Closing Recap

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

After a volatile day, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq managed solid gains and a finish near highs, though it started with another overnight fade in US equity futures. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were lower into the open this morning and, as with yesterday, had no pre-market economic data to influence direction. Perhaps the potential reality of another higher-for-longer speech from the Fed is taking hold, or maybe buyers just need to take a breather and are not interested in layering more risk in case tomorrow’s Fed decision doesn’t go the way just about everybody expects. Sentiment seems tough to gauge with equities managing small gains yesterday, the Fear and Greed Index continuing to bounce around measuring 43/100 (Fear) versus 47 (Neutral) yesterday and investors at least partially on the sidelines ahead of the Fed tomorrow. Recently the trend has leaned toward buyers showing up as the day progresses to help stocks avoid any meaningful move lower. By mid-morning, the same seemed true today. Stocks pared early losses but remained modestly in the red with small caps continuing to underperform. IWM was lower by almost 1.2% versus QQQ -0.15% and SPY -0.35%, resulting in early breadth of almost 3:1 favoring decliners. Technology and Real Estate were the lone S&P sector ETF holdouts in the green, while Financials led everything else lower.   

In datapoints of interest today, @tEconomics notes the US Small Business Optimism Index hit a five-month high of 90.5 in May versus 89.7 in April and a forecast of 89.8. Also on small business, @LizAnnSonders highlights inflation remained the most important issue, but quality of labor has been rising as an issue and is now in second place among important matters to small businesses. On stock market performance, @bespokeinvest points out the six mega-caps ($1T+ caps) in the S&P 500 have gained an average of 11.2% in Q2 versus the rest of the index down an average of 3% in the quarter. In honor of it being a Fed meeting week, @DataTrekMB highlights what it calls the “Fed Drift,” saying US stocks tend to do well during the week of FOMC meetings, and though the “Drift” has eased a bit recently, the day after a Fed meeting continues to be generally positive. Lastly, on debt, @KobeissiLetter notes the current global debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed to 333%, just a bit below the 2021 high of 362%. Worth watching.

Heading into the final hour of trading, large-cap indices continued to enjoy a nice reversal starting from about midday. SPY was +0.06% and QQQ +0.47%, but overall breadth remained in favor of decliners by almost 3:2 as small caps continued to lag with IWM -0.35%. On a sector basis, Technology (XLK, +1.48%), Communications (XLC, +0.21%) and Real Estate (XLRE, +0.04%) were leaders enjoying gains, while the rest remained decliners. Leading the laggards lower were Financials (XLF, -1.16%), Utilities (XLU, -0.82%) and Industrials (XLI, -0.69%). Consistent with the sector breakout, growth was outperforming value with the Russell 1000 Growth +0.73% versus its Value counterpart -0.60%.

• Following a strong move higher yesterday, WTI Crude July futures settled at $77.90/bbl, +$0.16, or +0.21%. Brent also saw small gains to settle at $81.92/bbl, +$0.29, or +0.36%. As with other assets, WTI may be somewhat treading water today ahead of the Fed decision tomorrow, but we also see API data this afternoon with an expected draw of about 1.75M barrels, so expect more volatility tomorrow.
• The 10-year yield reversed the recent trend to slide a bit today. Yields had been lower already in the session but accelerated to the downside following the strong $39B auction at high yield 4.438%. 

Sector News Breakdown

Consumer

• ADM shares fell after ADM’s Animal Nutrition unit said late Monday it is recalling additional lots of various animal feed products due to elevated levels of magnesium, sodium, calcium, chloride, and phosphorus.
• CVGW shares rallied after the avocado grower handily beat EPS and sales estimates in their earnings release last night as avocado margins improved YoY.
• GRMN shares drifted downward after Citron Research mentioned that they felt the real loser from Apple’s WWDC24 developer conference was Garmin.

Autos:

·     GM shares rose after the car maker announced a $6B share buyback. In a conference call, GM’s CFO said he expects Q2 earnings to best Q1 result, however, he trimmed GM’s EV sales forecast amid lighter than expected demand.

·     TSLA shares lost ground as investors expressed concern regarding a possible negative outcome on Thursday’s close of the shareholder vote on CEO Elon Musk’s giant pay package.

Retail, Consumer Staples & Restaurants:

·     VFC shares climbed following the insider report of a $1M purchase of stock last night by CEO Darrell Bracken.

·     ASO shares declined after the sports retailer missed earnings and margin estimates.

·     GME shares continued their seesaw moves, this time upward by +20% in late-afternoon trading as the meme traders carry that day for the first time since Thursday’s session.

·     CELH shares continued their slide after yesterday’s weak scanner data and growth deceleration.

Leisure, Gaming & Lodging:

·     TH and CXW shares both descended precipitously after they received a notification from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement saying the agency intends to terminate an inter-governmental service agreement with the companies.

·     PARA shares instantly dropped off a climb after the WSJ reported that Shari Redstone’s National Amusement decided to stop discussions with Ellison’s Skydance.

Financials

Banks, Brokers, Asset Managers:

·     ALLY gained but later faded after the bank, while presenting at a Morgan Stanley conference, forecast QoQ and YoY net-interest-margin (NIM) expansion.

·     FITB & CMA shares were lower after the banks gave mixed mid-quarter updates at the MSCO conference.

Bitcoin, FinTech, Payments:

·     AFRM shares gained after APPL announced that Affirm products would be available on Apple Pay at the end of the year.

Healthcare

Biotech & Pharma:

·     AXSM shares declined and recovered after a negative report on the biopharma company from Culper Research that stated that they believe Axsome has not been paid on over 40% of its reported sales of it main drug Auvelity.

·     SAGE shares rocketed +93% in pre-market trading and began a long slide to negative/no-gain territory by midday. The biopharma company had announced phase 2 surveyor study reinforces cognitive impact of Huntington’s Disease.

Industrials & Materials

Transports

·     ARRY shares declined following news that Chief Financial Officer Kurt Wood will be stepping down from his position.

Technology

Internet, Media & Telecom

·     APP AppLovin’ Corp. shares dipped after news AAPL is “quietly replacing” SKAdNetwork and PCM with a new ad attribution framework per Ad Exchanger.

·     AAPL shares notched new all-time-highs as they had a delayed reaction to y’day’s WWDC24 presentation which rolled out Apple’s AI strategy, programs and partnerships.

·     SPOT shares were mixed after the company announced new, higher-priced premium subscription with new playlist tools and better audio.

·     FTNT shares were lower after Bleeping Computer reported that the recent breach was "much larger than previously known with Chinese hackers breaching 20,000 FortiGate systems worldwide.

Hardware & Software movers:

·     SHOP was initiated with an Overweight rating at JPMorgan. The report cited competitive advantages including ease of use, product breadth, and scale.