Stock Market Today: August 28th - September 1st, 2023

Good Tuesday morning StonkForumers!

Here is this morning's pre-market news thread for those of you wanting to get a quick read before today's open-
<-- click there to read!

Hope everyone has a great new trading day ahead!

 

Morning Lineup - 8/29/23 - Utilities Out of Power
Tue, Aug 29, 2023

After its first back-to-back gains of the month, the S&P 500 is poised for a lower open despite positive returns in Europe and Asia overnight. The parade of employment related data for the week kicks off today with the July JOLTS report. We’ll also get an updated read on Consumer Confidence from the Conference Board at 10 AM.

With just three days left in the month, the Nasdaq and the DJ Utilities Index (Utes) are on pace for a near record wide performance gap through the first eight months of the year. With the Nasdaq up just over 30% and the Utes down nearly 10% YTD, the nearly 40 percentage point gap between the two ranks as the third largest in history (dating back to 1971) trailing the 41.3 percentage point gap from 1991 and just slightly coming up short of the 39.9 percentage point gap in 2020 (August isn’t over yet though). The divergent performance of the two indices continues what has been a wild ride over the last few years. While this year has favored the Nasdaq, last year Utes outperformed the Nasdaq by a record amount.



A relative strength chart of the two indices really highlights the roller coaster highs and lows of the last three years. Despite this year’s massive outperformance of the Nasdaq, its relative strength versus the Utes is still well off its 2021 high.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, August 29th, 2023.

 

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

GLTA on this Wednesday, August the 30th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 8/30/23 - More Sluggish Employment Data
Wed, Aug 30, 2023

If there’s one topic we can be confident that Mary Shelley wouldn’t be weighing in on if she was around today, it would be the economy. No matter which side you choose, there’s good evidence to support your view. Recession? How can we even entertain the thought with jobless claims and the unemployment rate both still at extremely low levels and the Atlanta Fed GDP Now tracking Q3 growth at 5.9%? OK, but with the yield curve on pace for a record streak of inversion, leading indicators down for more than a year straight, and manufacturing surveys deeply in negative territory, how can you not have a recession in your forecast? There’s merit to both arguments.

It’s a busy day for economic data, and it started off with the ADP Employment report. After a weaker than expected JOLTS report and a Consumer Confidence report which showed softening sentiment towards the labor market yesterday, the ADP report continued that trend coming in at 177K versus forecasts for an increase of 200K and follows four months where the reported number was well over 250K. Besides ADP, there is plenty of other data to contend with this morning including Wholesale Inventories (less bad than expected), revised GDP (down to 2.1% from 2.4%), Personal Consumption (slightly weaker), and Core PCE (2.0% vs 2.2% forecast). The only other report on the calendar today is the Pending Home Sales report (10 AM), which is expected to show a decline of 1%.

With two trading days left in August, it’s impressive to see that after heading into the week going all month without back-to-back positive days in the S&P 500, the S&P is now looking to string together its fourth straight positive day. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we’re heading into one of the toughest parts of the calendar. As shown in the composite chart of the S&P 500’s tracking ETF (SPY) over the last ten years, September has been the weakest part of the late summer/early fall consolidation period.

Below the chart, we have also included gauges from our Seasonality Tool which show how performance in the week and month after today’s date over the last ten years has compared to all other one week and one-month periods throughout the year. In the week after 8/30’s close, SPY’s median gain of 0.18% ranks in the 44th percentile relative to all other one-week periods. Over the next month, though, the median decline of 1.21% ranks in just the fourth percentile relative to all other rolling one-month periods. Just another reason very few people like to see summer end.

 

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

 

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

GLTA on this Thursday, August the 31st, 2023!

 

Good Thursday morning StonkForumers!

Here is this morning's pre-market news thread for those of you wanting to get a quick read before today's open-
<-- click there to read!

Hope everyone has a great final trading day of August ahead today!

 

Morning Lineup - 8/31/23 - Not Buying It
Thu, Aug 31, 2023

In 2017, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was asked what the company’s biggest competitor was. Analysts were expecting him to say something like TikTok, YouTube, or maybe even cable TV, but he famously answered that the company’s most formidable competitor was sleep. His exact comment was, “You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep…And we’re winning.”

Love them or hate them, consumers are faced with a never-ending stream of video content from the countless number of streaming options to traditional movies, and even TV. None of them would have been possible, though, without Thomas Edison and his invention of the Kinetograph (the first known movie camera) 126 years ago today. We can safely assume that as big and important as Edison may have thought his invention would be, he would have never been able to ‘picture’ how important video would become in today’s culture. Today’s big invention is AI, and while hopes are high for how it will impact the world in the coming years, it’s ultimate impact will probably look nothing like what people today expect.

This morning futures are higher with the Dow leading the way following strong results from Salesforce.com (CRM). The stock is trading up over 5% and contributing more than 80 points to the Dow. A ton of economic indicators were just released and there was little in the way of surprises. Initial jobless claims were lower than expected while continuing claims were slightly higher. Likewise, Personal Income was slightly weaker while Personal Spending was slightly stronger. With respect to the PCE data, though, they were all in line with forecasts. So, while they're still on the high side, at least there weren't any big surprises. There wasn't a big reaction in equity futures, but there was some slight improvement.

It’s been a nice rally since last Friday as the S&P 500 is looking to make it five straight gains in a row. With the rebound, you would expect individual investor sentiment to rebound as sentiment typically tracks stock prices closely, but at this point, investors aren’t buying it. According to the weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), bullish sentiment did improve this week, but it increased by less than a percentage point, increasing from 32.3% to just 33.1%.

 

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, August 31st, 2023.