Stock Market Today: December 4th - 8th, 2023

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of December 4th!

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:


S&P Sectors End of Week:


Major Indices End of Week:


Major Futures Markets End of Week:


Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:
(T.B.A.)

What to Watch in the Week Ahead:
(N/A.)

 

Powell Comments Send Everything Soaring, Gold Hits All Time High As Dollar Plummets As Market Prices In Rate Cuts
FRIDAY, DEC 01, 2023 - 04:07 PM

After November's furious meltup, which saw the S&P rise by 9% (the Nasdaq was up an even more ludicrous 11%), which was the best November for the stock market since 1980...



... all eyes were on Jerome Powell today to see if the Fed chair would say something to stem the surging stock market tide following the month which saw the biggest easing in financial conditions on record, equivalent to nearly 4 rate cuts.




We got the answer shortly after 11am ET, when after what seemed to be otherwise balanced remarks with a dose of hawkish comments...

"It would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance, or to speculate on when policy might ease. We are prepared to tighten policy further if it becomes appropriate to do so."

... offset by some clearly dovish statements...

"The strong actions we have taken have moved our policy rate well into restrictive territory, meaning that tight monetary policy is putting downward pressure on economic activity and inflation. Monetary policy is thought to affect economic conditions with a lag, and the full effects of our tightening have likely not yet been felt."

... and generally sounding rather optimistic while answering student questions, saying that the US is on the path to 2% inflation without large job losses - i.e., a soft landing - which helped the market to convince itself that Powell had just given the green light for a continued market meltup (thanks to the blackout period, there will be no more Fed comments until the Dec 13 FOMC) as Bloomberg put it...

"Powell points to how the Fed’s past tightening moves will continue to have an impact on the economy -- the full impact hasn’t been felt yet. If anybody thought the Fed wasn’t finished raising rates, his prepared remarks today sure put a fork in it. They are done."

.... and what happened next was a violent repricing in easing odds, with March rate cut odds hitting a lifetime high of 80%, effectively doubling overnight and up from 10% just 5 days ago...



... which then immediately cascaded across assets and sent everything exploding higher, led by stocks which surged above 4,600 for the first time since the July FOMC (aka the "final rate hike")...



... and one look below the surface reveals that this was indeed the QE trade: the Nasdaq barely rose while meme stonks and most shorted names exploded higher.



And yet, this eruption in the most shorted/hated names means that hedge funds actually had a catastrophic day: and indeed, looking at the HF VIP (most long) less most shorted basket pair trade we see a whopping 5% drop as many hedge funds were stopped out and margin called.



Putting today's plunge in contact, this was the worst day for hedge funds since June 2021 and the second worst day since the covid crash!



Next, looking at the bond market, here too everything jumped but especially 2-Year TSYs, whose yields tumbled a whopping 12bps to 4.56%...



... and on course for the biggest weekly slide since the regional banking crisis in March, down almost 40bps.



Yet neither stocks, nor bonds, had quite as much fun as either "digital gold", with Bitcoin briefly hitting a fresh 2023 high, briefly surging to $39,000 before easing back with Ether rising to $2100 ...



... but the biggest winner by far from today's market conclusion that a renewed dollar destruction is on deck, was gold which briefly rose above its all time high of $2,075...



... and that's just the start: now that a new record is in the history books, a frenzy of gold calls was bought, both for futures and the biggest ETF tied to the metal, and as shown in the chart below, the buildup of open interest between $2,000 and $2,500 has been relentless over the past week on growing optimism that rates are primed to decline. Next up for gold? $2500 or higher.



Yet not everyone had a great day: the dollar predictably tumbled, extending it losses for a third straight week, the longest streak since June, and comes after the dollar saw its worst month in a year this November.



One dollar pair trade where the convexity is especially high is USDJPY, which after soaring for much of the past year suddenly finds itself in a Wile E Coyote moment, trading just below the 100DMA. Should the selling persist, we may see the pair quickly tumble down to 140, or lower.



To be sure, not all the moves made sense: as Bloomberg noted, bonds have a better reason to rally than stocks, which have to factor in the growth concerns that underpin Powell’s remarks. Evidence is gathering that the economy is slowing and stocks will have to reconcile that with their bullish rate views. Today’s ISM Manufacturing data is case in point that the stagflationary slowing that started in October — and Bloomberg Economics says it’s observing typical early signs of recession — extended last month.



The ISM commentary was generally downbeat, equally split between companies hiring and others reducing their labor forces "a first since such comments have been tracked" according to Bloomberg.

But it gets worse: the latest update to the Atlanta GDPNOW tracker slipped to 1.2% from 1.8% yesterday and over 2% just last week.



And after diverging for much of the year, all three regional Feds that do GDP nowcasts have converged on 2% - a far cry from the "5.2%" GDP print the Biden department of seasonal adjustments goalseeked last month.



Bottom line: the onus is now on the payrolls report next week to further guide markets into next year. The continued rise in ongoing jobless claims pose a risk that unemployment could rise further. But so far, this isn’t a consensus view, with economists projecting the unemployment rate to stay unchanged at 3.9% (and more see a 3.8% rate than 4%).

And while that may only add more fuel to the rate-cut speculation, at some point the softening in economic data will have to be squared with its impact on profits. As a reminder, while much of the interval between the last rate hike and the first rate cut is favorable for risk assets, the weeks right before the cut usually send stocks anywhere between 10% and 30% lower as the market realizes just why the Fed is panicking.

However, judging by today's action, we still have some time before that particular rude awakening kicks in.

 

November Winners
Fri, Dec 1, 2023

The average stock in the large-cap Russell 1,000 rose 9.77% in November, and 38 stocks gained more than 30%, 14 rallied more than 40%, and seven surged more than 50%.

Below are the 30 stocks that rose the most in November. For each name, we also include its market cap, its year-to-date total return, its distance from its 52-week high, and short interest as a percentage of float. As shown, buy-now-pay-later company Affirm (AFRM) was up the most in November with a huge gain of 95.4%, followed by streaming company Roku (ROKU), crypto-trading platform Coinbase (COIN), and digital payments company Block (SQ). Are we back in late 2020/early 2021??

Other notables on the list of big winners include Gap (GPS) with a gain of 56.8%, Expedia (EXPE) at 42.9%, Generac (GNRC) at 39.25%, and Palantir (PLTR) at 35.47%.



Below we've expanded the universe to show the top-performing stocks in the Russell 3,000 in November. The Russell 3,000 includes all the stocks in the large-cap Russell 1,000 and small-cap Russell 2,000.

Four stocks in the Russell 3,000 rallied more than 100% in November: Rocky Brands (RCKY), Bluegreen Vacations (BVH), Sight Sciences (SGHT), and TransMedics (TMDX). Rocky Brands is a $210 million market cap retailer that sells heavy-duty boots and other apparel. Bluegreen Vacations is a timeshare company. Sight Sciences creates medical devices and procedures for the eyes. And finally, TransMedics makes unique medical devices built to care for organs during the transplant process.



Before we go, below is a look at the stocks that have gained the most in market cap in 2023. Amazingly, twelve stocks have gained more than $100 billion in market cap this year, six have gained more than $500 billion, and one -- Microsoft (MSFT) -- has gained more than $1 trillion!

Bear's Unprecedented Drop
Thu, Nov 30, 2023

November was a remarkable month for stocks, though equities have stalled out just below prior lows. That has not thwarted investor sentiment though. The latest sentiment survey from the AAII showed 48.8% of investors reported as bullish, up from 45.3% last week. That is now the highest reading on bullish sentiment since the first days of August, and is more than 10 percentage points above the historical average of 37.5%.



While bullish sentiment has not yet moved above its prior highs, the share of respondents reporting as bearish has set a new low. The reading has experienced a dramatic shift having started November above 50%, and fallen all the way down to 19.6% this week. That is the lowest level of bearish sentiment since the first week of 2018!



Perhaps even more impressive is that over 30 percentage point drop in the past four weeks ranks as one of the largest declines on record. Since the start of the survey in 1987, the current four week decline ranks as the fourth largest on record. The last occurrence was all the way back in April 2009.



As a result of the massive drop in bears, the bull-bear spread has risen to 29.2, just shy of the July high of 29.9.



The AAII survey was not alone in having seen a surge in optimism. For example, the Investors Intelligence survey likewise is seeing the strongest bullish sentiment since early August and the NAAIM Exposure Index is at the highest level since late July. Combining these readings into our sentiment composite shows the index is now at 0.95 indicating the average sentiment survey is now almost a full standard deviation above (meaning more bullish than) its historical average.



Let’s Talk About Santa and December


“It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.” -Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway

Before we get into today’s blog, I wanted to take a second and give thanks to Charlie Munger, who passed away Tuesday, and all he has done to make this world a better place. There have been so many amazing tributes to an incredible man, I couldn’t possibly add anything new. I’ll just say this, he was unlike nearly anyone else and there never will be another one like him. Rest in peace, Charles Thomas Munger.

Let’s now get into it and first things first. The best month of the year is sure living up to that name, as the S&P 500 is up more than 8% in November with one day to go, making this the best November since 2020 (10.8%) and 1980 before that. We wrote why we expected better times in November one month ago, but even we have to admit we are surprised by just how strong things have been.

Looking ahead, December indeed is a strong month historically for stocks and we don’t expect this year to be any different. One month ago right now nearly everyone was bearish and the truth is many money managers have been drastically underweight stocks this year and they need to add to their positions, so we expect a lot of performance chasing into the end of the year. Should we see any early December weakness, we’d expect buyers to step in quickly. In fact, early December weakness isn’t out of the ordinary, it is later in the month when Santa tends to come.



Speaking of Santa, you will hear a lot about the well-known Santa Claus Rally (SCR) very soon. This simply is when we tend to see stocks do well to end the year and it playfully is called the SCR. Here’s the catch. It isn’t the whole month, or from late November until year end. It is the last five days of the year and first two days of the following year. Believe me, I will write about it a lot later in December, but by the true definition of the SCR, it won’t happen for many more weeks.

With Santa out of the way, let’s look at December in general and why we expect to see more gains before ’23 is over.

First up, no month of the year is more likely to be higher, with stocks higher 74.0% of the time in the last month of the year. In fact, only once in history has December been the worst month of the year and that was in 2018 (we can thank the Fed for that policy mistake back then). Fortunately, the Fed is likely done hiking and we don’t expect to see a similar policy mistake this time around.



December is actually the third best month on average at 1.4%, with only April and November better. But what stands out to us is pre-election years tend to see even more strength, up 2.9% on average, another reason to expect higher prices before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.



Here’s a chart we’ve shared all year that breaks down all 12 months based on various timeframes. Well, overall December is pretty solid, but it doesn’t rank very well if you look at only the past decade. But that is mainly due to the 9.2% drop in 2018 and the 5.9% drop last year. Here’s an interesting stat: Stocks haven’t been down more than 1% in December two years in a row since 1980 and 1981. Another reason to expect better times in December.



Some more reasons we expect a strong end-of-year rally? We’ve shared this chart a lot lately (because it has played out nearly perfectly) and it showed that years that were up double digits at the middle of the year tended to see weakness around the third quarter, but a late October low and vicious rally to end the year. This has played out well so far and we expect it to continue in December.



Speaking of the market being up a lot heading into December, we found that when the S&P 500 was up at least 10% for the year heading into December, the final month of the year has been higher 17 of the past 20 years and 12 of the past 13. Taking that a step further, if a pre-election year was higher by at least 10% going into the final month, the past five times December has been higher each time and up a very impressive 5.3% on average.

What about if November was up a lot? One would think a big November might steal some gains from December, right? There’s some truth to that, as we found when November was up 5% or more then December was up only 0.6% on average.

Lastly, we will leave you on this bigger picture bullish development. The S&P 500 has finished higher four consecutive weeks and gained more than 10% over the win streak. But what impressed me was each week gained at least 1%. In other words, there was persistent buying, not just one huge week and nothing outside that. So, I looked at previous times we saw a similar development and sure enough, the future returns have been quite impressive. The S&P 500 was higher a year later eight out of 10 times and up a median of 17.6%, which could have a lot of bulls smiling this time next year.

First Half December Weak Ahead of Mid-Month Pop

Trading in December is holiday-inspired and fueled by a buying bias throughout the month. However, the first part of the month tends to be weaker as tax-loss selling and yearend portfolio restructuring begins. December’s first trading day has been bearish for S&P 500 and Russell 1000 over the last 21 years. A modest rally through the fifth or sixth trading day also has fizzled going into mid-month. It is around this point that holiday cheer tends to kick in and propel the indexes higher with a pause near month-end. Pre-election year Decembers follow a similar path, but with noticeably larger historical gains in the last third of the month.

Small caps tend to start to outperform larger caps near the middle of the month (early January Effect) and our “Free Lunch” strategy is served from the offerings of stocks making new 52-week lows on Triple-Witching Friday. An email Issue will be sent prior to the market’s open on December 18 containing “Free Lunch” stock selections. The “Santa Claus Rally” begins on the open on December 22 and lasts until the second trading day of 2024. Average S&P 500 gains over this seven trading-day range since 1969 are a respectable 1.3%.

This is our first indicator for the market in the New Year. Years when the Santa Claus Rally (SCR) has failed to materialize are often flat or down. The last six times SCR (the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of the New Year) has not occurred were followed by three flat years (1994, 2004 and 2015) and two nasty bear markets (2000 and 2008) and a mild bear that ended in February 2016. As Yale Hirsch’s now famous line states, “If Santa Claus should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.”

Continuing Claims Brutal Rise Continues
Thu, Nov 30, 2023

Initial jobless claims experienced a 22K drop last week (after a 2K upward revision this week), the largest one week decline since June 24th. Claims experienced a modest rebound in the most recent print rising back to 218K. At that level, claims are in the middle of the past couple of year's range which is also historically healthy relative to pre-pandemic readings.



Before seasonal adjustment, claims experienced an unusually large drop back below 200K. That is the first sub-200K print since the end of October. Additionally, it is a record low relative to the comparable week of the year throughout history. While that may sound like a positive, we'd be hesitant to begin shooting off confetti. That drop and low reading are more likely a function of the Thanksgiving holiday, and as shown below, this week's drop is only a dent to the seasonal rise in claims that is typical for this time of year. In other words, one week does not make a trend.



While the initial claims number is likely not trending in a more positive direction, the concerning climb in continuing claims has pressed on. Seasonally adjusted continuing claims have continued their rapid rise with a week-over-week increase in nine of the last ten weeks. That has resulted in a fresh two-year high of 1.927 million.



Mega-Cap AI Mentions Explode Thanks to NVIDIA
Thu, Nov 30, 2023

Now that NVIDIA (NVDA) has reported its Q3 numbers (the last of the mega-caps to report), below is an updated look at the number of times "AI" was mentioned during conference calls going back to 2021. The revolutionary ChatGPT app was released in November 2022, and since then, we've seen an explosion in "AI" mentions from mega-cap management teams. As shown below, "AI" was mentioned a total of 418 times this quarter across the conference calls of AAPL, AMZN, META, MSFT, GOOGL, and NVDA. The big jump from last quarter's 350 "AI" mentions was thanks to 154 mentions on NVDA's call alone!

Apple (AAPL) remains the lone mega-cap that's hardly discussing "AI" at all on its calls with just nine mentions this quarter. Thus far, Apple has not jumped on the "AI" bandwagon at least when it comes to quarterly earnings conference calls. Amazon (AMZN), on the other hand, has picked up the "AI" pace with 48 mentions this quarter. In Q4 2022 just after ChatGPT's release, "AI" was mentioned just once on AMZN's eight prior quarterly calls.

Meta (META) "AI" mentions ticked up even more on its latest call to 71, while Microsoft (MSFT) mentions went the opposite direction and fell from 76 to 61 quarter over quarter. Alphabet (GOOGL) mentions also dipped a bit but remained high at 75, ranking it second behind only NVIDIA for the most number of "AI" mentions in Q3.

The bull market for stocks this year has coincided with a pullback in inflation, but it has also been driven in large part by mega-cap Tech stocks, that, except for AAPL, are now fully on board the AI wave. We've asked this question rhetorically several times this year, but once again, where would this market be without ChatGPT?



Why We Think Higher Rates Didn’t Crush the Economy


“The simplest solution is almost always the best.” -William of Ockham, better known as Occam’s Razor

One year ago, right now nearly all the economists on tv told us a recession was coming. Who can forget this headline from last October?

In many cases it wasn’t a question of ‘if’, but how bad it would be. The usual worries were tossed out. Things like M2, inverted yield curves, weak manufacturing survey data, and negative Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) all took the headlines. We’ve dispelled all of these worries the past year and fortunately, here we are a year later, and the economy is still humming along.

The other big worry was higher rates would crimple the consumer, which hasn’t happened yet and is what I want to discuss more today.

In the face of the most aggressive Fed in a generation, with yields soaring and mortgage rates exploding higher, the consumer’s situation in many cases improved. We’ve discussed before that a lot of this is because balance sheets for consumers are quite strong, thanks in part to record net wealth growth due to higher stock prices and home price.

Here’s a great chart from Carson’s VP, Global Macro Strategist Sonu Varghese showing just this. Overall liabilities are near where they’ve been the past few decades, yet assets and net worth have considerably improved. In other words, household balance sheets are in very good shape in many cases. This might surprise many investors given all we hear about are the negatives.



But now let’s tackle the question of how higher rates haven’t impacted the consumer more. Even the most bullish bull would likely expect 30% credit card rates, 8% mortgages, and other areas of huge jumps in rates to slow the consumer or even corporate America.

How was it possible that the consumer hasn’t slowed down at all? Go back and read the quote up top one more time. The simplest answer is likely the right answer according to Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is consumers locked in debt at much lower rates and higher rates didn’t impact them nearly as much as many expected.

Here’s a great chart that was first shared by Michael Batnick on the Animal Spirits podcast last week. Side note, this is hands down one of my favorite podcasts and if you aren’t listening, then you should be. This chart showed that nearly 90% of all household debt was locked in heading into ’22, implying the huge jump in yields didn’t impact consumers as much.



Let’s now look at corporate America. It might have been dumb luck, but many large companies locked in debt at historically low rates back in ’21 and early ’22. So, the jump we’ve seen in yields did little to impact their overall businesses. This chart below was shared by Sam Ro, Founder of TKer, a while back and it showed that nearly half of all debt (ex financials) in the S&P 500 is locked in till after 2030. Wow. Maybe this is why the largest tech and communications names did so well this year?



Lastly, Blake Millard, Director of Investments, Sandbox Financial Partners, shared this chart recently and it showed how larger companies wouldn’t nearly be as impacted by higher rates, as 91% of debt for S&P 500 companies was a fixed rate at the end of last year. The flipside to this is smaller companies (using the Russell 2000) had only 51% of their debt at a fixed rate. Given small caps struggled mightily this year, it isn’t a surprise, as higher rates hampered them greatly. The good news though is we think the Fed is likely done hiking and this should mean yields could begin to trend lower, potentially a huge tailwind for small and midcaps stocks as the economy continues to grow.



Home Prices See Big Bounce Off 2023 Lows
Tue, Nov 28, 2023

The latest S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller home price data for September was released today and showed a 0.3% month-over-month (m/m) increase in home prices at the national level. Fifteen of twenty cities saw prices rise m/m, with Detroit, New York, and Las Vegas jumping the most, and Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle, Dallas, and Portland seeing declines. Year-over-year, Detroit, San Diego, New York, and Chicago are up the most at 6%+, while three cities are down year-over-year: Portland, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

We highlight how these home price indices have changed over various time frames in the table below.



Home prices have jumped significantly from their lows at the start of 2023. Each of the twenty cities tracked peaked at some point in 2022 and then pulled back and made a low in either January or February of this year. In the chart below, we show how much home prices have jumped in each region from their respective 2023 lows. San Diego and Detroit have seen home prices rally more than 10% already, while Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston are up 8%+.



Below is a look at how much home prices are currently up since February 2020 right before COVID hit. As shown, the composite and national indices are up roughly 45% since COVID began, while Miami and Tampa -- two Florida cities -- are up the most at roughly 70%. On the other end of the spectrum, San Francisco, Minneapolis, DC, and Portland are up the least since February 2020 at 30-34%.



Finally, below we show how much home prices are up in each city versus their peaks seen during the last housing bubble in the mid-2000s before the Financial Crisis. The national index is now up 69% from its prior housing bubble peak, while Dallas and Denver are up the most at 133% and 126%, respectively. Chicago, Las Vegas, and DC are the cities up the least versus their prior housing bubble peaks at 25% or less.



Below is a look at historical pricing for the twenty Case Shiller cities and the three national indices. Cities in green are at all-time highs.

After the mid-2000s housing bubble burst and prices collapsed following the Financial Crisis, many thought it would take generations to get back to the peak levels seen prior to the crash. Now those prior peaks look like mere bumps in the road after the surge we've seen for housing so far this decade.









Gold Closes in on New Highs
Tue, Nov 28, 2023

In last night's Closer and today's Morning Lineup, we discussed areas in commodity markets that have been selling off. One that has avoided those declines has been gold. As shown below, gold's outperformance isn't exactly new. Gold relative to a broad basket of commodities massively outperformed early on in the pandemic, but that outperformance reversed up through the spring of 2022. The past year and a half has seen that outperformance generally return, especially over the past couple of months.



Amidst that outperformance, the yellow metal has been rallying since its early October low having gained 11.5% since then. That brings the commodity back within 0.65% of its 52-week set in May and 0.77% below the all-time high from August 2020 (what had been the first all-time high in nearly a decade). However, since the 2020 high those levels have repeatedly acted as tough resistance.





Not Necessarily the Mega Caps and Everyone Else
Mon, Nov 27, 2023

You would have to be living under a rock this year to not know that the performance of US stocks has been driven in large part by companies with the highest market caps. To illustrate it again, the chart below summarizes the YTD performance of stocks in the S&P 500 based on where their market caps stood at the beginning of the year. The first decile on the left in the chart contains the 50 stocks in the S&P with the largest market caps at the start of 2023, and so on and so forth until you get to the last decile which contains the 50 stocks in the index with the smallest market caps at the start of the year. As shown, the 50 stocks with the largest market caps at the beginning of the year are up an average of 18.2% YTD, and a lot more than any other of the nine deciles. In the S&P 500, this year has been all about the largest stocks and everybody else.



With the largest stocks in the S&P 500 trouncing the rest of the index, we were curious to see if there was a similar dynamic at play among mid-cap stocks (S&P 400) and small-caps (S&P 600), and we were surprised to see the opposite trend at play. Starting with stocks in the S&P 400 Mid Cap index, the 40 largest stocks in that index are down an average of 0.3% YTD, and every other decile of stocks in that index is up YTD. In fact, the three deciles comprising the stocks with the smallest market caps at the start of the year are all up by double-digit percentages YTD. Some reports would have you believe that the mega-caps are the only area of the market that has rallied this year, but stocks in the decile of the smallest stocks in the S&P 400 are actually up more, on average, than the stocks that make up the 50 largest stocks in the S&P 500.



Within the small-cap space, stock performance by market cap has been somewhat less correlated, although we would note that four of the six deciles with the largest stocks by market cap at the start of the year are down YTD. Meanwhile, deciles seven through ten, which are comprised of the 240 stocks in the index with the smallest market caps, are all up YTD.



Dallas Fed Still In Contraction
Mon, Nov 27, 2023

Economic data was light this morning, but both US releases were disappointing with new home sales and the Dallas Fed's reading on manufacturing activity coming in worse than expected. For the latter, the General Business Activity Index dropped to -19.9 from -19.2 the previous month. That was also 3.9 points below expectations.



With another negative reading, this headline index has now been in contraction for 19 straight months. That makes it the second-longest such streak on record (since 2004), surpassing the 18-month streak ending in June 2016. However, it would still need to last another six months to match the previous record streak of contractionary readings that occurred during the Global Financial Crisis.



Breadth in this month's report was terrible with only two indices - inventories and capital expenditures - moving higher on a sequential basis. To make matters worse, with further declines across a number of categories, just under half of them now find themselves in the bottom deciles of their respective historical ranges. Expectations are similarly depressed with only three categories rising on a month over month basis.



Formerly, production and capacity utilization were two of the few indices that remained in positive territory as of last month. But steep declines meant both indices tipped into contraction in November. While production is nearing its recent low from August, capacity utilization's enormous 15.5-point drop month over month was the largest one-month decline since June 2022 to leave the index at the lowest level since the spring of 2020. While the manufacturing sector has been weak for months, the now resolved auto strike didn't help matters, so it will be interesting to see if December's readings show any bounceback as workers come off the picket lines.



Readings on demand hit similar recent or post-pandemic lows. New orders have been in contraction since last June with this month's reading of 20.5 marginally above the low from one year ago. But the order growth rate is down to -25.4 which is the lowest since April and May of 2020. Even though new orders and the order growth rate are at post-pandemic lows, current readings are much higher than they were in the spring of 2020. However, that margin is not as wide for unfilled orders. The new low of -18.1 is only 8.4 points below the April 2020 low.



Prices have also seen an interesting dynamic recently. Prices Paid are well off the highs and have been falling in the past couple of months, but readings are still positive meaning prices for raw materials are rising at a slower pace than other points of the past couple of years. Prices Received, on the other hand, are not exactly showing manufacturers passing on those higher prices. With demand showing weakness, prices received are falling sharply as the index re-entered contraction in November. In fact, outside of the onset of the pandemic, it was the most negative reading since April 2016.

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2023-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from 52WK highs as of week ending 12.1.23-


Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices-


Here are the current major indices rally levels from 52WK lows as of week ending 12.1.23-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for December 1st, 2023
Video from AlphaTrends Brian Shannon


ShadowTrader Video Weekly 12/3/23
Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek

 

StonkForumers! Come join us on our stock market competitions for this upcoming trading week ahead!-

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StonkForums Weekly Stock Picking Contest & SPX Sentiment Poll (12/4-12/8) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this coming week ahead!

Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Monday (12/4) <-- click there to cast your daily market direction vote for this coming Monday ahead!

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It would be pretty sweet to see some of you join us and participate on these!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead!

 

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Here are the most anticipated Earnings Releases for this upcoming trading week ahead.

***Check mark next to the stock symbols denotes confirmed earnings release date & time***

Monday 12.4.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Monday 12.4.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 12.5.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 12.5.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 12.6.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 12.6.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 12.7.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 12.7.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Friday 12.8.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Friday 12.8.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

 

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
($NIO $MDB $AVGO $LULU $AI $DG $GME $CHWY $DOCU $VEEV $GTLB $S $TOL $AZO $CHPT $SAIC $AVAV $PLAY $ASAN $SJM $SMAR $RH $HQY $OLLI $SIG $JOAN $CRMT $SWBI $DBI $HCP $CULP $HTOO $SFIX $FERG $CIEN $HOV $COO $MOMO $GWRE $ZFOX $GIII $SMTC $VRA $BRZE $YEXT $SPWH $RENT $CNM $MTN $DSGX)


If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning December 4th, 2023 <-- click there to view!

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Monday to all of you and welcome to the new trading week and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are a little under half an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Monday, December the 4th, 2023!

1

 

Morning Lineup - 12/4/23 - Slow Start
Mon, Dec 4, 2023

It's looking like a sluggish start to the first full week of trading for December as US equity futures are modestly lower, crude oil is lower, and bond yields are higher. The 10-year yield is up a little bit over 5 basis points (bps), but that's only enough to take the yield back to 4.25%. The fact that crude oil prices are lower even as a US destroyer and several commercial ships came under fire in the Red Sea over the weekend shows just how heavy that market has become lately. In China, officials are advising people to refrain from large gatherings due to the reports of respiratory sickness around the country, so that's something investors will be keeping an eye on going forward.

In a continuation of the stair-step rally that has been in place all year, bitcoin is adding another riser to the staircase as it rallies above $40K and to its highest level since April 2022.



On a y/y basis, bitcoin is now up over 140% which is impressive no matter how you look at it especially when you consider the fact that exactly a year ago, it was down over 70% on a y/y basis. Six months ago, in early June, the y/y change finally flipped back to positive levels and has remained that way ever since.



While a 140% y/y rally sounds extreme, from a longer-term perspective, bitcoin has seen some much more impressive y/y gains. Back in early 2021, bitcoin had rallied ten-fold over a trailing 12-month period, and in late 2017, the y/y change was over 2,000%. Granted, it was off a lower base, but it’s a massive move, nonetheless. What may sound even crazier, is that since the start of 2017, bitcoin’s average y/y change has been 180% or 40 percentage points more than the current y/y change.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Monday, December 4th, 2023.