The Bespoke Report – 2/7/20 – Holding Our Breadth and Our Chips

This week’s Bespoke Report newsletter is now available for members.

What a difference a week makes.  Last week at this time, we noted on the website, that based on the Timing scores in our Trend Analyzer tool, the short-term picture for major US averages had shifted from ‘Poor’ or ‘Neutral’ as of 1/17 to ‘Good’ for every single one.  We noted that “While not what we would classify as a ‘Perfect’ set up right now, for investors who have been waiting for a pullback, the window is starting to open.” The window didn’t stay open for long, though, as the S&P 500 rallied and rallied hard this week.  With a gain of over 3% on the week, it was the best week since June.

In this week’s Bespoke Report, we provide our take on everything going on in the market this week, including the latest on the coronavirus, market internals, economic data, and earnings season.  To read the report and access everything else Bespoke’s research platform has to offer, start a two-week free trial to one of our three membership levels.  You won’t be disappointed! 

The Closer: End of Week Charts — 2/7/20

Looking for deeper insight on global markets and economics?  In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke clients, we recap weekly price action in major asset classes, update economic surprise index data for major economies, chart the weekly Commitment of Traders report from the CFTC, and provide our normal nightly update on ETF performance, volume and price movers, and the Bespoke Market Timing Model.  We also take a look at the trend in various developed market FX markets.

The Closer is one of our most popular reports, and you can sign up for a free trial below to see it!

See tonight’s Closer by starting a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional now!

Bespoke Investor Tools in Action

Here at Bespoke, we’re respected and trusted for our thoughtful investment research.  But many in the industry do not even know that we also have an easy-to-use set of extremely useful investor tools that are available at very attractive pricing compared to competitors.

Today we want to show you a number of these investor tools.  We might just have exactly what you’ve been looking for all these years!  And you can gain access with a 14-day free trial right now.

Upon logging in as a Bespoke subscriber and clicking on our Tools page, you’ve got easy access to everything.  The first tool to highlight is our Trend Analyzer, highlighted in yellow below:

Our Trend Analyzer uses a proprietary algorithm to identify how stocks and ETFs are trending.  Use it to monitor your own positions for new uptrends or downtrends or overbought/oversold levels.  You can also use it to find new stocks or ETFs that are trading at attractive entry points.

Next up is our Chart Scanner, which is a chart reader’s dream.

Our Chart Scanner lets you browse through hundreds of charts in a matter of minutes.  It’s one of our favorite tools for finding new stocks or ETFs to buy based on technicals.  If you like a chart and want to monitor it going forward, simply click on the chart’s “bull” icon, and we’ll store that chart for you in your “My Charts” section.  You simply have to use this tool to understand how helpful it really is!

Ever wonder about the “January Effect” or “Sell in May, and Go Away”?  Our Seasonality Tool is the place to go.

Our Seasonality Tool tells you how the S&P 500 typically trades over any time frame throughout the trading year based on historical patterns.  You can also track seasonality trends for other countries and asset classes, US sectors and groups, and even individual stocks.

Our Earnings Explorer is one of the most comprehensive and complete databases of upcoming and historical earnings reports in existence.  We’ve been collecting quarterly earnings info for US stocks for nearly two decades, and all of it is available to you with this tool.

Our Earnings Explorer contains a full calendar of upcoming earnings reports across the US stock market.  It also contains historical quarterly reports for nearly every US company over the last 20 years.  And it has a screening feature so you can seek out new trade ideas based on healthy (or unhealthy) stock-specific earnings trends.

This is another tool you simply have to see to believe!  Once you use it, you won’t know how you got by without it.

Our Economic Monitor is the place to go for anything related to recent or upcoming economic releases both in the US and around the world.

Use the Economic Monitor to stay on top of estimates for upcoming economic releases.  This tool features a full economic indicators calendar for both the US and the rest of the world.  We also provide in-depth analysis of Federal Reserve commentary and other major central banks across the globe.

Our International Revenues tool is a must-have for serious investors.  Every investor should know the geographic revenue breakdown for companies they own.

Companies that generate most or all of their revenues outside of the US are much different than companies that generate most or all of their revenues domestically.  When the US dollar is rising, versus the rest of the world, “domestic” companies stand to benefit.  The opposite is true when the dollar is falling or international economies are outperforming the US.  Our International Revenues tool tells you the domestic vs. international revenue breakdown for every stock in the S&P 500 and Russell 1,000.

Our Triple Plays tool features stocks that we consider to be the “cream of the crop” based on earnings trends.

A “triple play” occurs when a company reports earnings and 1) beats consensus analyst EPS estimates, 2) beats consensus analyst sales estimates, and 3) raises forward guidance.  Over the years, a large number of our long ideas for our model portfolios have come from this list of recent earnings triple plays.

Our Economic Indicators database contains historical data for every major US economic release (40+).

If you ever need historical data for economic indicators, this database has it.  Easily pull up historical release info for every major US economic indicator.  It contains the actual reported number at the time of the release along with the consensus economist estimate at the time.  We also include helpful info for traders that shows how the S&P 500 and major sectors reacted on the day of the release.  We also show how the equity market typically trades in reaction to a better or worse than expected report.

Our Security Analysis page helps you analyze individual stocks and ETFs.

Use our Security Analysis page for stocks or ETFs that you want to analyze.  We include upcoming earnings info, trend and timing analysis, price charts and technical tools, and historical earnings information.  You can also read up on any research we’ve done on the ticker you’ve searched for.

Our Biggest Movers tool is a simple way to monitor the stock market’s biggest movers on a daily basis.

Each day you can use our Biggest Movers tool to find the stocks and ETFs that experienced the biggest price changes or biggest volume surges.

Remember, our Tools section is just one part of what members gain access to.  You also gain access to our flagship investment research product as well as our Custom Portfolios tool, which helps you easily monitor the stocks and ETFs most important to you.  Today you can gain access to EVERYTHING — the research, the tools, the custom portfolios — with a 14-day free trial.  We think you’ll find that it’s well worth it.  If you don’t, you can cancel at any time.  CLICK HERE TO START YOUR 14-DAY FREE TRIAL NOW.

Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 2/7/20 – Payrolls Take Center Stage

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 free trial to Bespoke Premium.  CLICK HERE to learn more and start your free trial.

Futures are lower heading into the monthly employment report, and after all the gains we have had this week, you can’t blame people for being a little more cautious heading into the weekend.  Even with the pace of new cases of the coronavirus decelerating, who knows what kind of news can come out over the weekend.

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Yesterday we published our monthly preview of the Non-Farm Payrolls report including the historical reaction of the S&P 500 and various sectors in reaction to the report. If you haven’t seen it already, make sure to check it out.  Below we have provided a snapshot of consensus expectations heading into the report.

The Closer – Rotation, Rideshare, Energy, Productivity, – 2/6/20

Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.

Looking for deeper insight on markets?  In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, begin with a decile analysis of the last 4 days and then go over Uber’s (UBER) earnings results.  Next we, take a look at the collapse of energy stocks and how they now take up a record low share of S&P 500 market cap.  Shifting to economic data, we delve into Q4 productivity numbers and Bloomberg’s weekly Consumer Comfort index.

See today’s post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day free trial to Bespoke Institutional today!

Sentiment Sits Out The Rally

As equities have rebounded from coronavirus fears in the past week, reaching fresh all-time highs, sentiment has not shared in the gains as it continues to hold a slight bearish bias.  AAII’s reading on bullish sentiment rose slightly from 31.98% last week to 33.87% this week.  While higher than last week, it was not nearly as large an increase as you would expect given the market rebound.

AAII’s reading on bearish sentiment ticked down 1.64 percentage points to 35.22%.  That is still well above the lows in the 20s that have been observed over the past few months.  With both bullish and bearish sentiment little changed, the bull-bear spread remains in the bear’s favor for a second week in a row.

