Stock Market Today: November 27th - December 1st, 2023

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Thursday to all of you and welcome to the final trading day of November and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are a little over 2 hours into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Thursday, November the 30th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 11/30/23 - Foiled Again
Thu, Nov 30, 2023

Lower-than-expected inflation data in Europe has stocks around the world in rally mode this morning. Stocks on the other side of the Atlantic are trading higher across the board with the STOXX 600 up 0.5% and just about every country in the region trading higher by about the same amount. Besides the weaker inflation data, employment data out of Germany showed a slightly higher-than-expected level of joblessness.

Here in the US, futures are also higher following positive earnings results from Salesforce (CRM). Looking at the economic calendar, it’s a busy day with jobless claims, Personal Income and Spending, and Core PCE just coming out at 8:30 Eastern. Initial jobless claims were right in line with expectations, but continuing claims were significantly higher than expected. Personal Income and Spending both rose 0.2% which was right in line with forecasts while Core PCE was right inline with expectations. The only other reports left for today are Chicago PMI at 9:45 and Pending Home Sales at 10 AM.

Small-cap stocks outperformed the S&P 500 and other major US averages yesterday, but by the end of the session, investors long waiting for the rally to take hold, left the table with their stomachs still growling. While other major averages have all managed to reclaim both their 50 and 200-day moving averages, the Russell 2000 remains sandwiched between the two above the
50-DMA and below the 200-DMA.

The most frustrating aspect of the last two weeks, though, is that on two separate occasions, the Russell 2000 traded sharply higher early in the session and in the process, broke above its 200-DMA. Both times, though, they sold off more than 1% from their intraday high ending the session back below the 200-DMA. Maybe the third time will be the charm, but for now, there isn’t a US index that has been more frustrating to investors than the Russell 2000. At some point, small caps will break out, and pundits will be out telling everyone that the ‘easy’ money has already been made. But when you hear that, remember that like an impromptu speech by Mark Twain, or anything that looks easy at the surface, a lot of work behind the scenes usually goes into it.



At this point, maybe we’re just delirious, but are those two intraday spikes and subsequent pullbacks starting to look a little like the horns from the old Merrill Lynch bull?

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Thursday, November 30th, 2023.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Friday to all of you and welcome to the first trading day of December and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are a little under an hour from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Friday, December the 1st, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup -- 12/1/23
Fri, Dec 1, 2023

In its last earnings conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted that the rollout of the Cybertruck has been “production hell”. During yesterday’s rollout, the sentiment from that conference call was on display when the Tesla website said that the base model of the Cybertruck wouldn’t be available until 2025. Given the complexities involved in manufacturing the Cybertruck with, among other things, its stainless-steel exterior, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s difficult to produce. Still, we found it ironic that the product launch came just one day short of 110 years after Henry Ford unveiled the first moving assembly line for cars and reducing the time it took to complete the build of an entire car from half a day to an hour and a half! And now on to the markets.

The year is now 92% complete, but a lot can happen in the final month. With a gain of 9.1% on a total return basis through the end of November, the S&P 500 had its best month since July 2022 and only its 15th monthly gain of over 9% since the start of 1980. With November’s gain, the S&P 500 is up 13.8% over the last year which is two percentage points better than the one-year average total return of 11.8% dating back to 1928. While the last year was above average, the last two years have been weak. The 1.7% annualized gain would be flat if it wasn’t for the dividends. It's hard to believe but the S&P 500 closed yesterday just 0.80 points above where it closed exactly two years earlier! After factoring in inflation during that time, investors are staring at an annualized decline of about 5% over the last two years. While the two-year return has been well below the historical annualized average of 10.6%, returns for the last five and ten years have been modestly above average, while the 20-year annualized gain of 9.7% is 1.2 percentage points below the historical average.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Friday, December 1st, 2023.

 

And finally here is a quick preview of next week's notable earnings releases courtesy of Earnings Whispers:

Have a great weekend everyone!