Good Friday evening to all of you here on StockMarketChat! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

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I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead StockMarketChat. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on WallStreetStockMarket! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead WallStreetStockMarket. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on StockMarketForums! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead StockMarketForums. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on StocksMarket! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

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Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead StocksMarket. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on EarningsWhispers! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead EarningsWhispers. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on FinancialMarket! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 5/28/23

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)
Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

($CRWD $CRM $AI $ZS $DG $AVGO $LULU $OKTA $AAP $M $BNR $MDB $CHPT $UHAL $SKY $TNP $HPE $CHWY $HPQ $ESLT $S $CPRI $ALAR $MDWD $TRMR $CD $CAE $BOX $JWN $ASAN $BLI $DELL $VEEV $AMBA $PSTG $DOOO $GLNG $FIVE $DCI $NTAP $IOT $HRL $RSVR $SPWH $COO $NOAH $YY $ESTC $PD)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead FinancialMarket. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on stocks! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

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The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

([CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!]())

(N/A.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)

(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?
I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend and a great new trading week ahead stocks. :)

Good Friday evening to all of you here on StockMarketChat! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. :)
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning May 29th, 2023.

Stocks rally Friday on hopes for a debt ceiling deal, Nasdaq notches fifth straight week of wins: Live updates - (Source)

Stocks jumped Friday as traders grew hopeful that lawmakers will reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 328.69 points, or 1% to settle at 33,093.34. The S&P 500 gained 1.3% to close at 4,205.45, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.2% to 12,975.69.
Intel and American Express rose 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively to lead the Dow higher. The S&P 500 tech and consumer discretionary sectors popped more than 2% each.
The Nasdaq notched its fifth straight weekly gain, rising 2.5%. The S&P 500 also posted a one-week advanced, advancing 0.3%. The Dow was the laggard this week, losing 1%.
Congressional and Biden administration negotiators were zeroing in on a deal that would increase the U.S. debt limit for two years. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said talks Thursday night yielded progress, but added: “We’ve got to make more progress now.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not raised. Economists and Wall Street leaders have also raised concern over the possibly devastating impact of a U.S. debt default.
“Once a debt deal is done, markets will have to deal with the harsh reality that the Fed is going to kill this economy,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote on Friday. “The end of tightening might not occur until the end of summer and that means we will probably get bigger rate cuts next year.”
New data out Friday morning showed inflation rose more than expected in April. The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of price pressures, increased 0.4% last month and 4.7% from a year earlier.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

S&P Sectors for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE S&P SECTORS FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

Why a Strong First 100 Days Is a Good Thing

“It’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish.” -Albert Pujols, 11-time All Star professional baseball player
Can you believe it, today is the 100th trading day of the year. In the face of mounting worries about the economy, Fed policy, stubborn inflation, an earnings recession, the manufacturing recession, the war in Ukraine, poor market breadth, signing Joe Burrow to a long-term NFL deal, and more, stocks have had a really strong start to 2023. Ok, that Joe Burrow part is more of a personal worry, but the man needs to be paid and we need to keep him in Bengal stripes, so it is a worry of mine in 2023.
So, what exactly does a good start to a year as of Day 100 mean? Well, the 7.2% gain as of yesterday would be the best start to a year since 2021 with 2019 and 2017 before that. In other words, recently strong starts have meant continued gains for the bulls out there who recall those fun years.
Looking at all the years to gain at least 7% by Day 100 showed that the rest of the year was higher by 9.4% on average and up 88.5% of the time. Anyone up for another 10% from here? Unless you are a permabear, I bet most readers would be ok with that. Lastly, the full year has never closed the year lower when up more than 7% on Day 100. Yes, 1987 is in here, so we know that stocks can indeed go lower from here, but to have a red year in 2023 would truly be rare.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

That isn’t the only good news though. In fact, here are two more recent occurrences that should bode well for continued strong returns from stocks this year.
First up, the S&P 500 hasn’t made a new 52-week low since the mid-October lows last year. That is more than seven months without a new low and history would say that a move right back beneath those October lows would be quite rare. As you can see from the chart below, usually this is a sign that ‘the lows’ indeed are in and in many cases strong continued gains were possible.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are all the instances of a new 52-week low and then seven months in a row without a new low. A year later? Stocks were up 12.6% on average and higher 86.4% of the time. Looking at things over the past 50 years and only twice (out of 14 times) did stocks go on to make new lows after seven months without a new 52-week low. Those were in 2002 (and the vicious three-year bubble bursting bear market) and then right ahead of a 100-year pandemic. Let’s hope now isn’t like those two and we don’t think it is. The other 12 times the lows were indeed in place. We remain in the camp that the lows from October are it and the bear market ended then. We’ve been saying that since late last year and many more are coming around to this opinion now. This study does little to change our views here.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Lastly, we’ve seen strong leadership from large cap technology this year, after a horrible year last year it should be noted. This is the lifeblood of bull markets, changing leadership and we have seen it this year. Turning to the NASDAQ-100, it recently made a new 52-week high for the first time since before Thanksgiving in 2021 …. Nearly 18 full months! As bad as that was, the good news is when it goes at least six months without a new 52-week high and finally makes one (like last week), the future returns can be quite strong. As we show below, the NASDAQ-100 was higher a year later 14 out of 14 times and up 16.8% on average along the way. We don’t expect this to be 14 out of 15 this time next year is all I will say.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

With all of that, I must ask you, why are you even reading this right now? We are right before a holiday weekend and I hope you can get a break, eat some good food, and spend time with family and friends this Memorial Day weekend. The stock market is having a nice year, bonds are doing ok, or at least way better than last year, the economy is firming, the Fed is likely done hiking, and the Bengals are inching closer to signing Joey B. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Market Weaker After Memorial Day Recent Years

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The week after Memorial Day performed quite well 1971-95. DJIA & S&P up 68% of the time, averaging 0.8% – DJIA up 12 in a row 1984-95. NAS was up 72% of the time, average 0.6%, up 10 straight 1986-95. Since 1979 R2K was up 88.2% of the time, average 0.9%, up 13 straight 1983-95.
Starting in 1996 the week after Memorial Day performance diminished. DJIA was up only 40.7% of times, average loss 0.02%, down 9 of last 13. S&P, NAS & R2K all gained ground less than 56% of the time, down 7 of last 13. Huge gains during the week in 2000 do skew the averages.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

2023 Stock Trader’s Almanac page 100 tracks behavior before & after holidays since 1980. Days after Memorial Day show positivity. But weakness has increased the last 22-years the 3 days after Memorial Day. Day after Memorial Day DJIA & NAS down 6 of last 8, S&P down 7 of last 8.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tech In Orbit

The S&P 500 has been closing in on new 52-week highs as the index gains another 1.3% headed into the long weekend. Although the index has been moving higher, looking at relative strength lines across the S&P's eleven sectors, it would be hard to tell. Indicating what has broadly been mediocre breadth at best, the only two sectors with relative strength lines that are currently moving higher are Tech and Communication Services. The former has made a vertical move higher over the past few days in the wake of the surge in NVIDIA (NVDA), while the climb in Communication Services has been more steady. As for the other sectors, relative strength lines have been falling off a cliff for everything except Consumer Discretionary, which has been flat.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Again, Tech has led the way higher with a sharp move this week. The sector is now extremely overbought, trading 3.23 standard deviations above its 50-DMA; the fifth most overbought reading on record. Since 1990, there have only been a handful of times in which the S&P 500 Tech sector has traded at least 3 standard deviations overbought, with the most recent being roughly six years ago. But to find the last time the sector was as extended as it is today, you'd have to go all the way back to early 2004!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?

The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 trillion!

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 108% before the pandemic to 120% at the end of 2022. The only solace is that it’s fallen from 135% in the second quarter of 2020 – primarily because GDP increased by $4.4 trillion since then. Note that the denominator in the ratio is “nominal” GDP, i.e. it’s not adjusted for inflation. Nominal GDP has been increasing rapidly over the past two years thanks to inflation, rising 12% in 2021 and 7% in 2022. So, one way in which debt-to-GDP can fall is with higher inflation.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The problem with inflation is that the Federal Reserve is likely to react aggressively to bring it down, which is what happened last year. They raised benchmark interest rates from near 0% to above 5% over the past 14 months to clamp down on the highest inflation in 40+ years.
Higher interest costs for the government were a direct consequence of this. Interest payments on the federal debt have risen by $359 billion since the end of the pandemic through the first quarter of 2023.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

But here’s the good news …
One thing that is weird about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that you’re comparing the “stock” of outstanding debt to GDP, which is a “flow”, i.e. the total dollar value of all finished goods and services produced within the country over a quarter.
It’s akin to looking at your mortgage balance as a percent of your monthly or quarterly income. A better measure of financial stress, or lack thereof, is mortgage debt service costs as a percent of income.
We can do the same thing for the government, in which case “income” is tax receipts.
As I noted above, debt-to-GDP fell over the last couple of years because nominal GDP grew. The other side of higher nominal GDP is that tax receipts for the government have also surged. Tax receipts have risen from about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2019 to $3.2 trillion by the end of 2022, an increase of $1 trillion.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

This is the other side of government spending that kept the economy afloat in 2020-2021. Stimulus checks, PPP loans, and expanded unemployment benefits ensured that consumer spending held strong – the downside was higher inflation, as the pandemic shut down a lot of supply even as demand recovered immediately. Nevertheless, one person’s spending is another person’s income, and income is taxed.
The other reason tax receipts surged, especially in 2021, was an increase in capital gains receipts thanks to rising asset prices. This was less so in 2022. However, 4.8 million more people gained jobs in 2022, which helped push tax receipts higher.
The chart below shows government interest costs as a percent of tax receipts, and right now it’s just under 27%. It’s gone almost straight up over the last few quarters but remains slightly below where it was in 2019, which was right along the historical average of 27.3%.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Things don’t look too concerning when you look at the chart above. Ultimately, if the economy is growing, the debt-to-GDP ratio should remain stable (or fall), and tax receipts will continue to rise.
Recession is a real concern because that’s when tax receipts fall amid a rise in unemployment. This is why the ratio between interest costs and tax receipts jumped to over 50% in the early-to-mid 1980’s. Fed Chair Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply to combat high inflation, which resulted in:

• Higher interest costs on the federal debt
  
• A recession, which meant there were fewer tax receipts as spending and employment fell
  

Right now, we don’t believe we’re in a similar situation, and our base case is that the U.S. can avoid a recession this year.

