Apr 14, 2025
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“Concentration is that ability to not think about anything.” – Pete Rose
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 you were hoping that April’s volatility would calm down this week, you will have to wait at least another day. However, bulls will find today’s volatility to be much more tolerable since it’s to the upside. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are indicated to open over 1% higher while treasury yields are lower, crude oil is higher, and gold is marginally lower. It’s a much more ‘normal’ picture this morning than many days we saw last week. Friday evening’s news that smartphones, semis, and other electronics would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs has tech stocks flying, and nowhere is the strength more notable than in Apple (AAPL), which is trading up over 5% in the premarket.
Talk about a roller coaster. After peaking just after Christmas, shares of AAPL lost more than a third of their value in less than four months and have since recovered more than 23% when you consider this morning’s gains. Volatility of this magnitude is notable when it occurs in just about any stock, but this is the largest company in the world we’re talking about. Are we really to believe that the company’s value has fluctuated by this magnitude in such a short period?
With today’s 5% rally in the pre-market, AAPL is on track for its second straight daily gain of over 4%. Since the iPod was launched in 2001, the only other time the stock had a higher number of consecutive 4%+ daily moves was in October 2008 when there were three in a row. The current streak of back-to-back gains, if it holds, would be the first such streak since coming out of the Financial Crisis, but before that, they were common as the market cap was much lower.
Apr 11, 2025
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“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
To see yesterday’s segment from CNN’s OutFront, click on the image below.
Looking at futures now, we may see a positive end to the week, but if you look in a few minutes, the picture could look entirely different. Banks have kicked off the earnings season positively with all of the major banks that have reported exceeding EPS forecasts. In response to the reports, most of the stocks are modestly higher, but with gains of less than 1%, the moves are hardly convincing.
The only economic reports on the calendar are PPI and Michigan Sentiment. Just like yesterday’s CPI, PPI cam in weaker than expected with both the headline and core readings showing negative readings on a m/m basis. Given the brushing off yesterday’s CPI, it doesn’t look like the market will pay much attention to that report. Regarding the UMIch report, we would expect to see another round of extremely divergent views based on political leanings, but an overall weaker trend.
If there are years where nothing happens, the last few weeks have been a period where years happened, and this weekend can’t come soon enough. As the President has torn up the playbook for global trade, financial markets have responded with some of the most violent moves in years. The most extreme aspects of the volatility started last Wednesday night, but this week has seen just as notable moves across the financial spectrum.
During periods of the most heightened volatility and uncertainty in markets, three areas where investors often flock are gold, the dollar, and US Treasuries. This week, only one of those safe havens caught a bid.
After pulling back to its 50-day moving average earlier this week, gold has bounced in the last three days. It’s still early, but if today’s gains hold, it will be gold’s third straight day of rallying more than 1.5% and the longest streak of gains in the magnitude or more since 2011/ During the last three days, gold is up over 8% and on pace for its largest three-day move since March 2020. Before that, you would have to go back to the financial crisis to find the last time it rallied as much in three days.
Apr 10, 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.
“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class and be humble.” – John Madden
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After one of the largest one-day gains in market history yesterday, we’re giving back some of the gains this morning as the S&P 500 is indicated to open 1.75% lower while the Nasdaq is down 2%. European stocks are surging with the STOXX 600 up over 5%, and in Asia overnight, the Nikkei was up over 9% while China saw more muted gains.
We just got March CPI, and the headline and core readings were weaker than expected. Headline CPI dropped 0.1% while core CPI increased just 0.1% versus expectations for an increase of 0.3%. In recent history, this report would send futures sharply higher, but given the looming tariffs, the markets may view it as somewhat stale. Jobless claims were right in line with expectations, ending a streak of five better-than-expected reports. Given concerns over the economy, initial claims have been contained.
As big as yesterday’s move was in the S&P 500, it’s crazy to think that it is still down over 3.5% since last Wednesday’s close and well below both its 50 and 200-day moving averages.
