Stock Market Today: November 13th - 17th, 2023

Morning Lineup - 11/15/23 - Fire Hose of Economic Data
Wed, Nov 15, 2023

After yesterday's monster rally, futures are still in a celebratory mood as futures are higher across the board. Even bitcoin, which sat out Tuesday's rally is trading up over 1.5%. A slug of economic data was just released, including PPI, Retail Sales, and Empire Manufacturing. In a nutshell, the inflation data was weaker than expected while Retail Sales and Empire Manufacturing were better than expected. Equity futures are little changed in response to the data while treasury yields are modestly higher which is likely due to the stronger Retail Sales report. That being said, as discussed yesterday, with the door closed on further rate hikes, good economic news is actually good market news!

Bulls went a 'few months' where equities did nothing but seemingly go down, and by the end of October, you couldn’t have faulted anyone for becoming frustrated with the way things were going in the market. For those who had the toughness to stick it out, they’ve been rewarded in the last two to three weeks as the S&P 500 has rallied over 9% from its lows.

Investors in small-cap stocks have had an even tougher time of it lately, but they had their day yesterday as the Russell 2000 surged 5.44% which was 3.53 percentage points more than the S&P 500’s gain of 1.91%. Since the Russell 2000’s inception in 1979, yesterday was only the 24th day that the index outperformed the S&P 500 by 2.5 percentage points or more in a single day, and in the chart below we have highlighted each of those days with a blue dot.

As shown, there were several of these occurrences coming out of the COVID lows as investors were flush with cash from all the stimulus sloshing around in the US economy, and before that most, but not all of the other occurrences were clustered around the period coming out of the Financial Crisis, around the peak of the dot-com boom, and after the 1987 crash.

 

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, November 15th, 2023.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Thursday 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 over 30 minutes from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Thursday, November the 16th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 11/16/23 - Earnings Season Ends With a Thud
Thu, Nov 16, 2023

As if the calendar of economic data hasn’t been significant enough already, it’s another busy day for data today with Import and Export Prices (both weaker than expected), Jobless Claims (higher than expected), and the Philly Fed (less negative than expected) at 8:30. Then at 9:15, we’ll get releases of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, followed by Homebuilder Sentiment at 10 and the KC Fed Manufacturing report at 11.

In addition to the economic slate, earnings season comes to an unofficial end today as Walmart (WMT) reported earlier this morning. While the company reported better-than-expected earnings and sales, the stock is trading down over 6% after lowering full-year guidance and some cautious commentary from management on the state of the consumer (see page four of today's report).

Since last Thursday’s close when the last update to the weekly sentiment survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) was released, the S&P 500 has rallied over 3%. Given the surge in stocks, you would expect to see a sharp spike in bullish sentiment, but as this week’s latest update shows that hasn’t necessarily been the case.

In the last week, AAII’s survey of bullish sentiment showed an increase from 42.6% up to 43.8%. Granted, the prior week saw an increase of over 18 percentage points, but with the market continuing its run, we would have expected a bullish reading of closer to 50% this week.



Not only was the increase in bullish sentiment modest, but bearish sentiment increased slightly rising from 27.2% to 28.1%. Again, the prior week showed a sharp decline in bearish sentiment, but with the S&P 500 up so much during the week, any increase in bearish sentiment is a bit surprising.

 

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 16th, 2023.

 

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

GLTA on this Friday, November the 17th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 11/17/23 - Easy as Pie?
Fri, Nov 17, 2023

After tons of economic data, at least twenty different Federal Reserve speeches, and the finale of earnings seasons, stocks finished the week with healthy gains. Easy a pie, right? Well, if you asked anyone at the beginning of the week how the week was going to go, we’d put good money that no one would have expected the Russell 2000 to rally over 5%...in a single day! Everything is easy in retrospect.

This morning, futures are modestly higher on the day, and the only economic data on the calendar is Building Permits and Housing Starts at 8:30. There are several Fed speakers scheduled to speak between now and noon, and the earnings calendar is very light.

Stocks in Asia were mixed overnight. Hong Kong stocks declined over 2% after Alibaba (BABA) fell over 10% on news that the company was canceling the IPO of its cloud business. Foreign Direct Investment in China also declined 9.4% on a YTD versus a decline of 8.4% in September. Over in Europe, though, it’s a much more positive tone as major benchmark indices are up across the board. CPI in the Eurozone decelerated for the seventh straight month falling from 0.3% down to 0.1% which was in line with expectations while UK Retail Sales unexpectedly fell 0.3% versus forecasts for an increase of 0.3%. That weaker report has bonds rallying on hopes that the UK’s rate hiking cycle is over.

There are still almost two weeks left in the month, but along with the equity rally, Treasuries have also surged. Based on where the iShares 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) is trading this morning, its month-to-date gain currently stands at 7.8% which, if it holds through the end of the month, would be the largest monthly gain since August 2019.

The chart below shows the monthly prices of TLT since the start of 2003, and gains of 5%+ have been nothing out of the ordinary with 23 occurrences, or about one every ten months. Since TLT’s monthly peak in July 2020, this month’s gain would be just the third occurrence (if it holds). The last two occurrences came in a three-month span in which TLT rallied over 11% before rolling over again.



The chart below shows the monthly change of TLT going back to 2003, and what stands out about the current period is the fact that this month’s gain follows a loss of similar magnitude in October. That would make it just the second time in TLT’s history that it fell 5%+ in one month and then rallied 5%+ the next. Ironically, the only other occurrence was in October and November of last year. With more and more indicators lately, it seems as though the last time we saw similar extremes was exactly a year ago.

 

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, November 17th, 2023.

 

And finally here is a quick preview of next week's notable earnings releases courtesy of Reddit's Wall Street Bets:

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

just a very quick reminder here for next week guys. markets as you know will be shuttered on thursday for t-day. and will have an early closing the very next day (friday) at 1pm eastern time.

you guys may have also noticed that i've gone ahead and did a weekly thread update for next week. this is because i will largely be away all of next week and likely wouldn't have had time to do it. so, i went ahead and did those thread updates today.

i hope you guys all have a spectacular thanksgiving holiday with your families and friends next week!!!

really can't thank you guys enough for being here and keeping this board active daily, despite my very limited involvement in the markets nowadays. you guys absolutely rock!

will catch up with you guys the week after next most likely.

i will see if i can still update the daily market direction games next week, but in case i couldn't they will still be open for submissions and i'll just update them the following week when i'm fully back in the saddle again.

have fun and enjoy guys!!!