Two More Bullish Pieces of Evidence

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.” -Mark Twain
We been pointing out signs of an early cycle revival in the economy and many bullish signals that indeed suggest the upward trend in stocks since October is alive and well. Well, here’s a blog on two more things that recently triggered and both could be nice signs for both the economy and stocks going forward.
First up, this past earnings season was really good relative to expectations. According to Factset, about 95% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings and a very impressive 78% beat expectations. Yes, earnings are set to come in down 2.2% versus the first quarter last year, but this is much better than the 6.6% drop that was expected this time seven weeks ago. Also, all 11 sectors came in better than expected, with tech (the largest component) really impressing. Lastly, the average company beat earnings by 6.5%, one of the best beats in years, while the average small cap stock beat by an even wider margin.
Thanks to data from our friends at Ned Davis Research, MSCI U.S. trailing 12-month earnings have officially bottomed and are now heading higher. Given nearly 80% issued increased revisions (the left side of the chart below), this makes sense that this would stop going down and start going up. All in all, this is a very strong signal that all the worries about the impending recession have been greatly exaggerated and corporate America likely sees better times coming.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

The other thing that no one is pointing out is the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average has officially turned higher. This is a longer-term trendline and it tends to catch significant trends. Right now, it’s rebounding off a bottom and that is another feather in the cap for bulls.
Some previous times the 200-day turned higher after trending lower for an extended period were July 2016, August 2009, June 2003, and March 1991. For those who remember their stock market history, all of those times indeed took place after significant lows were already formed (in other words, no new lows took place) and continued strong gains occurred. I eyeballed 10 times this turned higher and all 10 were nice times to own stocks.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Our friends at Bespoke looked at this and they found 20 times the 200-day moving average made a new 52-week low and then moved at least 1% off that level within three months, so a clear signal that the lower trend in stocks had ended. Sure enough, going back to 1928, they found the S&P 500 was higher a year later 20 out of 20 times, with a solid average gain of 18.2%. 20 out of 20!
One thing I’ve seen the past few months though is many of the perma-bears have really dug their heels in, likely costing many investors a good deal of gains and future gains. Take another look at the Mark Twain quote at the beginning. We’ve been sharing a lot of evidenced-based investment data this year showing better times could be coming and fortunately, it has been taking place for investors. The vast majority of what we see continues to look quite positive and we expect more solid gains from stocks the rest of this year, with an economy that will avoid a recession and surprise to the upside.

Copper Under the Weather

Earlier Monday in our Morning Lineup post, we highlighted the recent short-term weakness in gold just days after it hit all-time highs. While the declines are disheartening for gold bulls, they can take comfort in the fact that at least gold has been doing better than copper.
Copper prices rallied in the second half of 2022, but that rally stalled out in early January at just over $4.30 per pound, below its highs from last May. Since then, prices have experienced little in the way of positive momentum, falling below both the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. Copper is now down over 15% from its YTD high, and it's testing the bottom of its longer-term uptrend channel.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

On a five-year basis, you can see again how copper prices are currently testing a long-term uptrend after carving out a downtrend that has been shorter-term in length.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

A look at the relative strength of copper is where the relationship between the two commodities really gets interesting. From May 2018 through May 2020, copper prices consistently underperformed gold, and this was a period that included what was a US manufacturing slowdown ahead of what became a full-blown economic shutdown during COVID. As governments and central banks flooded the economy with stimulus, the roles of copper and gold completely reversed, and in the span of under a year erased two years of underperformance. Then, from late February 2021 through June 2022, the two commodities performed roughly in line with each other as there was little movement in the relative strength of the two commodities.
In the first half of 2022 as the FOMC started ratcheting up the rate hikes, copper started to lose ground versus gold, and just in the last few weeks, copper’s relative strength has dropped to its lowest level since the start of 2021! If copper’s performance is a sign of the strength or weakness in the global economy, someone better start heating up the chicken soup.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending May 26th, 2023