In terms of where various sectors are trading relative to their short-term trading ranges, nine out of eleven are still at oversold levels (1+ standard deviations below their 50-DMAs), and that accounts for yesterday’s big gains!
In yesterday’s session, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) traded in an incredible intraday range of 10.8%. Even crazier is that on Tuesday, the intraday range was 7.3% while Monday’s range was 8.6%! Since SPY was launched in 1993, the last three days represent just the sixth time that the ETF has had an intraday range of more than 5% for three or more days. The only periods with as many or more consecutive intraday ranges of at least 5% were in the fourth quarter of 2008 (four separate occurrences) and March 2020. These levels of sustained volatility are truly historic.
Apr 9, 2025
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“One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.” ― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After announcing the reciprocal tariffs in the Rose Garden last week, the President and members of his administration warned other countries not to retaliate. Why they thought some of our largest trade partners would sit back and “take their medicine” with no response is beyond us. This morning, China shot back with its response announcing 84% tariffs on US imports. Futures, which were lower overnight and rallied into the morning, are now back near their lows of the after-hours session, and the S&P 500 looks like it will be on pace to close 20%+ from its record close on 2/19. Up and down, it goes and where it stops nobody knows. Looking on the bright side, while the retaliatory tariffs announced by China have knocked futures lower, it didn’t come with a significant devaluation of the yuan which would have arguably made things worse.
The volatility and magnitude of declines we have experienced over the last several days and weeks is unprecedented. The S&P 500 is on pace for one of its fastest-ever 20% declines from an all-time high. Over the shorter term, consider this. On Monday, the Nasdaq traded down more than 4% on an intraday basis and finished the day higher. Then, on Tuesday, the Nasdaq traded over 4% higher intraday and then finished lower. Back-to-back opposite moves of that magnitude have never happened, and the next closest was in October 2008 when there was a similar reversal of 3%.
Regardless of what the market does today, the Nasdaq’s 50-day moving average (DMA) will cross below the 200-DMA as both are trending lower, forming what technicians call an iron, or death cross.
Today’s moving average crossover will end the fourth-longest streak of the 50-DMA settling above the 200-DMA. At 519 trading days, it was the longest streak since November 2018, and the only two other streaks that were longer ended in September 2015 and September 1998.
Apr 8, 2025
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“Learn to use your emotions to think, not think with your emotions.” – Robert Kiyosaki
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 wild ride of market moves continued overnight as the Nikkei 225 rallied 6% after falling more than 7% on Monday. That’s just the ninth time in the last 45 years that the index has rallied 5%+ after falling more than 5% in the prior session. Along with those days, there have only been two other days when the Nikkei fell more than 5% after rising 5% in the previous session. The Nikkei’s move was extreme, but we’ve seen volatile back-and-forth action in equity markets worldwide this week.
This morning, futures are building on some of yesterday’s intraday strength in US stocks on optimism that several countries are looking to make a trade deal with the Trump Administration. This doesn’t mean deals will happen, but at least conversations are taking place which buys some time for a pause in the selling. With this optimism, US equity futures are indicated higher, and that would end what has been a streak of nine straight days where the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) opened the day lower. In yesterday’s Chart of the Day, we covered that streak and how the market has historically performed following prior streaks of similar or longer durations, so make sure to give that a look.
They call the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) a gauge of the stock market’s psychological state, and higher levels indicate a more emotional state for the market. Yesterday, the market got as emotional as a high school senior looking for a prom date. It closed at an extraordinarily high level of 46.98, but intraday it briefly traded above 60, which it has only done on 52 other trading days since 1990!
The chart of the S&P 500 below shows every time the VIX traded above 60 on an intraday basis since 1990. The only other times were in Q4 2008, during Covid in 2020, and one day last August. In retrospect, these periods turned out to be good buying opportunities although the market remained volatile in the short-term. Following the occurrences in Q4 2008, for example, the S&P 500 didn’t bottom until early March, but on an internal basis, that marked the low as most stocks bottomed in Q4 2008. Like a child, markets sometimes find themselves in a tantrum or emotional spiral, but more often than not, a pause, and a deep breath are enough to get things to calm down.
