Daily Sector Snapshot — 12/3/24
South Korea ETF (EWY) Reaching New Lows
Although US equities are mostly flat today, South Korean equities have been much more eventful. News broke today that the country’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law which was then contested by the National Assembly shortly thereafter. The catalyst for the declaration was claims to address what he described as communist/North Korean sympathetic parties conducting anti-state activities including budget disputes and impeachments. While the event is still unfolding, in response to the political tensions, the MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) is down 2.35% as of this writing. That makes for the fifth straight day of declines, resulting in the ETF trading at its lowest level in over a year.
In the table below, we show the 22 country ETFs tracked in our Global Macro Dashboard (which was most recently updated last week). As shown, South Korea (EWY) is by far the worst performer today and it is also now the only one trading at a 52-week low too. In total, EWY is now down over 15% year to date with only Mexico (EWW) and Brazil (EWZ) falling more. Of those, EWZ is also the only country ETF that is now more oversold than South Korea. On the flip side, other Asian country ETFs like Japan (EWJ) and Singapore (EWS) have been moving higher into overbought territory.
Bespoke Stock Scores — 12/3/24
Chart of the Day – Dollar Rallies and Their Impact on Equities
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/3/24 – Software Picks Up the Slack
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.
“You never bet on the end of the world, that only happens once, and the odds of something that happens once in an eternity are pretty long.” – Art Cashin
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Futures indicate another trendless morning with extremely modest gains or losses depending on the index you want to examine. The economic calendar is on the light side, with October JOLTS being the only notable report. However, we will also hear comments from Fed Governor Kugler and Chicago Fed President Goolsbee later today.
Overnight in Asia, major equity benchmarks were higher across the board. The most notable economic report in the region was South Korean inflation which increased 1.5% y/y compared to a rate of 1.3% in October but was lower than the 1.7% consensus forecast. On the trade front, the Chinese government retaliated against the increased US export restrictions on advanced chip technologies by saying it would restrict certain rare earth materials to the US.
In Europe, stocks are also higher this morning, with the STOXX 600 trading up over 0.4%. In France, the CAC 40 was up close to 1% despite the political turmoil in the country. Opposition parties are on track to back a no-confidence vote to remove PM Michel Barnier.
Semiconductors make up a large part of the Technology sector, so the fact that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) has declined over 10% in roughly the last six months while shares of Nvidia (NVDA) are flat would lead you to believe that the overall sector has been weak. While it hasn’t been a leader, the Technology sector has rallied over 3% since NVDA and the semis peaked in the summer. A big reason for that strength is that as semis dropped the ball, software jumped in and dribbled it right down the court.
Since the closing high in the SOX on 7/10, the software group, as measured by the iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) has rallied over 20%. Through the close yesterday, IGV was 1.5 standard deviations above its 50-day moving average (DMA), but that’s down from more than three standard deviations above its 50-DMA on 11/11, which was the most overbought level since August 2020. All totaled, IGV has closed at overbought levels (1+ standard deviations above its 50-DMA) for 21 trading days.
The largest component in IGV, accounting for just over 9% of the ETF’s assets, is Salesforce (CRM). CRM had a rough start to 2024, and the bottom fell out of the stock in May when the company reported weaker-than-expected sales for the first time since 2006. As shown in the chart below, the 19.7% decline in reaction to that miss was the most negative reaction to an earnings report for CRM since it went public in 2004. It also marked the low for the stock, and it has rallied more than 56% since then.
While CRM shares are currently not quite as overbought as IGV, yesterday marked the 52nd day in a row that the stock closed at overbought levels. That’s the longest streak of overbought readings since its IPO 20 years ago!
The Closer – PMIs, Construction, Positioning Shifts – 12/2/24
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin with a review of the latest PMI data (page 1) in addition to the latest construction figures (pages 2 & 3). We then review the latest positioning figures from the CFTC’s Commitments of Traders report (pages 4 – 7).
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 12/2/24
Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: CrowdStrike (CRWD)
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 CrowdSrtike’s (CRWD) Q3 2025 earnings call.
CrowdStrike (CRWD) is a cybersecurity company specializing in cloud-native endpoint protection and threat intelligence. Its Falcon platform leverages AI and machine learning to detect and prevent cyberattacks in real time, serving enterprises across industries, including healthcare, technology, and retail. CRWD surpassed $4 billion in ARR with 27% YoY growth. The Falcon Flex subscription model drove record module adoption, with customers averaging nine modules, while the company achieved over 150 Flex deals worth $1.3 billion in total value. Key wins included eight-figure deals in healthcare and retail, as well as growing adoption of Next-Gen SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), with ARR accelerating by over 150%. Recent innovations like Charlotte AI and the Adaptive Shield acquisition bolstered the company’s leadership in AI-powered cloud and SaaS security. Despite lingering impacts from the summer’s incident, retention remained resilient at over 97%, and CrowdStrike projects ARR reacceleration by late fiscal 2026…
Continue reading our Conference Call Recap for CRWD by becoming a Bespoke Institutional subscriber. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read our newest Conference Call Recap. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below:
Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Dell (DELL)
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 Dell’s (DELL) Q3 2025 earnings call.
Dell (DELL) is a provider of technological infrastructure, servers, storage, and PCs. DELL is focused on advancing AI capabilities, data center modernization, and digital transformations. This quarter, the company reported strong AI server growth, with $2.9 billion in shipments and a $4.5 billion backlog, driving a 34% ISG (Infrastructure Solutions Group) revenue increase. The five-quarter pipeline grew over 50%, reflecting expanding demand across enterprise and Tier 2 cloud providers. Traditional servers saw double-digit growth, fueled by data center modernization. Despite a delayed PC refresh cycle, enterprise demand is expected to rise with Windows 10 end-of-life next year. Storage revenue climbed 4%, with double-digit gains in mid-range products like PowerStore. DELL emphasized its leadership in AI by launching advanced liquid-cooled servers and scaling the production of Blackwell designs. DELL shares fell more than 12% on 11/27 due to consumer PC weakness, even as there was good news in its AI-related business…
Continue reading our Conference Call Recap for DELL by becoming a Bespoke Institutional subscriber. You can sign up for Bespoke Institutional now and receive a 14-day trial to read our newest Conference Call Recap. To sign up, choose either the monthly or annual checkout link below: