Stock Market Today: March 4th - 8th, 2024

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of March 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:


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

 

'Everything' Rallies On First Day Of March After Fed Hints At Next 'QE'
FRIDAY, MAR 01, 2024 - 04:00 PM

And ugly data day was brightened up when Fed Governor Waller wrecked the wall of worry.

ISM Manufacturing was a shitshow (in contraction for 15 straight months), Construction spending unexpectedly declined (first MoM drop since Dec 2022), UMich confidence declined (and inflation exp ticked higher) - all of which dragged US Macro surprise index back near neutral...



Source: Bloomberg

And although 'bad news is good news', it was Waller's remarks that prompted the market's "everything is awesome" response as he hinted that The Fed would unveil a new QE 'Reverse Twist' for its balance-sheet (buying short-term Treasuries and dumping Agency MBS).

Of course, as we detailed earlier, the timing of Waller's comments are convenient too as shifting The Fed's holdings towards Bills perfectly complement's The Treasury's recently stated expectation that their Bill-share will rise above their prior 20% guideline.

In other words: Treasury is going to issue more bills, and Fed will buy more of them as well.

Waller's comments come as Dallas Fed chief Lorie Logan reiterated it’ll likely be appropriate to start slowing the pace at which it shrinks its balance sheet.

And Waller's comments come right on cue as The Fed's reverse repo facility saw a simply stunning $128BN of liquidity sucked out of it over the last two days (a 22% drop) across month-end...



Source: Bloomberg

We warned four days ago this was coming...

Leaving the Ides of March in play for a liquidity crisis...



Source: Bloomberg

So - Unleash the dollars...



And just like - everything was higher...

Stocks went vertical, gold soared, Treasury yields plunged (and the yield curve steepened... in a good way), oil ramped up too (and so did crypto, even after the week it had).

Small Caps led the face-ripping melt-up on the week (with Nasdaq's big day today pulling it to a 2% gain on the week). The S&P managed gains on the week (thanks to today's meltup), but The Dow ended the week marginally lower...



NVDA officially closed above $2TN market cap today. For context, in Oct 2022, the company was worth $280BN...



Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, while the last few months have seen 'Vol Up, Spot Up' in Nasdaq as traders chase the market with levered bets, the last week has seen vols decline as stocks soared (implying less of a FOMO chasefest)...



Source: Bloomberg

But... demand for downside protection is still non-existent as skews test record lows once again...



Source: Bloomberg

Bonds were aggressively bid today, led by the short-end (2Y -9bps, 30Y -5bps), dragging all yields lower on the week (again led by the short-end)...



Source: Bloomberg

And that bull-steepened the yield curve...



Source: Bloomberg

Crypto had a giant week with huge inflows to BTC ETFs...



Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin roared up to just shy of $64,000 this week...



Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum also spiked, all the way above $3500 this week...



Source: Bloomberg

The dollar tumbled today after Waller but ended the week unch...



Source: Bloomberg

Gold soared up near end-Dec highs...



Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices also spiked today, breaking out to their highest close since Nov 6th...



Source: Bloomberg

Finally, are these the vinegar strokes (Google it) of the melt-up-rally-top?



Source: Bloomberg

Will the March FOMC meeting be used to introduce the public to NOT-QE "Reverse Twist", because the first rule of Fed QE-club is you never mention QE.

 

Ex-2020 S&P 500 Flatter Election Year March

But after 4 months of solid gains the market is poised for a modest pullback of maybe 3-6%.

S&P 500 Support: 4800 old ATH.

A 5% February: What Worked and What Didn't
Thu, Feb 29, 2024

The S&P 500 finished February with a gain of more than 5% for just the 11th time in the index's history since 1928. Below is a look at prior 5%+ gains in February along with the S&P 500's performance in March and for the remainder of each year. The last time we had a 5% February was 2015. That March, the S&P fell 1.74%, and the index fell 2.88% from the end of February through year-end. Let's hope we don't see that type of action for the remainder of 2024, although a repeat of 2015 would be a lot better than what investors experienced in 1931 when the S&P rallied 11.37% in February only to fall 54.96% for the rest of the year!



Below is a look at our key ETF performance matrix highlighting total returns across asset classes in February, year-to-date, and year-over-year. Mid-cap growth (IJK) was the best area of US markets in February with a 9.58% gain. Dividend stocks (DVY) were the weakest area with a gain of just 1.16% during the month. Looking at sectors, Consumer Discretionary (XLY), Industrials (XLI), and Materials (XLB) actually performed the best in February, beating out Tech's (XLK) gain of just 4.7% even though the semis (SMH) were up 14%.

Outside of the US, China (ASHR) finally had a big month along with Israel (EIS), which gained 8.6%. Mexico (EWW) and Spain (EWP) were the only two country ETFs that fell in February.

Natural gas (UNG) once again fell sharply, adding to its year-over-year decline of more than 50%. Finally, fixed income ETFs were broadly lower in February, led down by the 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT).



Within the S&P 500, there are 67 stocks that show up in at least one of eight "AI" ETFs traded here in the US. As shown below, the 67 "AI" stocks in the S&P were up an average of 5.7% in February compared to a gain of 3.6% for the 433 non-AI stocks. On the year, the 67 "AI" stocks are up 5.9% versus a gain of 2.6% for the non-AI stocks. Given how much some of the most well-known AI names like NVIDIA (NVDA) are up so far in 2024, it's surprising to us that there isn't even more separation in performance between the AI and non-AI groups.



The Best and Worst Performing Stocks of February 2024
Thu, Feb 29, 2024

The average S&P 500 stock rose 3.87% in February even though the index itself was up more than 5%. You can check out the performance of various ETFs across asset classes in February in this post, but below we take a look at the best and worst-performing individual S&P 500 names during the month.

While NVIDIA (NVDA) got a lot of attention (as always) after its most recent blowout earnings report, two stocks outdid the "King of AI" in February: Constellation Energy (CEG) and Ralph Lauren (RL).

Additional big winners in February included 20%+ gainers like Quanta Services (PWR), GE HealthCare (GEHC), Axon Enterprise (AXON) -- the maker of Tasers and video software for police departments, Tapestry (TPR), and Uber (UBER). Other notables include Diamondback Energy (FANG), NXP Semi (NXPI), General Electric (GE), Vulcan Materials (VMC), and Eli Lilly (LLY). And finally, even Disney (DIS) managed to make the list of the 30 biggest winners in February with a gain of 16.17%.



Not everything went up during the month, however. In fact, of the S&P's 500 stocks, 350 were up and 150 were down in February. That's pretty weak breadth for a 5%+ up month.

Below is a list of the 30 S&P 500 stocks that fell the most in February. Notably, three of the five biggest losers were from the Communication Services sector: Paramount (PARA), Charter (CHTR), and Warner Bros. (WBD). Other big blue chips that fell in February include Amgen (AMGN), Adobe (ADBE), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Comcast (CMCSA), and Deere (DE).



Why Stocks Up In Both January And February Is Quite Bullish


“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill

First off, happy Leap Day! We get an extra day every four years and hopefully you have fun today.

Well, so much for February being a historically weak month. The amazing bull market continued and the S&P 500 is about to close higher in both January and February. We noted in As Goes January, So Goes the Year? The Bulls Hope So that a higher January tended to suggest future strength, well, things get even better when the first two months are higher. Here’s what tends to happen after a positive January.



How amazing is this? After the S&P 500 gained in both January and February (like 2024 is about to do) the next 12 months were higher an amazing 27 out of 28 times! The final 10 months were higher 26 out of 28 times, with the returns in both cases much better than the average returns.



The S&P 500 was up 19.9% in years that saw both January and February higher, as the chart below shows. We aren’t expecting 20% gains this year, but we sure wouldn’t complain about them if they happened!



Lastly, it isn’t just the first two months of 2024, as remember we saw a big rally the final two months of last year as well. We found 14 other times stocks were higher in November, December, January, and February and for the full calendar year (so 2023 returns) the bulls were smiling every single time, with an average return of 21.2%.



We’ve been overweight equities since late 2022 and have remained there ever since. It wasn’t very popular this time a year ago saying stocks were going higher and a recession wasn’t happening, as it went against what the masses were saying. Well, right now we see very few reasons to change our bullish outlook and a higher January and February does little to change that.

Democratic (NANC) Trading Trumps Republicans (KRUZ)
Tue, Feb 27, 2024

Just over a year ago, a pair of interesting ETFs debuted. The Unusual Whales Subversive Republican (KRUZ) and Democrat (NANC) Trading ETFs seek to track the performance of stock investments of sitting Congressional members. The Republican ETF (KRUZ) would track those investments of Republican members while the Democratic ETF (NANC) would track those of Democrats. As shown below, the past year has seen Democrats come out as winners. The over 30% total return for NANC is almost twice that of KRUZ and is also several percentage points stronger than the S&P 500 ETF (SPY).



Not only is NANC the better performer of the two since inception, but it is also significantly larger. As shown in the chart below, NANC currently has assets under management (AUM) of $27.89 million compared to only $9.35 million for KRUZ. While NANC has consistently held a large AUM since inception, we would note that it really took off in the past few months.



Both of these ETF have hundreds of holdings with KRUZ being the smaller of the two with 488 while NANC has 748. NANC is not only large, but is significantly more top heavy. The top ten holdings of that ETF account for roughly half of its weight, whereas KRUZ's top ten holdings are just under 20% of its weight.

As always, what conversation about top-heaviness is complete without a mention of the mega-caps. That group of stocks are some of the largest holdings in NANC. Microsoft (MSFT) is the single largest with a 7.44% weighting followed by 6.1% from Amazon (AMZN), 5.1% from Apple (AAPL), and 4.7% from NVIDIA (NVDA). Using our Custom Portfolios tool, below we show the 26 holdings of NANC that currently account for at least 0.5% of weight. Continuing its relentless rise, NVDA is of course the best performing one of those stocks and is deeply overbought alongside most others on this list.