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Pan facilitated the swift transfer of goods, though she was disgusted by the treatment of the Atmo who were assigned such descriptors.
They were fearful. Wary. Even those that commonly worked alongside Mama and the others were unable to coax the massive insects away from the kits, but she couldn’t blame them. In their eyes, her people were nothing but bringers of danger for the young they protected with their bodies, the juveniles scarcely peeking from behind the wall of carapace and blade they hid behind.
The urge to rend the flesh of those that brought the kits to such a state of terror roiled under her skin, held in place by a thin veneer of placation supplanted by the knowledge that they would soon be under her care. Joseph’s care.
They would be safe again.
“The carts have been loaded,” Raine supplied when Pan’s gaze lingered on the caravan milling about, their progress further into the settlement impeded by watchful eyes of the pack. Several kept their paws on their weapons, even the most disinterested in appearance hooking a claw over the pommel of their sword or knife.
The only members of the pack that were not vigilantly observing the traders were either those currently occupied elsewhere, or had fled when Joseph had lost his temper, their experience with his rage too minimal to have built up any tolerance or baseline. They would reconvene shortly, but she did not expect them to warm up to the Human as quickly as those who had seen beyond his affable temperament before this.
For Pan, the flash-boil of his wrath had cooled her significantly. Her instinct was to prepare—supervise, rather than slaughter. Protect those of her bond’s pack, for another would deliver his judgment should it be required. Every part of her solemnly confirmed it through means unknown, but she held no urge to question it. It was ironclad within her, the ticking machinations of her soul resonating with its certainty.
Before, the blinding concoction of emotions demanded she escape to safety, yet also to act to ensure the threat was removed. The conflicting drives led to the accident that had left Joseph’s arm scarred in the shape of her claws. Now, it was a distinct order, her purpose defined and tailored.
It was as clear to her as the mercurial pulse she felt lining her form with defensive purpose, her everything stalwart like bricks in an iron bulwark.
Remove whoever trespasses against the sanctity of that which protects her pack. Beyond such is for another.
“Send them on their way,” she ordered, the Wraith bowing and moving to speak with the traders. Though she was not their ‘mistress’, they had taken to listening to her as well as her bond. There was a preference shown to defer to him for majority of matters, but in absence of his commands, her wish was their impetus.
Faye remained at her side, the subservient posture that the deep gold-furred female maintained hiding the lethality they possessed. Perhaps in another circumstance she may have felt fear, but having been present for much of their inclusion into the Grand Hunter’s command, she instead felt comforted by their presence. It was lesser than when Tel was within proximity, the Paw’s form feeling somehow incomplete without her, but it was something nonetheless.
She watched as the disgruntled group was escorted outwards, their spoils of trade in tow. Many of the pack who were well versed with their ranged weaponry covertly held them at the ready should any desire to provoke them, their positions hidden to the best of their abilities. Not all were as stealthy as others, but the noted presence of some suggested more, and that was enough to sow trepidation.
Jax hefted his large ‘war-axe’ on his shoulder to glare at them, his bulging muscles under the fur telling of his restraint as he accompanied them beyond the confines of the walls. None of the caravan elicited a violent response, the leader of the traders tempering their discomfort with a firm command and careful glower.
“Faye, see to it that they do not return with ideals of recompense for our vigilance. If they are content to leave as they are; return.”
The Wraith bowed and slipped into the shadows, the Paw following the path of the female for a moment with her ears before it became little more than ambience. Joseph was often far more aware of their movements, though even he could not track his ‘girls’ for very long before they adapted to whatever was giving them away. It was a small point of pride for Pan to be able to identify their paths at all after so much practice, but she held no time in which to revel in it now.
A large black-furred female approached, Sahari’s involvement so far being little more than ensuring that the distraught members of the pack remained away—lest their twitchy reactions incite more than a distasteful send-off—and introducing the few new servants to the barracks to await orientation. It was hardly the minor task that it seemed to be, but her demeanour suggested that she wished to be at the forefront.
“The Atmo grow restless with the crowd,” she reported, her grip tight on her spear. The crossbow she cared for was still attached to her armour in the den, left behind at the advisement of the Paw. Provoking conflict would only endanger the insects, so those of proper station were to appear as nonthreatening as they could while still displaying their willingness to react to untoward behaviour. The implication of the pack still being armed as such imparted an impression of barely contained structure.
They were unstable. Possibly violent. It would be best not to chance their fear of the treaty.
“Faye is seeing that the trader’s egress will be complete,” she replied stoically, considering if she had performed as her mate would wish of her. “Raine is supervising them while remaining within sight in the meantime. Jax will guard the gate with the other members of security who are not patrolling the walkway.”
“Myself?” Sahari asked, her eyes transfixed on the leaving Lilhuns.
“Come with me. We will attempt to placate the Atmo.”
“What of Violet? Is she not their Grand Huntress?”
Pan took a breath to consider. Her kit was supposedly a figure of leadership for the insectoid people, but she would also see the treatment that her kin were subjected to. The Paw wished not to expose her kit to such. She didn’t want Violet to associate it with the pack she had grown so fond of.
Sighing, she nodded. There existed little that the young Queen should be sheltered from besides harm. Joseph would likely agree, though he would be slower to embrace the decision. Regardless, the Atmo kit was the best chance they had to separate the injured from those they protect long enough to receive treatment.
A curious pack member—their name unknown to her since the increase in acceptance of Joseph’s offer—peered curiously at the fading forms of the caravan. Pan called out to them, their expression distorting to a reluctant scowl. Many of the new members still found much distaste to be had with the defect, but she was hardly of a mind to permit it. There were tasks to be completed.
“Travel to the den of the Grand Hunter to fetch the servant named Scarlet. She is of a deep red fur and dressed in the Grand Hunter’s personal servant attire. Request that Violet be escorted to me. You may knock upon the doors of the den to gain their notice.”
“Why is it you expect me to-”
Pan stepped on their ankle, pressing her meagre weight to buckle the stance of the Lilhun. A paw gripped their upper-wear, tugging them to their knees so that she stood level with their kneeling form. A trick Joseph employed in sparring since the males of the settlement typically exceeded his height. It lacked the same domineering effect that her bond was capable of, but her internalization of all he had taught her made the motion second nature.
“There are injured that require her presence. Do not impede their treatment,” she commanded, her gaze piercing and cool, the slot of her bracer aligned with their throat.
Be it because of the swift execution of the submission, or the steeled tone she took, they nodded, a fear in their eyes that she wished not to impart. Releasing them, she stepped back, Sahari glaring at the Lilhun until they obeyed.
Pan’s posture deflated slightly. Joseph would be disappointed that she resorted to threats of violence to earn the acquiescence of another whom should be kin, but there was little time otherwise. Many of the wounds the Atmo sustained had partially healed, but several were fresh. It was only due to her mate’s warnings that the caravan limited their treatment of the insects to stern commands while within view of the pack, but she blanched thinking of what might have befallen them before.
“Shall we attempt to tend to them?” Sahari asked, her tone soft and considerate. Pan nodded, tearing her gaze away from the now empty gate, Jax’s axe peering from behind the wall to tell of the male watching the departing caravan dutifully.
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She had removed her bracers, her retracted claws leaving no danger to the Atmo as she attempted to apply healroot to the oozing wound. It flinched, retreating with the group as they moved away, their attentions focused solely on her kneeling form. They seemed fearfully expectant, as if an order would come in which they could perform to stave off the threat of harm that they assumed present. Even her affirmations of their intentions did nothing to assure them, a similar ploy to draw compliance likely used in the past.
Her heart mourned for them, Mama having been much of her solace since being saved by Joseph. The insect was a fond part of the pack for most everyone. Pan could only try her best to seem harmless, her gentle cooing and slow approach failing much the same. All she wished was to tend to those that were kin to the one whom offered her comfort when her own emotions waged war with her expectations, yet they thought her of peril, so they maintained their protective shield around the kits.
“Huntress Pan,” Faye and Raine spoke in unison, their presence previously unknown due to the Paw’s lack of awareness. She flicked an ear in their direction, unconcerned in the face of her task as Raine assumed the role of speaking for the pair. “The caravan has left. We suspect they seek to trade with High Hunter Loptr or Grand Hunter Trill.”
“Thank you,” she replied with a faltering tone, her own disappointment with the attempts to tend to the Atmo spilling into her words. The Wraiths seemed apologetic, yet did not speak. Pan offered a small smile to reassure them that they had performed their tasks well.
Clicking originated behind her, Mama having arrived first. Pan wasn’t sure if Violet, Cobalt, and Rose were coming, but she doubted Scarlet would deny a request unless Joseph or Tel said something to supersede her.
The ‘Hatcher’ Atmo immediately approached the group, her gestures urgent and percussive vocalizations crisp. Whatever was said, the cluster of insects failed to part from the young, standing between the Lilhuns and the assumed target. One of them responded, though remained where they were and flinched when Pan stood.
It watched her as she stood next to Mama, the blue Atmo looking to her before seemingly using her to illustrate a point. The other insect shied away, unwilling to part with the kits.
Mama mimed a request for healroot from Sahari, the black-furred female having given up her attempts to apply it and deferring to Pan due to the Paw’s diminutive stature making her appear less of a threat. The Atmo need not know that she was likely the most dangerous to them due to her countless suns sparring with Violet.
A few sharp clicks placated the cluster long enough for Mama to place the flora within her mandibles, applying the results to the still-open wounds. She repeated the process for each of the adults, the insects seeming to merely tolerate the aid while Lilhuns remained, denying treatment of lesser wounds despite Mama’s insistence.
Pan waved the pack to take up guard further away, Sahari shooing the more curious members who still seemed to not wish to adhere to the whims of a defective. The white-furred female ignored them. They would grow used to her presence or suffer at the paws of the pack.
None would endure constant remarks about her, if only because they had long since grown tired of voicing much the same and have since accepted that their reservations meant little to anyone within ear-shot. Some have already learned such lessons, the odd new addition to the pack nursing bruises or scratches from those who grew irritated being approached with the complaints. It was an unorthodox method to force assent, but it was self-perpetuating and—more importantly—required no action from the leadership that might sully relations.
So far, all who had been informed of Pan’s station requiring acknowledgement eventually conceded, preferring to simply deal with it rather than be tasked with mundane work or physically told of how little others wished to hear about it. It had not escalated to the point of injury—she doubted anyone would react that way—but it was not uncommon for new members to be seen trying to work out an ache in their arm or stomach due to unsolicited whining.
An excited chitter halted as Violet drew near, her advance slowing. Pan could tell her kit was worried for the new Atmo, her blades compacting to her torso in concern. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed dangerously for but a fraction when they rested upon the wounded insects, the Wraith quickly reinstating the placid look of unflappability she typically donned, her pace matching behind the young Queen.
Mama clicked her greetings, and likely a brief summary of events, Violet nodding her understanding. With expedience that rarely existed beyond tackling those she enjoyed the company of for an embrace, Pan’s kit scratched onto her tablet, presenting it for the adoptive blood-mother after gesturing to move alongside the building out of view.
[Please get father.]
The Paw opened her mouth to ask why, the inhale filling her with disgust, anxiety, steeled rage, and sorrow. Her expression fell as she shrunk under the weight of the bond, a part of her celebrating the connection while the rest sorted what she was receiving. “He is near.”
Violet wiped her tablet clear and prepared a message for him, the English text as indecipherable as always. Harrow had become rather proficient in utilizing it, but Pan struggled with memorizing the way characters interacted, despite her attempts. It was much simpler to use a script that rarely lifted the pen.
True to her senses, Joseph joined the group, the few stragglers of the pack either leaving due to his scent or trusting the male to handle the situation. For a flicker of a moment, when her bond nodded his thanks to those forming a wide perimeter around the Atmo beyond their perception, she felt a deep ease.
Control. Things would move as willed, merely because it was asked.
Her very core swooned for him, her soul satisfied for the instant the sensation was exposed.
“How’s the Atmo?” he asked tersely, his voice still carrying the hint of the Lilhun growl that his constant practice had drilled into him. The firmness sent a shiver down her tail, the bond assuring her that he was comforted by her mere presence despite the tone he used.
“They allowed Mama to see to their more urgent wounds, but they refuse to part so that we may do a more thorough examination. I fear they see us as but more abusers,” she admitted, her words wilting. He returned a pained scowl.
“Violet?”
Their kit approached, displaying her message in two scripts, the latter added once it was clear Pan would be within range to be a part of the conversation. [Please meet with them. They will trust you.]
“And not you?” he questioned honestly. Pan frowned, unsure what to make of the assertion.
The Queen wiped her tablet clear. [They worry I am being threatened to compliance.]
The Paw felt wounded, her chest pained. A glance to her bond proved that he felt hurt by the assertion, but understood why it was thought of them. He cycled a breath, his aimless gaze bouncing amongst nothing.
“Sure,” Joseph agreed after a moment. “But, you two are coming with me.”
“They will be fearful of me,” she protested quietly, though she didn’t fight the paw that encapsulated her own.
“We’re her parents.”
She couldn’t respond to his statement, her body melting as the words tickled the longing she held for so many years. A small smile was returned instead of further disagreement, her nodding speaking before she could. “She is our kit. Let’s introduce ourselves properly.”
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It went as well as it could have, the Atmo listening to Violet once Joseph had made an appearance. Minus the skeptical look they were giving him, Rose and Cobalt taking up an almost ‘royal guard’ position on either side of the three of them seemed to have placated the initial fear. The insects were still wary of Pan, which led to a scene he wasn’t expecting in the slightest.
Though they were much more placid to his own advances, Pan approaching after a delay to coax one of the children out was met with a raised blade, one of the Atmo moving to attack her to defend them. He wasn’t overly worried—untrained Atmo had more in common with someone trying to use a sledgehammer that was too heavy for them, slow and cumbersome—Violet, however, was apparently immensely displeased at the attempt to harm her new mother.
With a crack that sounded more like a pair of gunshots than the clack of blades it was, the Queen used the rising of her jab to halt the descent, and a lightning straight to knock them off course, both happening so fast that Pan was too surprised to react.
In a startlingly rapid appearance, Rose and Cobalt placed themselves between the white-furred female and the stunned insects, Violet snapping clicks in a display of aggression that Joseph didn’t think was possible. The Queen was absolutely furious, the adult Atmo cowering in the face of her ire more than they did when they were in the cage. He wasn’t sure if it was because of Violet’s status or if the proficiency of the strikes, but they were shrinking enough that, if he didn’t know better, he would say that the purple Atmo was twice their size, rather than half.
“Violet,” he said softly, placing a hand to her spherical shoulder, “They’re scared. They’ve been hurt by people who look a lot like Pan.”
