Apr 3, 2025
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 Lamb Weston’s (LW) Q3 2025 earnings call.
Lamb Weston (LW) is one of the world’s leading producers of frozen potato products, best known for supplying French fries and related items to restaurants, food service distributors, and retailers across North America and internationally. With deep relationships in the quick-service restaurant (QSR) space and strong product innovation (like fridge-stable fries and cheese-filled potato bites), LW offers a unique window into global food service demand and consumer dining behavior. The company’s success hinges on agricultural planning, global logistics, and its ability to anticipate shifts in food consumption trends. This quarter reflected solid volume growth amid a tough macro backdrop. Volume rose 9% as the company regained lost ERP-transition customers and won new contracts, including a national rollout with a large QSR chain. Still, restaurant traffic remains weak. US QSR burger traffic fell 6% in February. Elevated inventories prompted line curtailments, hurting gross margins through higher cost absorption. A partnership with AlixPartners is driving a company-wide transformation, targeting cost, operational, and strategic improvements. Meanwhile, potato acreage was reduced due to soft demand, and tariff risks loom though near-term impacts are minimal. The stock resisted the broader selloff and rose more than 10% on 4/3 with better-than-expected results…
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Apr 3, 2025
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.
“The signing of this act is a momentous occasion in the world’s quest for enduring peace.” – Harry Truman
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
77 years ago today, President Truman made the comments above about his signing the Economic Assistance Act, better known as the Marshall Plan, into law. The Marshall Plan’s primary purpose was to help Western and Southern European countries recover from World War II by rebuilding cities and industries devastated by the war, removing trade barriers between European countries, and creating a more conducive environment between Europe and the US.
By almost all accounts, the Marshall Plan was a big success. But just one day shy of 77 years later, President Trump declared “Liberation Day” and signed an executive order instituting new punishing tariffs on countries around the world. While the tariffs were referred to as reciprocal, the levels were shocking and sent stocks plunging after hours.
Arguments can be made that other countries have been ripping the United States off by charging high levels of tariffs to US exporters. Unlike the Marshall Plan, though, which was meant to aid international economies and foster open trade between countries (even if they placed the US at a disadvantage), last night’s executive order did the opposite. The tariffs enacted by “Liberation Day” will enact a slew of protectionist policies for domestic industries and restrict international trade. If the Marshall Plan was a helping hand to the rest of the world, “Liberation Day” is a big middle finger.
What’s most ironic about last night’s tariff announcements and the rhetoric we’ve heard since Trump came into office is that while the President says he is acting to help US companies, it’s the US stock market that is down the most. The table below shows the performance of the ETFs that track the ten largest global economies. For each one, we show their YTD performance through yesterday’s close and then where they’re trading this morning. Heading into yesterday’s tariff announcement, the US was already the worst performing of the ten largest global economies, and since the announcement last night, the S&P 500 is off 3.4%, as measured by SPY, while none of the other nine ETFs are down as much.
With global markets lower and US futures sharply lower, the S&P 500, as proxied by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), is on pace to break below the lows from earlier this week. The next level of potential support is the post-Labor Day September lows and then the lows from last August. That said, markets are rudderless at this point as the level of tariffs outlined last night will only exacerbate consumer and investor concerns about the outlook and create more uncertainty.
Today’s decline will be SPY’s seventh straight downside gap at the open. That ranks as the longest streak since early 2016 and is only one of only seven streaks with as many or more consecutive days of negative selling pressure at the open. The longest streak was ten days in August 2015.
Apr 2, 2025
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“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” – Alfred Hitchcock
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
The S&P 500 put in a closing low on March 13th that established the first major low of this correction. So far, we’ve managed to hold above that level, but it’s the one to watch going forward. A close below the 3/13 low will mark a resumption of the downtrend that’s in place. For bulls, the next step in breaking the downtrend would be a close above last Tuesday’s high and then a series of higher highs and higher lows that eventually takes the index to new all-time highs. You can see the process that played out when we had the last major pullback in July/August in the chart below:
Apr 1, 2025
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“On April Fools’ Day, believe nothing, trust no one, just like any other day.” – Unknown
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Below is a review of asset class performance in Q1 using our ETF matrix. For domestic index ETFs, it’s been a nasty run, although we’d note that seven of the eleven US sector ETFs finished the quarter higher.
Outside of the US, however, there was green nearly everywhere in Q1. While the S&P 500 (SPY) was down 4.3%, the all-world ex-US ETF (CWI) gained 5.9% during the quarter, and country ETFs like Brazil (EWZ), China (MCHI), France (EWQ), Germany (EWG), Italy (EWI), Spain (EWP), and the UK (EWU) were all up 10%+.
Commodity ETFs outside of agriculture also posted solid Q1 gains. Both gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) gained more than 15%, while natural gas (UNG) rose 28.6%. Fixed-income ETFs posted solid Q1 returns as well.
Within US equities, the mega-caps accounted for nearly all of the S&P 500’s Q1 drop. As shown below, the five largest stocks in the S&P all fell more than 10% in Q1, and the ten largest are down an average of 11.4% YTD. The rest of the stocks in the S&P 500 are down an average of just 0.6% YTD.
Mar 31, 2025
Our Matrix of Economic Indicators provides a concise summary analysis of the US economy’s momentum. We combine trends across the dozens and dozens of economic indicators in various categories like manufacturing, employment, housing, the consumer, and inflation to provide a directional overview of the economy.
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Bespoke-Summary-of-Economic-Indicators-123024-tpy9756
Mar 31, 2025
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“At its best, life is completely unpredictable.” – Christopher Walken
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
If Christopher Walken was right, why do the markets feel so terrible? You’ve seen all the different ways of measuring the extreme levels of uncertainty in the markets, and it only seems to get worse with each passing day. After President Trump spent much of last week downplaying the degree of tariffs that would be announced on April 2nd, so-called “Liberation Day”, last night the Wall Street Journal reported that the Administration is now re-considering an across-the-board 20% tariff. So, if you thought you had no idea what was going on, you’re not alone. Adding to that, if you think we’ll suddenly start to see certainty come Wednesday, good luck with that.
Equity futures are sharply lower to start the week even after Friday’s plunge. While the rest of the world appeared to have avoided America’s cold, that’s not the case this morning. Europe’s STOXX 600 is down close to 2% relative to Friday’s close and nearly 6% from its YTD high. Asian stocks were also lower overnight. The Nikkei plunged over 4% and is now down 12% from its high in December.
S&P 500 futures are down just about 1% this morning, and that puts the lows from mid-March into play as the current level of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is right between its intraday low ($549.68) and its closing low ($551.42) from March 13th. If the intraday lows from that day don’t hold, the next potential level of support is the post-Labor Day lows.
