With all the craziness of the past few weeks, many investors could use a day off to catch their breath, and that’s what we’ll get later this week. Equity markets will be closed on Friday in observance of Good Friday.  So far during the season of Lent—the more than 40-day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter—markets have appeared to have given up buying.  Historically, the bulk of this period (the last close before Ash Wednesday through the last close before Good Friday) has had a positive seasonal bias with an average gain of 1.83% and positive performance 67% of the time.  While there are still a few days left, the 5.68% decline this year puts the S&P on pace for the fourth worst performance during Lent of all years since the start of the five-day trading week in 1953.  The only years with larger declines were a 10.86% drop in 1980, a 10.82% decline in 2020, and a 5.92% decline in 2001.  Again, there are still a few days left, and the elevated volatility recently could change that ranking, but we’d also note in 1994 there was a similar-sized drop to now at 5.66%.

In the chart below, we show the average daily change in the S&P 500 for each day during the holiday-shortened week in addition to Easter Monday. We also include a look at full-week performance for the week and the following week.  As shown, the week of Easter has typically held a positive tone with the largest and most consistent gains coming right before the long weekend on Thursday.  Monday and Tuesday, on the other hand, have seen the S&P 500 fall more often than not. Regardless, for the full span of “Holy Week”, the S&P 500 has averaged a 0.66% gain with positive returns just under two-thirds of the time. After coming back from the holiday, stocks haven’t tended to continue rallying. Easter Monday has averaged a decline of 16 bps with positive performance less than half of the time. Once again though, the full week after Easter has seen the S&P 500 generally trade higher.

Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of some of our favorite articles over the past week. The links are mostly market-related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.

Woods’ Big Win: On April 13, 1997, Augusta National was introduced to its newest legend, Tiger Woods. Woods was just 21 years old, wearing his now-iconic Sunday red. After a shaky front nine on Thursday, Woods owned the course the rest of the weekend and won by a historic margin of 12 strokes, which still ranks as the largest-ever lead. The stats were impressive from the young Tiger, but more so was the new era of the sport he had ushered in. Tiger’s green jacket broke one of the most enduring racial barriers in professional golf. Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters, didn’t admit its first Black member until 1990 and had a long, controversial history of exclusion. Before Woods, no non-white golfer had won the tournament, and until 1975, Black golfers weren’t even allowed to compete. Tiger Woods has put on the green jacket five times, the latest in 2019. Today, another Masters champion will be crowned.

Tariffs

How Apple ‘flew’ 5 flights full of iPhones from India and China in 3 days to beat Trump Tariffs (The Times of India)
To dodge Trump’s sudden 10% tariff, Apple flew over 1.5 million iPhones from India to the US in just three days, fast-tracking customs and packing US warehouses with months of inventory. The move gives Apple breathing room to avoid raising prices, for now, while it reevaluates its global supply chain and leans more heavily on India. With steeper tariffs looming and Chinese goods hit hardest, India’s growing role in Apple’s manufacturing plans looks more locked in than ever. [Link]

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The S&P 500 (SPY) rallied 5.7% this week but remains down 5.4% since the close on “Liberation Day” on 4/2.  Below is a look at the performance of 45 country ETFs traded on US exchanges since 4/2 and since the close on 4/8 before President Trump announced the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all countries except China.

The average country ETF is down 4% since 4/2, so SPY has underperformed that since Trump’s Rose Garden announcement.  Since the close on 4/8 before the pause, the average country ETF has bounced back 7.9%, so SPY has underperformed slightly on the bounce-back as well.

The country ETFs that have bounced the most since the pause are ones you might expect.  Asian countries like Vietnam (VNAM) and Thailand (THD) had some of the harshest reciprocal tariffs announced on Liberation Day, and since the pause, these two have bounced back 16.7% and 14.1%, respectively.  Thailand (THD) is now down just 1.2% since Liberation Day.

The third best country ETF since 4/8 has been Argentina (ARGT) with a gain of 12.8%.  ARGT gained 6.5% on Friday to end this week.

China — the country most punished by Trump’s tariffs — has bounced back for US investors that own the MSCI China ETF (MCHI) since the pause even though Trump hiked China’s tariff rate to 125% on Wednesday.  MCHI is up 9.9% since the close on 4/8 versus SPY’s gain of 7.5%.  Since Liberation Day on 4/2, MCHI is down 8.3%, though, compared to SPY’s decline of 5.4%.

There are four country ETFs down less than 1% since Liberation Day: South Korea (EWY), Switzerland (EWL), New Zealand (ENZL), and Belgium (EWK).  Colombia (GXG) and Hong Kong (EWH) head into the weekend as the only country ETFs still down 10%+ since 4/2.