The young Atmo stomped her legs, the force behind each of the six impacts kicking up dirt.
“I know you’re mad they tried to hurt her,” he reassured, lightly pulling her into his chest. He tried to keep a parental warning in his tone, but he was too damn proud of her for it to stick. She had identified a threat to her loved one, then acted to defuse it. Even when the opportunity to attack further was easily there, she opted to berate the other person. Though he couldn’t understand them, the essence of her body language leaned more towards the fuming chastisement he himself tended to take when people took things too far, but not far enough to warrant retaliation.
For some reason, seeing her exercise that level of restraint in the face of an action that—if Pan wasn’t as spry as she was—could have resulted in serious harm filled him with pride on par with when she initially began communicating with everyone using her tablets. Taking a breath, he failed to wear a stern face, resigning to kiss her head and stroking her back. He really was too damn proud to be scolding her.
“We need to keep in mind that they’re scared,” he reminded her gently, his daughter falling quiet under his touch. “Once they’ve calmed down, we give them the chance to apologize. It’s not the mistakes that make a person; it’s what they do about them after.”
A wayward glance to his white-furred girlfriend revealed that she was watching him, her eyes glimmering with love and pride much the same as his own. A secondary look had him blinking, most everyone in the vicinity was watching him, people who were keeping those less familiar with Atmo at bay coming to inspect the loud interaction having gathered. Some were wide-eyed, some seemed content, some smugly smiled while feigning disinterest.
His surprised curiosity even caught sight of Harrow, the orange-furred female practically attached at the hip to Jax, the two having met and deciding to see how things were going. She was still dishevelled from her earlier reaction to the document they were reading, but the mated pair were gazing at him with a firm pride that he wasn’t sure the origin of. Harrow herself seemed entranced, her tail entrapping Jax’s tightly as her wet eyes focused covetously, the black-furred male resting his paw on her back.
A replay of the events in his head seemed innocuous enough, but something itched at him. Wait...
“Well spoken, my male,” a sultry voice declared, the touch of Tel’s lips to his neck sending an unexpected shock down his spine. She lowered her volume to whisper into his ear. “I thought your voice was gaining an... attractive edge. I suppose this is why.”
Within the light haze she tended to put over his thoughts, his mind caught the discrepancy.
He had spoke Lilhun. Everyone understood him.
His secret out, he felt the heat burn his cheeks. At least it wasn’t whining that she heard. It sucked that everyone would know about the fact he no longer needed a translator for most things, but he supposed it was better that way.
He cleared his throat, the attempt to seem nonchalant falling flat as he tried to ignore Tel and switched back to English. “Anyway. Let’s give them a chance to ease into things. If we’re gentle, they’ll be more receptive to us taking a look at the kids.”
Violet nodded, though she still seemed displeased at the events in general. Despite that, her blades relaxed along with her posture as she approached the group again.
With a bow that seemed to take the entire group of Atmo by surprise, her soft clicks resonated outwards. It didn’t take an expert to see that Violet apologizing to them for her outburst was unexpected. Both because she was a Queen, and because the adaptive translators that surely sync’d to Lilhun speech would have heard him tell her that they were the ones expected to apologize.
With an exchange of looks, the adults lowered themselves to the ground and made a point of bowing lower than Violet. Once the group had reciprocated their own quiet clicks of apology, the Atmo who had moved to strike Pan repeated it to the white-furred female. It brought a smile to her face, the Paw accepting it and moving to regroup with Joseph now that the pack was given permission to check on the Atmo.
“Our kit takes after her blood-father,” Pan commented quietly, her tail wrapping around his wrist as she folded her paws over her lap, peacefully watching over Sahari and those of Mi’low’s pack tending to what injuries they could discern.
“It’s quite interesting to see her castigate her pack,” Tel added, draping herself over Pan while her tail mimicked the white-furred female’s. Her chin rested between the fluffy ears, her arms falling over the shoulders of her smaller counterpart to rest at the stomach.
“If she stops at keeping people in line, I’ll be happy,” Joseph sighed out, relieved that Violet hadn’t picked up his penchant for getting slightly more physical than might be required at times. If it was another circumstance, he might have moved to disable the threat entirely. Not versus the Atmo—they didn’t deserve a broken limb for being terrified, and they were hardly a threat at the moment—but a Lilhun would probably be using a sling by the end of the day. It was hard to repeat the attempt if their shoulder was dislocated.
Tel gave him a toothy grin to match the teasing side-eye. “With you as her template?”
He rolled his eyes, choosing to remain silent rather than dig himself a hole he couldn’t climb out of. Pan giggled, raising a paw to rest over the one Tel had dangling over her.
“She has learned the value of protecting her loved ones.”
“And the necessity of the force to perform such,” the grey-furred female countered to her white headrest. Pan nodded slightly, careful not to disturb Tel too much while still agreeing.
“A gentle paw.”
“And a lethal claw.”
He eyed the two curiously, their synchrony striking him odd. He was about to voice his observation, but Sahari called out to them, a short debriefing assuring them that the children were unharmed, but several of the adult Atmo would be better off resting. Besides what seemed to be exhaustion, two of them were having difficulty moving a leg.
A flicker of frigid fire within him licked against his core, his stomach tensing as his cinders of rage reminded him why they were in such a state.
“Tel,”
“Yes, my Sheath?” the female returned, her tone like cold steel.
“You mentioned a stealth recon unit?”
“Target?”
He stared beyond the buildings, the gate out of sight. “I want Wraiths watching the caravan. I want to know what they trade, who they talk to, where they source their goods, and a copy of their ledger. I don’t see them not keeping track of deals. Sounded like this wasn’t the first batch of Atmo they’ve dealt with. Get me a name.”
“I recommend Scarlet and Kaslin,” she opined professionally, all pretense of coy teasing gone.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “Scarlet is designated to keep an eye over the Atmo until everyone gets used to each other and Kaslin is in charge of Toril. Send Faye and Raine.”
“Myself?”
He glanced at the grey-furred female, her having abandoned using Pan as furniture and standing stiff, her tail attached to his arm the only discrepancy in the image of a hardened assassin before him. “I want you to take a few security members and teach them what you’ve taught Harrow.”
Her ear twitched. “You were aware?”
A snort escaped him. “Her gait shifted. Either she bothered you to teach her how to move like a Blade or she’s copying the way your hips swing.”
The slight shift to a sultry look gave away an obvious desire to dig into that comment, but it was defeated by the context surrounding it. “How many?”
“Jax!” he called out, Harrow joining her mate after the two finished applying treatment to a smaller wound on a carapace.
“Yes, Grand Hunter?” the black-furred male replied, his flat tone unsure of if he was being summoned in any official capacity.
“How many of the security are proficient enough in CQC to take on new training?”
Jax blinked, scratching his chin with a claw. “I would say that none are to a level you would wish—our training pales to what you provided for us—but perhaps four might be of sufficient skill.”
Joseph tipped his head towards the massive male. “There you have it. Take four of security and get them moving quietly. I want each of them topped off for marksmanship too. Harrow, you manage that since you’re still the best shot in the pack.”
The orange-furred female jolted, obviously not expecting to be included. “Oh, uh, yeah! Um, yes, Grand Hunter.”
He raised a brow at her floundering, the Head of Technology refusing to look at him. “Odd for you to use the title.”
“I just... it felt like what I should say.”
Joseph grunted, unconvinced, but not bothered enough to remark. “Before that, I wanted to ask you to transcribe the document. We need a physical copy others can read.”
She deflated, her gaze burrowing into the ground. “Can I ask why?”
“This is bigger than just us, Harrow. The pack deserves to know,” he replied quietly, feeling guilty that he needed to ask her to thoroughly dig through something that had made her physically ill. “I’d ask Violet, but she’s going to be busy with the Atmo. Plus, I don’t want her to read that.”
A squeeze on his wrist reminded him that Pan was quietly watching. “She must know as well. She is the leader of her people.”
“I... She’s just a kid,” he muttered, not wanting to admit that Pan was right. The understanding smile from her defused any further argument. The Queen had watched the fate of her people and had taken it far better than he would have hoped to ask for. If she was expected to help raise her species from the ashes, then she would need every bit of information she can get her hands on. It was his job to ensure that she knew what to do with it.
“Okay,” Harrow agreed after a moment, her voice strained. “If we need copies, I’d want someone else to do it, if that’s okay.”
“Thanks, Harrow.” He reached out to tussle the fur on her head, the female retreating back a step to tuck behind Jax. His questioning protest died in his throat as he let his hand drop. He was asking her to do something she would rather not. She was allowed to be mad about it. “So, Wraiths on the caravan for information, security to be trained as stealth snipers, and Harrow will get a usable transcript ready for everyone.”
“It will be done, Grand Hunter,” Jax affirmed, patting Harrow who nodded her agreement before the two returned to assisting the pack with the Atmo. Violet was calming them while Mama assisted in processing any healroot that was needed, Rose and Cobalt standing on either side of the Queen stoically.
Tel pecked him on the cheek. “I will order the Wraiths to depart at once. They will require time to prepare.”
He nodded, offering her a weak smile that was marred by his guilt as she left, a sharp whistle calling the girls. Pan leaned into his arm, her tail shifting to wrap around his waist. “We will be well,” she assured softly, a paw grabbing his hand. He gave it a squeeze. “What was the message?”
Joseph swallowed. “We’ll go over it as a group when Harrow is done,” his gaze slipped upwards, the dwindling hours in the day passing by. “It’s a lot to take in.”
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“Leader,” Nav called over the monitors, their tone bored. Willin didn’t blame the Lilhun, they had been mostly staring at charts and readouts for as long as they had been space-borne. It got tiring keeping track of so much information.
“Go ahead.”
“Mild disturbance to systems, suspected EW field of the warp-spike. If we were not aware prior, I would have assumed it mere calibration error.”
Willin furrowed his brow, his tail lashing in his seat. “This far out?”
“Affirmative,” Nav replied, tapping the screen with the back of their paw in frustration before deflating into their chair. “I would suggest that we await reinforcement EW ships to disable it, but I believe we should be able to progress purely based on how strong the signal is.”
“No. Assuming the distress call was accurate, we would be dead in the sky just the same. Tech?”
“Nothing worth caring about,” she dismissed with a wave of her paw over her shoulder. He was pretty sure she was playing a game on her console, but the female had an implant to track the system status without needing to actually do anything, so her word was as good as manually checking.
“Nothing we care about now, or nothing that we need to care about because you’re going to activate our defences?” he returned with a hint of chastisement.
The screen flickered to several menus of dense text, new lines added before it changed back to the entertainment. “Yes.”
Willin nodded, satisfied that the slight push would probably have them immune to most conventional electronic interruptions. “Okay. Nav, make sure we stay on course. Tech is good, but she is hardly the Hunt Mother.”
“Affirmative, Leader.”
“Comms, How’s your systems?”
“Operational, Leader.”
“So it’s likely that the habitation ship continued under the assumption of a mild disruption. Let me know if it suddenly fails.”
Comms nodded silently, having little else to do for now besides keep an eye out for communications. Willin was pretty sure that Tech could set up something for him to do, but professional obligations mandated him bored stiff. Not everyone could end up the product of successful military trials, nor end up a survivor of a terrorist attack that availed themselves to it.
The dark green-furred male fixed his sleeve as he poured over reports, his job outside of combat and diplomacy to be reviewing how others performed such. As much of a disaster the Union was, it had been passed down the ranks that there existed members of the collective who were more amiable individually.
How did they learn about that? Willin didn’t know. It was above his rank, and thus, not his problem.
Either way, since they had fought off the attacks, they had been expanding Lilhun space at a hurried pace in a particular direction. It was described as ‘strategic acquisition of viable habitats’, or—more commonly amongst the lesser of the military—see it; take it.
They were scanning anything that so much as supported fire, as asinine as it was. They had the ability to check if an atmosphere could support Lilhun occupation, but the orders that came seemed to be searching for something specific. It wasn’t even an issue until recently, their progress through the most recent vectors being something of importance to the top. They had found quite a few possible places to set up, and several habitation ships were redirected to occupy them, but each was designed to be little more than a forward military base, proper colonization being an afterthought.
With a few more places to fall back to—or continue their species in relative peace should the worst come to pass for the home system—Willin would have expected easement in the search. It seemed that it was best for him to simply be the Leader of a utility craft, because the top continued their investigations.
Regardless of his opinions, they were well on the way to the coordinates transmitted by the stranded crew of the habitation ship, victims of the warp-spike that his crew were being introduced to. The fabricators were currently spitting out water-proof equipment for his crew, but they would be pretty limited in weaponry to distribute until they supplied more material. The machine was slow, clunky, and inefficient, but it was a foray into new technology purloined from the Union, so there were hiccups expected with iterations.
He wouldn’t worry about arming the entire surviving force—not yet. The main issue with Hunter packs was that allegiances shifted. No longer were they a pack of the military, moving under commands and reigned in by consequences. They were feral; free from the united force of their peers.
Willin didn’t blame them in the slightest. They were stranded and the communications they managed had apparently cost them every AEC they had available. He was just wary of how many of them would welcome the reintegration into a larger structure after so long fighting tooth and claw for the barest necessity, led by those who they deemed worthy. Why sacrifice their positions within their packs to resume a paltry station at the bottom? Why abandon the dens they made by paw, the relationships they forged through blood?
Majority would, he figured—a comparative few wished to remain servants—but until a larger fleet arrived to promise warm bed and warmer food, there was a fair chance that the Grand Hunters would resist and influence their pack to remain under their pads.
He couldn’t say if the top would wish the occupation of the planet to continue, but if they did, then he supposed that they could do worse than a few competent leaders vying for territory. Primitive, perhaps, but that should be resolved with a few shipments and another habitation ship supplying resources and labour.
He closed his documents and sighed, a languid claw scratching at his ear.
The ‘fun’ part would be doing his duty of offering the opportunity to those who claimed command on the new planet. It was an obligation he wasn’t looking forward to. On top of likely being told where to shove it, he would need to submit reports of the various packs to the higher-ups so that they knew who to work with first. Belligerent or defiant Lilhuns would be left to fend for themselves until their pack collapsed under them to chase a better life with settlements or cities built with military blessing. It was hardly a better living for most to scavenge for their comforts when armour, dens, security, and recreation were but a few suns away.
“Tech?” he called, not bothering to look if she had tipped an ear—her audio interface had perfect pass-through. Despite the damage that the volume of her entertainment would do to organic eardrums, the synthetic ones she had could likely function even under the deepest oceans—though she herself would have passed due to the pressure. “Can you give me something to do for a while?”
With a minimal pause, a puzzle game flickered on his screen. He exhaled slowly as he tried not to be too disappointed. Tech knew he wanted to turn his brain off, she just disagreed, and was probably right. Too much mind-numbing activity would lessen his reaction in the event of an emergency.
He dragged a pad over the numbers, adding them together and allowing new ones to populate the spaces the old ones occupied.
At least it was something.
Next

