Stock Market Today: November 4th - 8th, 2024

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Wednesday, November 6th, 2024.

 

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

GLTA on this Thursday, November the 7th, 2024!

 

Here are today's gappers up & down:

 

Here are today's economic calendar events:

 

Here are today's analyst stock upgrades & downgrades:

 

Here are this morning's pre-market earnings results:

 

Morning Lineup - 11/7/24 - An Uneven Wave
Thu, Nov 7, 2024

As if the Election Day and post-Election Day returns weren’t enough, equity futures are positive again this morning. Today’s early gains are only modest, though, and we just got a bunch of economic reports to go through including Non-Farm Productivity (weaker than expected), Unit Labor Costs (higher than expected), and jobless claims (roughly in line) at 8:30, so the positive tone could change between now and the open. And did we mention that there’s a Fed meeting with a decision on interest rates expected at 2 PM? Markets are overwhelmingly pricing in a 25-bps cut, but what Powell says at the 2:30 press conference will be more important than the actual decision.

Regarding post-election market returns, yesterday’s 2.5% gain in the S&P 500 was historic. Since WWII, market performance the day after Presidential elections was typically negative with a median decline of 0.4% and positive returns just 42% of the time. Yesterday’s gain was the best, surpassing the prior record of 2.2% from 2020.



Small caps had an even better day. While the Russell 2000 has only existed since the late 1970s, yesterday’s 5.8% gain ranks easily as the best, nearly doubling the 3.1% gain after Trump’s last election!



One not-so-bright spot about yesterday’s rally was breadth. Normally, when the S&P 500 rallies 2% or more net breadth for the S&P 500 is also very positive at an average of +3.83. Yesterday’s net breadth reading for the S&P 500 was just +180. Since 1990, there have been 273 days that the S&P 500 rallied at least 2%; of those, only eight had a weaker daily breadth reading. And now for the trivia stat of the day. The last time the S&P 500 rallied 2%+ and net breadth was below +200 was on 11/4/20, the day after the 2020 election when breadth was negative 32!

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Thursday, November 7th, 2024.

 

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

GLTA on this Friday, November the 8th, 2024!

 

Here are today's economic calendar events:

 

Here are today's analyst stock upgrades & downgrades:

 

Here are this morning's pre-market earnings results:

 

Morning Lineup - 11/8/24 - Mixed Pictures
Fri, Nov 8, 2024

US equities paused for a water break this morning as futures trade with a modestly negative bias and yields decline. For all the talk about how a Trump victory would cause a leg higher rin interest rates, the 10-year yield has basically gone nowhere since Monday's close. International markets are mostly lower as China declined 1% following disappointing news regarding the hoped-for stimulus measures. Crude oil is also following equities lower, but Bitcoin is modestly higher trading right near all-time highs. The only economic report on the calendar this morning is Michigan Sentiment at 10 AM.

The snapshot below from our Trend Analyzer shows where major US index ETFs closed yesterday relative to their trading ranges. Talk about extreme! All 14 of the ETFs listed closed at ‘extreme’ overbought levels (2+ standard deviations above their 50-DMA) yesterday, and each one was up by a minimum of 4.5% over the last week with small and micro-cap related index ETFs up by nearly twice that. It’s been quite a race as every index ETF looks to sprint to the front of the pack.

These moves are a bull’s best friend and usually a hallmark of a strong market, but momentum like this is unsustainable. Just as you can't start a marathon with a sprint, the market will run out of gas sooner if it doesn't properly pace itself. It can't keep sprinting at an intense pace of multi-percentage points per week without tweaking something. It’s natural to have at least a pause, so set your expectations accordingly, and don’t get greedy.



While things look extremely uniform at the index level, sector performance has shown much more dispersion. As shown in the snapshot below, three sectors posted declines over the last five trading days. While six sectors closed yesterday at overbought levels, three finished the day in oversold territory (Consumer Staples, Real Estate, and Health Care), so the gains have been much less uniform beneath the surface.