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The Summer of Fun, Margins & Battlefield Charging
World Cup-themed gatherings and parties are sending sales soaring for brewers, restaurants, and even sports-related retailers. But investors aren’t among the revelers. Jackie says the S&P 500 Restaurant industry index’s poor performance has improved over the past month; but the S&P 500 Distillers & Vintners index remains depressed, though cheaply valued. … Also, a look at the S&P 500 industries that have the widest and slimmest profit margins, with a focus on the S&P 500 Semiconductors industry. … And in our Disruptive Technologies segment, innovative technologies that the US military is developing to wirelessly recharge devices in the field.
On Positive Earnings Revisions, Japan’s Challenges & Valuing AI IPOs
Joe reports that newly released July data on industry analysts’ earnings estimate revisions show that for all 11 S&P 500 sectors, the net direction was up. That sign of rising sights for earnings broadly across the economy is rare and last seen after the pandemic lockdowns ended. … Also: William reports that the Bank of Japan may pause its quantitative tightening given Japan’s flagging economy. That should reassure investors worried about the stock market repercussions of the BOJ’s selling its ETF holdings. … Also: Melissa examines prospective valuations of two AI providers planning IPOs, Anthropic and OpenAI.
War! What Is It Good For?
The 1970 song "War! What Is It Good For?" was performed by the Temptations on an album and by Edwin Starr as a single. The song's answer to the question is "Absolutely nothing!" The powerful lyrics include: "It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker / Friend only to the undertaker, woo!" Financial market history shows that geopolitical crises, including wars, often have been good buying opportunities for stocks (chart). That was true during Gulf War III, as the S&P 500 bottomed on March 30 and rose 18.3% through yesterday's close. The ceasefire in the war between Iran and the US ended abruptly today; will that present another buying opportunity? We think so. The numerous crises and wars in the Middle East since the 1970s have all been good for oil prices, at least initially. The end of the ceasefire today boosted the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil by $4.42 to $78.59 this morning. However, there was a significant bear market in oil before the current war started, which explains why the price didn't increase much more in March and April than it did and why it came tumbling down in May and June (chart). The S&P 500 Energy stock price index spiked during Gulf War III in March and fell during the ceasefire, finding support at its 200-day moving average (chart). It undoubtedly will bounce off that level today after President Donald Trump declared that the tentative ceasefire with Iran is over after Iran attacked ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. At the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump blasted Iran, saying: “I don’t want to deal with them, but they’re scum. They’re sick people, they’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it.” We continue to recommend overweighting the S&P 500 Energy sector as a hedge against increased geopolitical risk in the Middle East. That's easy to do since the sector accounts for just 2.9% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500 (chart). We view the recent weakness in semiconductor stocks as a buying opportunity. Their meltup over the past three years has been well supported by their earnings (chart). The S&P 500 Semiconductor industry's forward P/E was 17.4 yesterday. This morning, the 2-year US Treasury yield is up to 4.21%, reconfirming that the markets expect the Fed to raise the federal funds rate by a couple of 25-bps moves in the coming months (chart). The 10-year US Treasury bond yield is up to 4.57% this morning, retesting the yield's downward trend line (chart). We think it will hold. The gold price is retesting support (again) around $4,000 (chart). We expect that support level will hold. Weighing the gold price down currently is the resumption of the war, since it’s boosting the foreign exchange value of the dollar and bond yields.
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