Good Friday evening to all of you here on r/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.

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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.

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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.

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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%.

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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.”

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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.

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“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.”

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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 plac