Apr 7, 2025
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“By 1864 Wall Streeters had spies in the Confederate high command and could learn southern battle plans before colonels in the Army of Virginia did.” – Mike Wallace
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 are sharply lower again this morning, although off their overnight lows, as investors look for signs of a break in the selling vortex. You’ll hear all sorts of opinions as to when and where the market will bottom out, but they’re all guesses, so ignore them. No one knows at this point. You could make the argument that President Trump can end this as fast as he started it, but that’s not guaranteed either. The longer markets remain in their current state, the more control he loses as other issues and factors start to pop up, and the more likely it is that this decline stretches out into a more prolonged decline. What’s that old Warren Buffett quote about what happens when the tide goes out?
How bad have things gotten? Just now on CNBC, there was an interview with a former Federal Reserve official and two topics of conversation were whether we were entering another Smoot-Hawley-type era and if the dollar had the potential to lose its reserve currency status. In the past, bringing up either of these issues would get you laughed off the set, and now they’re both legitimate topics to bring up, from a former Federal Reserve official no less!
The one thing the President has working for him is that foreign markets are starting to feel just as much, if not, more pain than the US. The day after the tariff announcements on Wednesday, US markets significantly underperformed foreign markets, but on Friday, the declines were more equally distributed. Today, at least so far, it is foreign markets that are generally feeling the most pressure. The more foreign markets underperform the US, the more likely it is that foreign countries come to the bargaining table. On the other hand, seeing foreign stocks underperform could only embolden the President more.
Futures are currently down around 2%, so we wanted to provide an update on where this decline stands relative to history. At current levels, the S&P 500 would be down 12.85% over a three-trading day span, which ranks up there as among the worst since late 1952 when the five trading day week in its current form started. At these levels, the decline is right around the worst of the three-day declines experienced during Covid and the Financial Crisis, and the only one that was meaningfully worse was the 1987 crash. This is a decline of historical proportions.
The chart below shows every prior three-day decline of 10%+ with a red dot. Outside of the three periods mentioned above, the only two others were in 1998 (Russia’s Debt Default) and 2011 (US debt downgrade). One period that didn’t make the cut was the 9/11 attacks. In the four trading days when the market re-opened after those attacks, the S&P 500 declined around 12%, but it never reached a double-digit percentage decline in three days.
Given the market is coming off one of its worst two-day declines in history, you wouldn’t expect to see many stocks on the list of winners from Thursday and Friday, but we were surprised to see that not a single stock in the S&P 500 was up on both Thursday and Friday of last week.
On Thursday, 95 stocks in the S&P 500 finished higher on the day as investors tried to initially distinguish between winners and losers from Liberation Day, but Friday was more about investors coming to the realization that there wouldn’t be much in the way of winners from Trump’s plans. As shown in the table below, of the 34 stocks that traded 2%+ higher on Thursday, they were all primarily defensive in nature and names you turn to when you’re expecting a market or economic decline.
On Friday, just 14 stocks in the S&P 500 finished the day higher. 11 of them were from the Consumer Discretionary sector, and eight were either homebuilders or related to the housing sector. While these stocks traded higher on Friday, they have all been weak for months now, and the one-day rally was a bounce in reaction to the yield on the 10-year which plunged below 4%. Other winners included Lululemon (LULU), Nike (NKE), Target (TGT), and Dollar Tree (DLTR) which all fell 10% or more on Thursday in their immediate reaction to Liberation Day.
Turning back to the market macro, not even considering today’s weakness, the S&P 500 and most sectors all had their worst two-day periods since March 2020 last week. Think back to the way you felt in the Spring of 2020. While the two periods are incredibly similar in terms of the rampant levels of uncertainty, the causes of the uncertainty came from very different directions. In March 2020, people had no idea how Covid would impact the economy, how long it would last, or how to control it. Today, the cause of the uncertainty is incredibly under control and could be turned off just as fast as it was turned on. Whether that happens before it’s too late is the biggest question mark, and financial markets increasingly view the switch being turned off or at least dialed back as unlikely.