PrimeStyleLtd's DeFi crypto offering
INTRODUCTION
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Benefits
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Conclusion
Finally, adding liquidity to bTR3B also supports the growth and development of the PancakeSwap ecosystem. As the platform grows and attracts more users, the demand for Cake will also increase, which in turn will increase the value of bTR3B. This Creates a virtuous cycle, where the more liquidity is added on to the platform, the more valuable the platform becomes, and the more valuable the platform becomes, the more liquidity will be added as all assets will increase in value. Adding liquidity to the reserve pool on the platform offers numerous benefits to users, including increased trading efficiency, stability, reduced fees, and support for the growth of the ecosystem. By adding liquidity, users can help to improve the overall user experience, reduce the risks associated with trading, and support the long-term success of bTR3B.
Want to learn more? Go to www.primestyleltd.com or join the forum here https://discord.gg/8VwxnghT2p

I was asked, in response to my admitted years long tinfoil hat conspiracy theory (click here for more), why the shorts can't keep pushing Litecoin down forever. To make this very long reply easier to find and link to, I've decided to make it into a post.

Why can't they push down until they get their desired outcome?

First you have to understand the desired outcome I'm suggesting, which is not isolated to ltc price action. They aren't out to hurt us, they could care less about us. They want a hedge trade, which is to say, they want an overall trade position in crypto that protects them no matter what direction the market is moving so when things turn south, they aren't losing money and they can look like geniuses. These are wall street traders who I believe were reluctant to enter the market even while kind of wanting to, Novogratz for years told us 'the herd is coming', he was talking about people like him, and I believe he was talking to those folks and knew their concerns and was communicating his theories and strategies to them to woo them in. The short LTC, long ethtrader (I suspect the long side of this trade may be a little more flexible) bet was supposed to provide the protection they desired under the theory that a chain like LTC would always underperform to the upside (go up less in rallies) and always underperform to the downside (go down more in marketwide declines). Despite some whining here exactly to that effect, it's not true by the numbers, especially over longer timeframes.
I believe they were getting the desired outcome in the 2021 bull run. They 1) believed ltc would underperform because they believed it was a ghost town, like many chains actually are and 2) helped it underperform by borrowing offbook (from large hodlers like miners, probably shady exchanges and others I'm too out of the loop to even know how to categorize) and selling onbook (making it appear like retail sell pressure, loss of confidence, bad pa for algos and TA traders and getting trend chasers to help push down). This gave them a false sense of security that novogratz was right, that eventually they'd get the downside protection too even after it didn't materialize immediately, as litecoin began outperforming their long trades almost immediately as the bear market started.
I believe they stopped getting the desired outcome in 2022. Here's a little look I took last year at the relative performance of the trade. I also believe they will never be able to get the downside outperformance they desire because they've fundamentally misunderstood both crypto at large and litecoin especially. Where we do lack the kind of investor excitement (centralized chains will always be better at generating hype) they look for and consider to be activity and proof of life, litecoin's user base has always been larger than average and has been outperforming even on top of that to the point that it's really just competing with bitcoin in real world use and if you try to filter and assume that some smart contract use is real and not astroturf you can probably include ether in the mix. Ðoge is probably the next closest competitor for real world use, but not that close, especially if you look at averages over time, and behind that, I don't see much of anything.

Novogratz's view of crypto, no use case beyond investment/specuation.

This wall street cadre don't believe userbases exist or matter, especially for payment coins. Only investors matter to them. Novogratz himself has proclaimed the only current use for bitcoin is digital gold, everything else is speculative, people trying to bet on future use someday materializing. He's the early adopter of this crew, their oracle. He believed that userbases, people making payments, using payment processors, atms, direct payments etc wouldn't matter. And they don't matter much to the upside. But if you push down hard enough against a real userbase, they buy more and more coins. Users aren't people in litecoinmarkets or cryptotwitter, i mean, yeah, sure, there's overlap, but the archetype is someone who is really looking at it as a spending mechanism first, and thus when the price goes down, they're legit happy, their cost to transact goes down (the same number of litoshi in tx fees is few subpennies), they're ability to grab extra coins for next week, next month etc goes up, their spending power increases. They more you push down price, the more useful litecoin is.

My view of crypto, real users boost us in bear markets, make us float

Think of it like a beach ball. It's easy to kick around on the beach. Especially if you're one of those muscle bound beach weightlighting freaks (here muscle = all the funds you control, and guys like novogratz aren't handling their own funds, they have hundreds of millions or billions in other people's money to use). Now let's say you keep kicking it down to lower and lower levels on the beach, and get people excited about playing with other toys, no one wants the beat up beach ball. The people on the beach are investors. Eventually you run out of lower ground on the beach and get to the ocean, to make it go lower, you need to get it below the ocean's surface and suddenly you run into a different kind of participant that Novogratz and company can't see and don't believe exist, users, in this case, the air inside the beach ball.
They actually are strong enough to push the beach ball below the ocean's surface, but unlike kicking it down the beach, they can't just push it down and walk away. It pops back up all by itself. They have to decide whether they want to literally sit on it to keep it down or whether they want to do other things with their muscles. Everyone else is back on the beach playing and they're getting distracted with this beach ball that wasn't supposed to require much effort, that hadn't required effort when they were kicking it down the beach.
Why can't they pop it? Well because it's made out of carbon nanotubes (truly decentralized DNA is sturdy stuff) instead of plastic. Why can't they let their air out? Users are loyal because Litecoin is useful even when it's appreciating in price and users don't get quite as much free money out of it. It weirdly gets more useful the lower it goes, but even on appreciation the use doesn't go away, there just isn't as much of a bonus. Those users that Novogratz can't see and doesn't believe are bouyancy, which doesn't do much higher on the beach, but is very useful once we get to sea level.