Shifting over to KRUZ, as previously mentioned, weights are distributed a bit more evenly. As such, below we show the 28 stocks with weights that are above 1%. The largest holding is Intel (INTC) at a 2.35% weight. Albeit a big drop down the market cap ladder, HVAC company Comfort Systems (FIX) is the next largest holding at 2.24%. That comes as the stock has experienced an impressive rally of close to 40% in the past month alone. ConocoPhilips (COP) is the only other stock with a weight of more than 2%, while Accenture (ACN) is the next largest at 1.99%. While further down the list in terms of its weight, mega caps also make this list with NVIDIA (NVDA) and Amazon (AMZN) on the board.

Crypto Digging Out
Mon, Feb 26, 2024

After some weakness overnight, prices in the crypto space have seen a significant turnaround today. Bitcoin, for example, has rallied nearly 5% from its lows earlier in the session and has now rallied to new 52-week highs. When the Bitcoin ETFs were first launched back on January 11th, prices immediately dropped by more than 20% in what looked like another sell-the-news event surrounding a Bitcoin milestone. As shown in the chart, though, in just the last month alone, the largest cryptocurrency has rallied more than 25%.



The rally in Bitcoin has also helped to dig it out of the hole it has been in for more than two years now. After falling just short of $68,000 per coin in November 2021, bitcoin declined by more than 75%, but after more than tripling in less than 15 months, it is now just a little bit more than 20% from its prior all-time high. Will 2024 be the year?



Even more impressive than the recent rally in Bitcoin has been Ethereum’s run. Over the last month alone, the second-largest crypto has rallied 39%. That’s more than Nvidia (NVDA)! Despite the monster rally over the last month, though, Ethereum remains 35% below its November high of $4,800.

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2024-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from 52WK highs as of week ending 3.1.24-


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 3.1.24-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for March 1st, 2024
Video from AlphaTrends Brian Shannon


ShadowTrader Video Weekly 3/3/24
Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek
(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)

 

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 (3/4-3/8) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this coming week ahead!

Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Monday (3/4) <-- 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 3.4.24 Before Market Open:

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

Monday 3.4.24 After Market Close:

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

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 3.5.24 Before Market Open:

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

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 3.5.24 After Market Close:

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

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 3.6.24 Before Market Open:

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

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 3.6.24 After Market Close:

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

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 3.7.24 Before Market Open:

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

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 3.7.24 After Market Close:

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

(T.B.A.)

Friday 3.8.24 Before Market Open:

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

(T.B.A.)

Friday 3.8.24 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-
($CRWD $AVGO $NIO $GTLB $TGT $COST $MRVL $SE $MDB $DOCU $JD $ANF $IOT $PAY $CHPT $ROST $GSL $PBR $KR $FL $SEMR $NVEI $EOSE $BBAI $GPS $BIG $JWN $RWAY $AVAV $BURL $AVDL $BJ $AEO $SAIC $EVGO $TPVG $SOHU $VSCO $BOX $CIFR $BILI $FERG $TRIN $PSFE $CIEN $CGEN $INO $EOLS $EKSO $CPB)


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

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning March 4, 2024 <-- 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 under 30 minutes from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Monday, March the 4th, 2024!

 

Morning Lineup - 3/4/24 - No Fear Here
Mon, Mar 4, 2024

91 years ago today, with the country in the grips of the Great Depression, Franklin D Roosevelt was inaugurated as President and attempted to strike a tone of optimism for a country badly in need of a boost. The current picture is far different. Although Americans may not exactly be optimistic, the economy is doing relatively well, and just last Friday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closed at record highs. Even the Russell 2000 hit a 52-week high! Maybe now, the only thing to fear is the lack of fear itself.

The picture this morning is a bit more subdued as futures are modestly lower ahead of a quiet day of economic data, but things will pick up later in the week with ISM Services and the February Employment report. It will also be a very busy week for Fedspeak as we head into the pre-meeting blackout on Friday. Chair Powell will even be testifying to Congress on Wednesday and Thursday.

Stocks may be quiet to start the week, but Bitcoin prices are going crazy again this morning with a move above $65,000. Since the ETPs started trading in early January, Bitcoin has rallied more than 40%, and from the post-ETP launch low on 1/26, prices are up 69%.



Just as a year ago no one was thinking the S&P 500 would be trading at all-time highs within a year, two months ago not many people were thinking that Bitcoin would be trading to new highs any time soon. With prices back above $65,000, though, bitcoin is now within 4% of its all-time high of just under $68,000.



While digital gold has gone parabolic of late, physical gold hasn’t been as strong, although prices are also within 4% of an all-time high. This morning, gold is trading just shy of $2,100 per ounce which is a level it has had a lot of trouble taking out over the last two years. Back in March 2022 and May 2023, gold prices rallied towards $2,100 and quickly pulled back. Late last year, though, gold made another run at $2,100, and while it failed to break through again, it didn’t experience a pullback anything like the prior two. Third time the charm?

 

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, March 4th, 2024.