple play is indicative of positive “fundamental momentum” instead of pure fundamentals, and there are always plenty of names with both high and low valuations on our quarterly list.
Bespoke’s Triple Play Report highlights companies that have recently reported earnings triple plays, and it features commentary from management on triple-play conference calls, company descriptions and analysis, and price charts. Bespoke’s Triple Play Report is available at the Bespoke Institutional level only. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read this week’s Triple Play Report, which features 25 new stocks. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below:
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Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) is an example of a company that recently reported an earnings triple play before the opening bell on 11/10. In reaction, TSEM shares rallied 16.7% on the day. That move has helped push the stock up more than 140% YTD!
Here’s how AI describes the company: Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) is a specialized independent foundry that manufactures high-value analog integrated circuits, producing chips for customers who design hardware but do not own their own fabrication facilities. In other words, customers send TSEM blueprints, and it uses its factories to physically build those designs into finished computer chips. Instead of competing on the smallest digital processors, Tower focuses on customizing “specialty” process technologies, such as Silicon Photonics (SiPho), Silicon Germanium (SiGe), and RF-SOI, that excel at managing real-world signals like light, radio waves, and electrical power. You can think of these like the “senses” and “connectors,” rather than the main processors, “brains,” of a computer. These components are critical for optical transceivers in high-speed AI data centers, radio frequency front-ends in 5G smartphones, and power management systems in automotive and consumer electronics. Operating seven manufacturing facilities across Israel, the United States, and Japan, TSEM does not sell devices directly to consumers. Instead, it provides the essential manufacturing service and complex chemical processes needed to create these specific parts, which are then installed inside smartphones, cars, and the massive data centers powering AI.
Tower delivered a strong third quarter with revenue climbing 7% YoY to $396 million and net profit reaching $54 million, while the company raised guidance to a record $440 million for Q4 on the back of huge AI infrastructure demand. The standout performer was the Silicon Photonics segment, which creates optical interconnects for data centers, as revenue here surged 70% to $52 million and is rapidly moving toward ultra-fast 1.6 Terabit speeds that already make up nearly a third of production starts. This demand is so intense that management committed an additional $300 million investment to triple manufacturing capacity for these optical chips by late 2026. Customers are abandoning traditional lasers in favor of Tower’s silicon-based alternative because it offers better performance while requiring only half the number of lasers, making them far cheaper and more efficient.
As we touched on earlier, the stock has staged a historic run; up more than 140% YTD and roughly 325% since the April Tariff Tantrum. The stock is currently trading at its highest level in over 20 years. Wall Street has aggressively re-priced the company from a standard chip manufacturer to a critical piece of the AI supply chain. But this skyrocketing valuation creates a new challenge where expectations are now through the roof. With so much optimism already baked into the price, the company has effectively entered a zone where simply meeting estimates will likely not be enough going forward. To sustain this upward trajectory, TSEM must now likely continually deliver better-than-expected results to justify its massive run.
Looking at the snapshot below from our Earnings Explorer, Tower Semi (TSEM) has found a rhythm with its pace of positive reactions to earnings over the last three and a half years. The stock has risen on 13 of its 14 earnings reaction days since August 2022. EPS and revenue beat rates have been shakier, though. Although not a consistent triple play name, the company has managed a couple recently.
You can read more about TSEM and the 24 other triple plays we covered in our newest report by starting a Bespoke Institutional trial today.
Bespoke Investment Group, LLC believes all information contained in these reports to be accurate, but we do not guarantee its accuracy. None of the information in these reports or any opinions expressed constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities. This is not personalized advice. Investors should do their own research and/or work with an investment professional when making portfolio decisions. As always, past performance of any investment is not a guarantee of future results. Bespoke representatives or clients may have positions in securities discussed or mentioned in its published content.