Hype based chains sink in bear markets

Meanwhile imagine Novogratz's favorite longs, the ethkillers, are basically pool balls (get it? beach balls and pool balls? My analogies don't normally work this well, this is exciting for me!). Why are they playing pool by the beach? Well for starters, they're morons. But also they do enjoy when certain beach participants lean over the pool table to take a shot (i.e. they're taking advantage of and oogling beach bunnies/dumb retail investors), so there is some method to their madness. But when those pools balls hit the water (when the whole market declines) pool balls don't float. They really are userless chains. They fake some usage sometimes in a variety of ways, but in the end, it's all smoke and mirrors, there's nothing sustainable or real there.
Cycle after cycle these investor favorites, hype heavy chains get huge and disappear, either superfast like loona/bitconect or slowly fading like most others, and litecoin just keeps outperforming in bear markets and growing infrastructure, use and adoption. And that gives it a natural buoyancy that undermines the purpose of the Novogratz inspired trade. I've seen a lot of competitors fade, some who directly competed with litecoin like btrash, which had billionaires and mulitnational corporations trying to make it outperform, some were less obvious competitors, outside of payments but still tried to steal our high mcap position. With the exception of ripple and binance, they never outlast us, and I suspect those have numbered days as well.

Conclusion

So back to your question, why can't they just push down forever? Well they probably can push for longer than they're going to, but why would they? They don't hate us, they're just trying to make money. And this doesn't make them money the way Mike suggested it should. If it doesn't underperform naturally, if the underperformance to the upside wasn't natural, it was only driven by the weight of their short pressure and trend following, and they'll have to pay for it when they take the boot of chicken's neck and trend following forces them to pay higher and higher prices to close all the sell pressure out... then it wasn't a brilliant trade that would protect them from downside risk, the trade itself was a ponzi scheme, short term gain for long term pain.

DYOR, trust no one, not even me.

Now should you believe me that this trade is happening and that it's happening the way I say? I can understand skepticism here, I even encourage it. I don't have inside information. I know what I see in the charts, I know what I've seen in dozens of public Novogratz interviews over the years and in Novogratz adjacent discussions. I've connected the dots in my own mind and I am convinced. You should not risk your money on my convictions. You should probably assume everyone in crypto is a liar and anyone who isn't is too incompetent to trust. Even if I'm right about the trade, I can't possibly know all the tools that big money like Novogratz and his buddies have access to. Maybe they are so powerful and wiley they can get out of their short positions before the market realizes it, maybe they can hide their buy pressure and not experience a squeeze. You and I couldn't do that. Maybe they can. Maybe there is no explosive upside for us down the road.
Not how I see it, but you should be aware there are lots of ways I can be wrong and develop your own conviction, and then size your investment according to your conviction. One thing I do think everyone should do, test this theory in your own mind of course, but I believe everyone should make investments they can stick with. Riskier investments should be smaller, sounder ones should be larger, all should tilt towards being longer term. Trading in and out constantly seems to only make money for a super tiny minority, mostly the exchanges nickling and diming traders on fees, even some traders who claim to win this way usually only do so briefly, and they aren't so loud about their losses as they are their wins. The more stable and successful investors in this space, IMO, consider their risk and are willing to wait for the upside to come to them instead of chasing it around and trading over and over. They only trade out when they're in profit.

TL;DR

I recommend chatgpt, though you're going to lose a lot of beautiful subtlety and clever wordplay if you do that. There's some good stuff up there if you can ever find time to read it. In short I'll say they won't push down forever because the complex trade isn't getting them what they were promised, indeed, the most important part of what they were promised (downside protection) is what's working the least b/c users give us buoyancy especially in bear markets, they push up more the harder shorts push down.

I was asked, in response to my admitted years long tinfoil hat conspiracy theory (click here for more), why the shorts can't keep pushing Litecoin down forever. To make this very long reply easier to find and link to, I've decided to make it into a post.

Why can't they push down until they get their desired outcome?

First you have to understand the desired outcome I'm suggesting, which is not isolated to ltc price action. They aren't out to hurt us, they could care less about us. They want a hedge trade, which is to say, they want an overall trade position in crypto that protects them no matter what direction the market is moving so when things turn south, they aren't losing money and they can look like geniuses. These are wall street traders who I believe were reluctant to enter the market even while kind of wanting to, Novogratz for years told us 'the herd is coming', he was talking about people like him, and I believe he was talking to those folks and knew their concerns and was communicating his theories and strategies to them to woo them in. The short LTC, long ethtrader (I suspect the long side of this trade may be a little more flexible) bet was supposed to provide the protection they desired under the theory that a chain like LTC would always underperform to the upside (go up less in rallies) and always underperform to the downside (go down more in marketwide declines). Despite some whining here exactly to that effect, it's not true by the numbers, especially over longer timeframes.
I believe they were getting the desired outcome in the 2021 bull run. They 1) believed ltc would underperform because they believed it was a ghost town, like many chains actually are and 2) helped it underperform by borrowing offbook (from large hodlers like miners, probably shady exchanges and others I'm too out of the loop to even know how to categorize) and selling onbook (making it appear like retail sell pressure, loss of confidence, bad pa for algos and TA traders and getting trend chasers to help push down). This gave them a false sense of security that novogratz was right, that eventually they'd get the downside protection too even after it didn't materialize immediately, as litecoin began outperforming their long trades almost immediately as the bear market started.
I believe they stopped getting the desired outcome in 2022. Here's a little look I took last year at the relative performance of the trade. I also believe they will never be able to get the downside outperformance they desire because they've fundamentally misunderstood both crypto at large and litecoin especially. Where we do lack the kind of investor excitement (centralized chains will always be better at generating hype) they look for and consider to be activity and proof of life, litecoin's user base has always been larger than average and has been outperforming even on top of that to the point that it's really just competing with bitcoin in real world use and if you try to filter and assume that some smart contract use is real and not astroturf you can probably include ether in the mix. Ðoge is probably the next closest competitor for real world use, but not that close, especially if you look at averages over time, and behind that, I don't see much of anything.

Novogratz's view of crypto, no use case beyond investment/specuation.

This wall street cadre don't believe userbases exist or matter, especially for payment coins. Only investors matter to them. Novogratz himself has proclaimed the only current use for bitcoin is digital gold, everything else is speculative, people trying to bet on future use someday materializing. He's the early adopter of this crew, their oracle. He believed that userbases, people making payments, using payment processors, atms, direct payments etc wouldn't matter. And they don't matter much to the upside. But if you push down hard enough against a real userbase, they buy more and more coins. Users aren't people in litecoinmarkets or cryptotwitter, i mean, yeah, sure, there's overlap, but the archetype is someone who is really looking at it as a spending mechanism first, and thus when the price goes down, they're legit happy, their cost to transact goes down (the same number of litoshi in tx fees is few subpennies), they're ability to grab extra coins for next week, next month etc goes up, their spending power increases. They more you push down price, the more useful litecoin is.

My view of crypto, real users boost us in bear markets, make us float

Think of it like a beach ball. It's easy to kick around on the beach. Especially if you're one of those muscle bound beach weightlighting freaks (here muscle = all the funds you control, and guys like novogratz aren't handling their own funds, they have hundreds of millions or billions in other people's money to use). Now let's say you keep kicking it down to lower and lower levels on the beach, and get people excited about playing with other toys, no one wants the beat up beach ball. The people on the beach are investors. Eventually you run out of lower ground on the beach and get to the ocean, to make it go lower, you need to get it below the ocean's surface and suddenly you run into a different kind of participant that Novogratz and company can't see and don't believe exist, users, in this case, the air inside the beach ball.
They actually are strong enough to push the beach ball below the ocean's surface, but unlike kicking it down the beach, they can't just push it down and walk away. It pops back up all by itself. They have to decide whether they want to literally sit on it to keep it down or whether they want to do other things with their muscles. Everyone else is back on the beach playing and they're getting distracted with this beach ball that wasn't supposed to require much effort, that hadn't required effort when they were kicking it down the beach.
Why can't they pop it? Well because it's made out of carbon nanotubes (truly decentralized DNA is sturdy stuff) instead of plastic. Why can't they let their air out? Users are loyal because Litecoin is useful even when it's appreciating in price and users don't get quite as much free money out of it. It weirdly gets more useful the lower it goes, but even on appreciation the use doesn't go away, there just isn't as much of a bonus. Those users that Novogratz can't see and doesn't believe are bouyancy, which doesn't do much higher on the beach, but is very useful once we get to sea level.

Hype based chains sink in bear markets

Meanwhile imagine Novogratz's favorite longs, the ethkillers, are basically pool balls (get it? beach balls and pool balls? My analogies don't normally work this well, this is exciting for me!). Why are they playing pool by the beach? Well for starters, they're morons. But also they do enjoy when certain beach participants lean over the pool table to take a shot (i.e. they're taking advantage of and oogling beach bunnies/dumb retail investors), so there is some method to their madness. But when those pools balls hit the water (when the whole market declines) pool balls don't float. They really are userless chains. They fake some usage sometimes in a variety of ways, but in the end, it's all smoke and mirrors, there's nothing sustainable or real there.
Cycle after cycle these investor favorites, hype heavy chains get huge and disappear, either superfast like loona/bitconect or slowly fading like most others, and litecoin just keeps outperforming in bear markets and growing infrastructure, use and adoption. And that gives it a natural buoyancy that undermines the purpose of the Novogratz inspired trade. I've seen a lot of competitors fade, some who directly competed with litecoin like btrash, which had billionaires and mulitnational corporations trying to make it outperform, some were less obvious competitors, outside of payments but still tried to steal our high mcap position. With the exception of ripple and binance, they never outlast us, and I suspect those have numbered days as well.

Conclusion

So back to your question, why can't they just push down forever? Well they probably can push for longer than they're going to, but why would they? They don't hate us, they're just trying to make money. And this doesn't make them money the way Mike suggested it should. If it doesn't underperform naturally, if the underperformance to the upside wasn't natural, it was only driven by the weight of their short pressure and trend following, and they'll have to pay for it when they take the boot of chicken's neck and trend following forces them to pay higher and higher prices to close all the sell pressure out... then it wasn't a brilliant trade that would protect them from downside risk, the trade itself was a ponzi scheme, short term gain for long term pain.

DYOR, trust no one, not even me.

