The View from 5th Avenue

Equities with a mixed start to the week, though major indices finished in the green, there seemed to be a little exhaustion into the close. Volumes are still deflated with the SPX +22% below its 20-day average as well as the lack of leadership we are seeking. For majority of today’s session breadth seemed rather decent, with Information Technology leading the way, showing glimpses of leadership (though only a 37% up day in the S&P). All eyes are on Nvidia for Wednesday’s earnings and rightfully…

Sell in May? Au contraire. Yesterday’s down day (a whole 21bps) was the worst for the S&P since the first of the month. It’s been quite a ride thus far and so today’s response to yesterday’s “move” was equally undramatic. It seems the path of least resistance remains to the upside for US equities and some notable levels were breached at the bell (albeit modestly) with the S&P500 closing above 5,300 while the Dow closed above 40,000. But the question top of mind is around the lack of clear leade…

Today took a detour from the usual macro wagging of the tail, with Retail as the real tale (see what I did there? re-tail, real tale…). ANYWAY. Earnings from Walmart (WMT +7%), Under Armour (UAA -1.3%), Dillard’s (DDS -4.7%) and Canada Goose (GOOS +15.5%) gave voice to the efforts being made by the retailers to combat macro headwinds. Walmart, particularly, was able to impress with healthy earnings upside and a guidance bump. Both Dillard’s and Canada Goose also acknowledged the challenging en…

Nothing like a mid-week broad based rally to help get everyone closer to the weekend. After three days of eye-watering low volume across US markets, CPI and Retail sales data stepped in to shake the frost off traders’ bones and breathe some life into the market. Two consecutive months of a stagnant CPI data had dwindled hopes of any rate cuts this year and been a headwind for equities recently, but a welcomed sequential decline in both Core and Headline CPI numbers sent the S&P 500, Dow Jones…

A sea of green……

It was another case of the ‘Mondaze’ in markets today as US indices faded into listless trading by the afternoon and closed marginally above/below the breakeven between the big three. Declining volumes have been a developing theme alongside the recent rally with Friday marking the lowest volume traded YTD for the S&P. But this morning’s action snapped that streak with a sassy start sparked by heavy short covering in Gamestop Corp (+74%) ~and the meme universe at large~ after social media marke…

The devil may be in the details, but the dirt is in the data. The question of where we stand in a higher rate environment has been top of mind for quite some time as the rate cut goal posts continue to shift, but one constant in the debate has been the Fed’s commitment to data-dependency. This morning’s University of Michigan sentiment survey revealed an unexpected deterioration in consumer confidence, prompting a selloff in treasuries across the curve. The ‘dirt’ in the data is the worrisome c…

A welcomed increase in Jobless claims this morning gave stocks a nice little tailwind to start the day. US Treasury rates and the dollar fell on the data as traders look for any dovish economic signals that will turn the Fed away from “higher for long”. It may just be a small data point, but it helped the S&P 500 to a nice 81% up day, leading to a close above 5200 for the first time in a month. The data wasn’t convincing enough to have traders move up their bets on the first rate cut from Novem…

We’ve discussed this before, the days of the workweek and their respective personalities that is. Ask for further details if you’d like on the other 4 but Wednesday is the fun friend. It’s midway, it’s hump day, it’s when excitement about nights out with friends/clients/flients springs anew. And yes I realize I’m showing my age as Tuesday starts to fall in the do not disturb bucket. But while we certainly got some profound earnings reports that had their influence (see below), there wasn’t a wh…

After last week’s rush of news and data, the markets are currently sitting in a period of a quiet economic calendar and fewer companies reporting earnings. So far, 425 of the S&P 500 have reported and the balance will cycle through the next couple of weeks. Earnings growth has held up (+5.5% y/y) as have sales (+3.9%), and this is providing the support indexes need to stay near their all-time highs. Equities are also benefitting from the Fed’s reiteration that they see the first rate move as be…