Neutral sentiment was also little changed this week falling just 0.26 percentage points to 30.91%. This week marked back-to-back weeks with a greater share of respondents reporting bullish or bearish sentiment than neutral. That has not been the case much over the past year as the last time neutral sentiment did not outweigh either bullish or bearish sentiment was the final week of December and the first week of January of last year.

Again, although prices have moved higher in the past week, sentiment has not. While AAII results were little changed, another sentiment survey, the Investors Intelligence (II) sentiment survey is more prominently echoing a bearish bias.  This survey’s reading on bullish sentiment actually fell from 58.9% to 55.1%; the lowest since early December.  Bearish sentiment from this survey, on the other hand, rose to its highest level (17.8%) since November.

In addition to asking for bearishness and bullishness, the II survey also checks on the percentage of respondents that are “looking for a correction.”  Since the beginning of the data, it has averaged ~25%, but over the past decade, it has generally been higher, averaging 29.6%. More recently, though, these readings have been more muted, but the five percentage point increase this week on top of a 5.6 percentage point increase the week before has brought the indicator to 33.3%; its highest reading since the fall. In fact, up until this move it was below 30% for 15 consecutive weeks.

While that is not any sort of extreme reading at ~33%—with a history of much higher readings over the past several years—that aforementioned streak is perhaps more notable.  Since 2000, there have only been 13 other such streaks in which Investors Intelligence’s reading on “looking for a correction” rose above 30% after not having done so for 15 weeks or more. The last time this happened was in October of 2018. Following past occurrences, returns for the S&P 500 have actually been stronger than normal one week, one month, and 6 months out, but 3 months and one year later, the market has experienced underperformance. Granted, one year out the S&P 500 has been higher 79.92% of the time. Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional to access our full suite of research and interactive tools.

January Employment Report Preview

After a much better than expected ADP Private Payrolls report on Wednesday and today’s Jobless Claims report, which was the lowest since last April, US employment data has really shown signs of improvement after a shaky December.  While a strong labor market would normally stoke fears of a tighter Fed, there is widespread agreement that Powell and Co. will not be raising rates anytime soon.  Eventually, that will change, but until it does, the market is reacting positively to positive economic news.

Heading into tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payrolls report, economists are expecting an increase in payrolls of 163K, which would be an 18K decline from December’s reading of 145K.  In the private sector, economists are expecting a similar increase relative to December with a reading of 150K.  Job growth in the manufacturing sector is expected to decline by 1K compared to December’s reading of –12K.  With expected job growth right around 150K, economists are expecting the Unemployment Rate to stay unchanged at 3.5% while average hourly earnings are forecast to increase 0.3% compared to December’s anemic growth rate of just 0.1%.

Ahead of the report, we just published our eleven-page preview of the January jobs report.  This report contains a ton of analysis related to how the equity market has historically reacted to the monthly jobs report, as well as how secondary employment-related indicators we track looked in January.  We also include a breakdown of how the initial reading for January typically comes in relative to expectations and how that ranks versus other months.

For anyone with more than a passing interest in how equities are impacted by economic data, this January employment report preview is a must-read.  To see the report, sign up for a monthly Bespoke Premium membership now!

Bespoke’s Consumer Pulse Report — February 2020

Bespoke’s Consumer Pulse Report is an analysis of a huge consumer survey that we run each month.  Our goal with this survey is to track trends across the economic and financial landscape in the US.  Using the results from our proprietary monthly survey, we dissect and analyze all of the data and publish the Consumer Pulse Report, which we sell access to on a subscription basis.  Sign up for a 30-day free trial to our Bespoke Consumer Pulse subscription service.  With a trial, you’ll get coverage of consumer electronics, social media, streaming media, retail, autos, and much more.  The report also has numerous proprietary US economic data points that are extremely timely and useful for investors.

We’ve just released our most recent monthly report to Pulse subscribers, and it’s definitely worth the read if you’re curious about the health of the consumer in the current market environment.  Start a 30-day free trial for a full breakdown of all of our proprietary Pulse economic indicators.

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