Now should you believe me that this trade is happening and that it's happening the way I say? I can understand skepticism here, I even encourage it. I don't have inside information. I know what I see in the charts, I know what I've seen in dozens of public Novogratz interviews over the years and in Novogratz adjacent discussions. I've connected the dots in my own mind and I am convinced. You should not risk your money on my convictions. You should probably assume everyone in crypto is a liar and anyone who isn't is too incompetent to trust. Even if I'm right about the trade, I can't possibly know all the tools that big money like Novogratz and his buddies have access to. Maybe they are so powerful and wiley they can get out of their short positions before the market realizes it, maybe they can hide their buy pressure and not experience a squeeze. You and I couldn't do that. Maybe they can. Maybe there is no explosive upside for us down the road.
Not how I see it, but you should be aware there are lots of ways I can be wrong and develop your own conviction, and then size your investment according to your conviction. One thing I do think everyone should do, test this theory in your own mind of course, but I believe everyone should make investments they can stick with. Riskier investments should be smaller, sounder ones should be larger, all should tilt towards being longer term. Trading in and out constantly seems to only make money for a super tiny minority, mostly the exchanges nickling and diming traders on fees, even some traders who claim to win this way usually only do so briefly, and they aren't so loud about their losses as they are their wins. The more stable and successful investors in this space, IMO, consider their risk and are willing to wait for the upside to come to them instead of chasing it around and trading over and over. They only trade out when they're in profit.

TL;DR

I recommend chatgpt, though you're going to lose a lot of beautiful subtlety and clever wordplay if you do that. There's some good stuff up there if you can ever find time to read it. In short I'll say they won't push down forever because the complex trade isn't getting them what they were promised, indeed, the most important part of what they were promised (downside protection) is what's working the least b/c users give us buoyancy especially in bear markets, they push up more the harder shorts push down.

Good morning traders and investors of the StockMarketChat sub! Welcome to the new trading day and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market stock movers & news on this Wednesday, May the 24th, 2023-

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Stock futures slip as investors eye debt ceiling clash in Washington: Live updates

U.S. stock futures fell slightly Wednesday as investors kept an eye on debt ceiling negotiations.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 151 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures declined by 0.4%, and Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.3%.
Negotiators for both sides were expected to meet again Wednesday morning, according to Reuters.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen previously warned lawmakers that a potential default in early June is “highly likely.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a “productive” discussion with President Joe Biden on Monday. Nonetheless, there were few indicators of progress made in negotiations on Tuesday.
Even if Washington’s officials were to raise the debt ceiling, however, markets could be roiled, according to Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. That’s because the Treasury will need to issue a lot of debt to replenish its general account, he said.
“The impact of that is likely to remove liquidity from the broader capital markets,” Merz said. “Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, S&P 500 in general stock performance,” he continued.
“Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, the S&P 500 in general stock performance,” Merz said.
On the economic front, investors will be watching for the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting earlier in May. They will be released Wednesday afternoon.
Investors will also be looking toward more earnings announcements. Clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters and semiconductor giant Nvidia will be posting their results Wednesday after the bell.
The three major averages fell during Tuesday. The S&P 500 lost 1.12%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.26% and 0.69%, respectively.

STOCK FUTURES CURRENTLY:

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YESTERDAY'S MARKET MAP:

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YESTERDAY'S S&P SECTORS:

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TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

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THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S:

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THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($NVDA $PANW $ZIM $SNOW $LOW $DKS $COST $ZM $BJ $GLBE $ELF $NNOX $AZO $ADI $KSS $INTU $SPLK $NIU $BBY $DLTR $MDT $ECC $APPS $XPEV $ADSK $ULTA $VFC $PATH $MRVL $IHS $WSM $BMO $ICCM $WOOF $PETS $CSWC $A $ANF $TD $DAVA $NAT $BNS $VIPS $WDAY $RVYL $TOL $OCFT $CLGN $LPG $BURL)

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THIS MORNING'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($KSS $ADI $XPEV $WOOF $ANF $BMO $BNS $LPG $EXPR $FUTU $DY $CLGN $SCVL $PLAB $KMDA $PLCE $ITRN $CRMT $BZ $ZH $BLRX $CRLBF $EXAI $PGRU $SGHC $LILM)

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EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

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THIS AFTERNOON'S AFTER-HOURS EARNINGS CALENDAR:

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EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

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YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

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YESTERDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

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TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

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THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS ON STOCKTWITS:

• XPEV
• CTX.X
• SPY
• OCEA
• DIA
• TGT
• QQQ
• PANW
• BMO
• GCT

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Moderna — The biotech company added 2.4% amid renewed Covid-19 concern in China after an uptick in infections.

STOCK SYMBOL: MRNA

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V.F. Corporation — Shares in the clothing and shoemaker added 3.3% on the back of better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company earned an adjusted 17 cents per share, topping a Refinitiv forecast of 14 cents per share. Revenue of $2.74 billion was also slightly above expectations.

STOCK SYMBOL: VFC

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

XPeng — The electric vehicle maker slipped 4.7% after an earnings miss. XPeng also issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the second quarter. Still, CEO He Xiaopeng said he is “confident in taking our Company into a virtuous cycle driving product sales growth, team morale, customer satisfaction and brand reputation over the next few quarters.”

STOCK SYMBOL: XPEV

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palantir Technologies — Shares were 2.2% lower in premarket trading, on pace for their first decline in three sessions. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest recently bought more than $4 million worth of Palantir shares, the firm’s website showed.

STOCK SYMBOL: PLTR

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Analog Devices — Analog Devices dropped 5.3% in premarket trading on the back of weaker-than-expected third-quarter guidance for the fiscal third quarter. Analog Devices expects adjusted earnings of about $2.52 per share in the third quarter, compared to forecasts for $2.65 per share, according to consensus estimates on FactSet. It expects revenue of around $3.10 billion, less than the $3.16 billion estimate. In a statement, CEO Vincent Roche said, “Looking to the second half, we expect revenue to moderate given the continued economic uncertainty and normalizing supply chains.”

STOCK SYMBOL: ADI

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

First Horizon — The regional bank added 2.3% in premarket trading following an upgrade to buy from hold by Jefferies. The firm said the bank has top-tier capital strength and is at a discount to peers.

STOCK SYMBOL: FHN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palo Alto Networks — Shares of the cybersecurity rose nearly 5% in premarket trading after Palo Alto Networks reported a fiscal third quarter that topped analyst estimates. The company reported $1.10 in adjusted earnings per share on $1.72 billion of revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had penciled in 93 cents of earnings per share on $1.71 billion of revenue. Palo Alto’s fourth-quarter earnings guidance was also higher than expected.

STOCK SYMBOL: PANW

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Kohl’s — The retailer popped more than 13% after reporting better-than-expected results and a surprise profit for the recent quarter. Kohl’s also reiterated previous guidance.

STOCK SYMBOL: KSS

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Intuit – The tax and accounting technology maker suffered a 5% drop after the company missed revenue expectations, according to Refinitiv, for its fiscal third quarter. That result was thanks in part to a decline in tax returns, Intuit reported.

STOCK SYMBOL: INTU

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

FULL DISCLOSURE:

bigbear0083 has no positions in any stocks mentioned. Reddit, moderators, and the author do not advise making investment decisions based on discussion in these posts. Analysis is not subject to validation and users take action at their own risk. bigbear0083 is an admin at the financial forums StonkForums.com where this content was originally posted.

DISCUSS!

What's on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at StockMarketChat?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Wednesday, May 24th, 2023! :)

Good morning traders and investors of the WallStreetStockMarket sub! Welcome to the new trading day and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market stock movers & news on this Wednesday, May the 24th, 2023-

(CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL SOURCE!)

Stock futures slip as investors eye debt ceiling clash in Washington: Live updates

U.S. stock futures fell slightly Wednesday as investors kept an eye on debt ceiling negotiations.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 151 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures declined by 0.4%, and Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.3%.
Negotiators for both sides were expected to meet again Wednesday morning, according to Reuters.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen previously warned lawmakers that a potential default in early June is “highly likely.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a “productive” discussion with President Joe Biden on Monday. Nonetheless, there were few indicators of progress made in negotiations on Tuesday.
Even if Washington’s officials were to raise the debt ceiling, however, markets could be roiled, according to Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. That’s because the Treasury will need to issue a lot of debt to replenish its general account, he said.
“The impact of that is likely to remove liquidity from the broader capital markets,” Merz said. “Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, S&P 500 in general stock performance,” he continued.
“Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, the S&P 500 in general stock performance,” Merz said.
On the economic front, investors will be watching for the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting earlier in May. They will be released Wednesday afternoon.
Investors will also be looking toward more earnings announcements. Clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters and semiconductor giant Nvidia will be posting their results Wednesday after the bell.
The three major averages fell during Tuesday. The S&P 500 lost 1.12%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.26% and 0.69%, respectively.

STOCK FUTURES CURRENTLY:

(CLICK HERE FOR STOCK FUTURES CHARTS!)

YESTERDAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S MARKET MAP!)

TODAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S MARKET MAP!)

YESTERDAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S!)

THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($NVDA $PANW $ZIM $SNOW $LOW $DKS $COST $ZM $BJ $GLBE $ELF $NNOX $AZO $ADI $KSS $INTU $SPLK $NIU $BBY $DLTR $MDT $ECC $APPS $XPEV $ADSK $ULTA $VFC $PATH $MRVL $IHS $WSM $BMO $ICCM $WOOF $PETS $CSWC $A $ANF $TD $DAVA $NAT $BNS $VIPS $WDAY $RVYL $TOL $OCFT $CLGN $LPG $BURL)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

THIS MORNING'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($KSS $ADI $XPEV $WOOF $ANF $BMO $BNS $LPG $EXPR $FUTU $DY $CLGN $SCVL $PLAB $KMDA $PLCE $ITRN $CRMT $BZ $ZH $BLRX $CRLBF $EXAI $PGRU $SGHC $LILM)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

THIS AFTERNOON'S AFTER-HOURS EARNINGS CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #2!)

YESTERDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS!)

TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #2!)

THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS ON STOCKTWITS:

• XPEV
• CTX.X
• SPY
• OCEA
• DIA
• TGT
• QQQ
• PANW
• BMO
• GCT

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Moderna — The biotech company added 2.4% amid renewed Covid-19 concern in China after an uptick in infections.

STOCK SYMBOL: MRNA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

V.F. Corporation — Shares in the clothing and shoemaker added 3.3% on the back of better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company earned an adjusted 17 cents per share, topping a Refinitiv forecast of 14 cents per share. Revenue of $2.74 billion was also slightly above expectations.

STOCK SYMBOL: VFC

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

XPeng — The electric vehicle maker slipped 4.7% after an earnings miss. XPeng also issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the second quarter. Still, CEO He Xiaopeng said he is “confident in taking our Company into a virtuous cycle driving product sales growth, team morale, customer satisfaction and brand reputation over the next few quarters.”

STOCK SYMBOL: XPEV

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palantir Technologies — Shares were 2.2% lower in premarket trading, on pace for their first decline in three sessions. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest recently bought more than $4 million worth of Palantir shares, the firm’s website showed.

STOCK SYMBOL: PLTR

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Analog Devices — Analog Devices dropped 5.3% in premarket trading on the back of weaker-than-expected third-quarter guidance for the fiscal third quarter. Analog Devices expects adjusted earnings of about $2.52 per share in the third quarter, compared to forecasts for $2.65 per share, according to consensus estimates on FactSet. It expects revenue of around $3.10 billion, less than the $3.16 billion estimate. In a statement, CEO Vincent Roche said, “Looking to the second half, we expect revenue to moderate given the continued economic uncertainty and normalizing supply chains.”

STOCK SYMBOL: ADI

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

First Horizon — The regional bank added 2.3% in premarket trading following an upgrade to buy from hold by Jefferies. The firm said the bank has top-tier capital strength and is at a discount to peers.

STOCK SYMBOL: FHN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palo Alto Networks — Shares of the cybersecurity rose nearly 5% in premarket trading after Palo Alto Networks reported a fiscal third quarter that topped analyst estimates. The company reported $1.10 in adjusted earnings per share on $1.72 billion of revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had penciled in 93 cents of earnings per share on $1.71 billion of revenue. Palo Alto’s fourth-quarter earnings guidance was also higher than expected.

STOCK SYMBOL: PANW

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Kohl’s — The retailer popped more than 13% after reporting better-than-expected results and a surprise profit for the recent quarter. Kohl’s also reiterated previous guidance.

STOCK SYMBOL: KSS

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Intuit – The tax and accounting technology maker suffered a 5% drop after the company missed revenue expectations, according to Refinitiv, for its fiscal third quarter. That result was thanks in part to a decline in tax returns, Intuit reported.

STOCK SYMBOL: INTU

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

FULL DISCLOSURE:

bigbear0083 has no positions in any stocks mentioned. Reddit, moderators, and the author do not advise making investment decisions based on discussion in these posts. Analysis is not subject to validation and users take action at their own risk. bigbear0083 is an admin at the financial forums StonkForums.com where this content was originally posted.

DISCUSS!

What's on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at WallStreetStockMarket?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Wednesday, May 24th, 2023! :)

Good morning traders and investors of the StockMarketForums sub! Welcome to the new trading day and a fresh start! Here are your pre-market stock movers & news on this Wednesday, May the 24th, 2023-

(CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL SOURCE!)

Stock futures slip as investors eye debt ceiling clash in Washington: Live updates

U.S. stock futures fell slightly Wednesday as investors kept an eye on debt ceiling negotiations.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 151 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures declined by 0.4%, and Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.3%.
Negotiators for both sides were expected to meet again Wednesday morning, according to Reuters.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen previously warned lawmakers that a potential default in early June is “highly likely.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a “productive” discussion with President Joe Biden on Monday. Nonetheless, there were few indicators of progress made in negotiations on Tuesday.
Even if Washington’s officials were to raise the debt ceiling, however, markets could be roiled, according to Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. That’s because the Treasury will need to issue a lot of debt to replenish its general account, he said.
“The impact of that is likely to remove liquidity from the broader capital markets,” Merz said. “Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, S&P 500 in general stock performance,” he continued.
“Especially more recently, [that] has really overlapped with, or it has correlated with, the S&P 500 in general stock performance,” Merz said.
On the economic front, investors will be watching for the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting earlier in May. They will be released Wednesday afternoon.
Investors will also be looking toward more earnings announcements. Clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters and semiconductor giant Nvidia will be posting their results Wednesday after the bell.
The three major averages fell during Tuesday. The S&P 500 lost 1.12%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.26% and 0.69%, respectively.

STOCK FUTURES CURRENTLY:

(CLICK HERE FOR STOCK FUTURES CHARTS!)

YESTERDAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S MARKET MAP!)

TODAY'S MARKET MAP:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S MARKET MAP!)

YESTERDAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S S&P SECTORS:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S S&P SECTORS CHART!)

TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR!)

THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S UPCOMING IPO'S!)

THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($NVDA $PANW $ZIM $SNOW $LOW $DKS $COST $ZM $BJ $GLBE $ELF $NNOX $AZO $ADI $KSS $INTU $SPLK $NIU $BBY $DLTR $MDT $ECC $APPS $XPEV $ADSK $ULTA $VFC $PATH $MRVL $IHS $WSM $BMO $ICCM $WOOF $PETS $CSWC $A $ANF $TD $DAVA $NAT $BNS $VIPS $WDAY $RVYL $TOL $OCFT $CLGN $LPG $BURL)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

THIS MORNING'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS CALENDAR:

($KSS $ADI $XPEV $WOOF $ANF $BMO $BNS $LPG $EXPR $FUTU $DY $CLGN $SCVL $PLAB $KMDA $PLCE $ITRN $CRMT $BZ $ZH $BLRX $CRLBF $EXAI $PGRU $SGHC $LILM)

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE THE OPEN TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS MORNING'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

THIS AFTERNOON'S AFTER-HOURS EARNINGS CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS CALENDAR!)

EARNINGS RELEASES AFTER THE CLOSE TODAY:

(CLICK HERE FOR THIS AFTERNOON'S EARNINGS RELEASES!)

YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S ANALYST UPGRADES/DOWNGRADES LINK #2!)

YESTERDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS:

(CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY'S INSIDER TRADING FILINGS!)

TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR:

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S DIVIDEND CALENDAR LINK #2!)

THIS MORNING'S MOST ACTIVE TRENDING TICKERS ON STOCKTWITS:

• XPEV
• CTX.X
• SPY
• OCEA
• DIA
• TGT
• QQQ
• PANW
• BMO
• GCT

THIS MORNING'S STOCK NEWS MOVERS:

(source: cnbc.com)

Moderna — The biotech company added 2.4% amid renewed Covid-19 concern in China after an uptick in infections.

STOCK SYMBOL: MRNA

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

V.F. Corporation — Shares in the clothing and shoemaker added 3.3% on the back of better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company earned an adjusted 17 cents per share, topping a Refinitiv forecast of 14 cents per share. Revenue of $2.74 billion was also slightly above expectations.

STOCK SYMBOL: VFC

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

XPeng — The electric vehicle maker slipped 4.7% after an earnings miss. XPeng also issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the second quarter. Still, CEO He Xiaopeng said he is “confident in taking our Company into a virtuous cycle driving product sales growth, team morale, customer satisfaction and brand reputation over the next few quarters.”

STOCK SYMBOL: XPEV

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palantir Technologies — Shares were 2.2% lower in premarket trading, on pace for their first decline in three sessions. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest recently bought more than $4 million worth of Palantir shares, the firm’s website showed.

STOCK SYMBOL: PLTR

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Analog Devices — Analog Devices dropped 5.3% in premarket trading on the back of weaker-than-expected third-quarter guidance for the fiscal third quarter. Analog Devices expects adjusted earnings of about $2.52 per share in the third quarter, compared to forecasts for $2.65 per share, according to consensus estimates on FactSet. It expects revenue of around $3.10 billion, less than the $3.16 billion estimate. In a statement, CEO Vincent Roche said, “Looking to the second half, we expect revenue to moderate given the continued economic uncertainty and normalizing supply chains.”

STOCK SYMBOL: ADI

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

First Horizon — The regional bank added 2.3% in premarket trading following an upgrade to buy from hold by Jefferies. The firm said the bank has top-tier capital strength and is at a discount to peers.

STOCK SYMBOL: FHN

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Palo Alto Networks — Shares of the cybersecurity rose nearly 5% in premarket trading after Palo Alto Networks reported a fiscal third quarter that topped analyst estimates. The company reported $1.10 in adjusted earnings per share on $1.72 billion of revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had penciled in 93 cents of earnings per share on $1.71 billion of revenue. Palo Alto’s fourth-quarter earnings guidance was also higher than expected.

STOCK SYMBOL: PANW

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Kohl’s — The retailer popped more than 13% after reporting better-than-expected results and a surprise profit for the recent quarter. Kohl’s also reiterated previous guidance.

STOCK SYMBOL: KSS

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

Intuit – The tax and accounting technology maker suffered a 5% drop after the company missed revenue expectations, according to Refinitiv, for its fiscal third quarter. That result was thanks in part to a decline in tax returns, Intuit reported.

STOCK SYMBOL: INTU

• CLICK HERE FOR CHART!

(CLICK HERE FOR LIVE STOCK QUOTE!)

FULL DISCLOSURE:

bigbear0083 has no positions in any stocks mentioned. Reddit, moderators, and the author do not advise making investment decisions based on discussion in these posts. Analysis is not subject to validation and users take action at their own risk. bigbear0083 is an admin at the financial forums StonkForums.com where this content was originally posted.

DISCUSS!

What's on everyone's radar for today's trading day ahead here at StockMarketForums?

Join the Official Reddit Stock Market Chat Discord Server HERE!

I hope you all have an excellent trading day ahead today on this Wednesday, May 24th, 2023! :)