Super Six Strength Powers the S and P 500 to New Heights

Last Edited by: LPL Research

Last Updated: January 23, 2024

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"History suggests stocks are likely to rise further after reaching new highs. Don’t assume the stock market has to go down just because it’s gone up a lot."

Jeffrey Buchbinder, CFA, Chief Equity Strategist

"The Q4 earnings reports — coupled with guidance — should offer a clear indication that the earnings recession is substantially over."

Quincy Krosby, PhD, Chief Global Strategist

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Jeff Buchbinder (00:00):

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest LPL Market Signals podcast. Jeff Bookbinder here, your host for this week with my friend and colleague Quincy Krosby. It's good to be with you. It's a joyous day to do a podcast, Quincy, because the S&P 500 is at new record highs. We have waited two years for it and it's finally here. How are you today? Thanks for joining.

 

Quincy Krosby (00:24):

 

Good. How can you be disappointed on a day like this?

 

Jeff Buchbinder (00:28):

 

Oh, it sure is. It sure is. So we're recording on Monday, January 22, 2024. It's a little after lunch on Monday. So we'll be, you know, hopefully releasing this the end of the day Monday, if not first thing Tuesday morning. Here's our agenda. Technology leadership continues. I didn't want to put S&P new high for two agenda items, so <laugh>, we'll change it up and I'll point out how strong tech was last week. Then of course, new high, we'll celebrate those new highs. We'll walk through the Weekly Market Commentary for this week, which is about the potential impact of the Red Sea shipping disruptions from the Houthis rebel attacks. You know, the impact on inflation and on the potential Fed rate cut timetable. Next quick update on earnings season, which has been messy, and then we'll end with a preview of the week ahead as we always do. So, Quincy, I know you've written a little bit about why tech was so strong last week. You know, that was really the you know, that was the highlight up a little over 1% last week. But if you look at the five day returns for tech, up almost 5%. I think we'll agree on what the reason was for that. What was the biggest driver of tech last week?

 

Quincy Krosby (01:53):

 

Well, I think it has to be Taiwan Semiconductor, and you know, it's funny because we were talking about the relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor and the tech sector in Taiwan, vis-a-vis the election there. But this is separate. It is their earnings, their earnings call, and in that earnings call within the earnings call, the catalyst, because it was almost, the futures market has popped that they're seeing more and more orders, and the orders are associated obviously with generative AI. And that really set the stage because Taiwan Semiconductor is not known for, how do I say this? Guidance that is just over the top. They're cautious, they're conservative, and I think it was taken, obviously very well by the market.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (02:49):

 

Absolutely. Yeah. I think they guided a 10% semiconductor demand growth this year. Yes. That's really, that's a big number. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So no doubt chips have come out of their, you know, the weak cycle I guess you could say. And yeah, and things are certainly looking up. So, yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent. That was the big driver last week. We also had pretty good economic data, you know, really good confidence data from University of Michigan on Friday. You also had the strong retail sales earlier in the week. The housing data was a little better than expected, you know, it wasn't all better, but for the most part, permit the data was better than expected permit. Yeah. What's that?

 

Quincy Krosby (03:29):

 

In terms of housing? You had one that was slightly weak, but new permits were strong and that's what the market is focused on. Yeah.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (03:38):

 

Yes. Forward looking no doubt. So yes, the market absolutely liked that as well. So we got a lot of good data continuing to support the soft landing thesis which I mean, people define it differently, but it certainly looks good from where we sit today. It wasn't just tech, you know, it was the mega cap techs in comm services. So I'm referring to of course Alphabet and Meta. So comm services was up about two and a half percent last week, and then you had consumer discretionary weak, even though they have big tech in there. Tesla was actually down 3% last week. Yeah. Big drag, big drag on consumer discretionary. Actually Tesla shares are down 15% year to date through Friday. So that has led some to refer to the Mag Seven is the Mag Six.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (04:33):

 

I would go for maybe the Super Six. Maybe we can try to copyright that. Quincy you know, I like the alliteration. So we'll call it Super Six really strong last week on artificial intelligence enthusiasm and you know, really generally strong earnings growth expected out of the semiconductor space. So beyond that, you know, that kind of ties to a lot of this on this performance summary for the equity markets, because it's driven strong growth performance over value, we continue to prefer growth over value at LPL Research. It's led to strong performance for the U.S. relative to the rest of the world, right? So you see here you know, the international index is pretty much down across the board. The only one that's in positive territory last week was Japan. Japan and yen. That market is up seven and a half percent year to date, really, really strong market.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (05:34):

 

India's done okay too, but the majority of the international markets have underperformed. So turning to fixed income and commodities, you know, bond yields moved a little higher last week because of the strong economic data. But the market, and by the way the market priced out maybe a Fed rate hike. So we're looking at closer to five rather than six priced in. So it's, you know, higher yields is consistent with that unwinding of rate cut expectations. And so you ended up with a down week for bonds, down about one point. The weakness in China continues to weigh on commodities broadly. Well, and frankly, the strong U.S. oil production, which Quincy, you and I have talked a lot about. So you know, and natural gas was down sharply last week. I guess the bounce from the cold spell is over. So you have about 2% weekly drop in energy. You have a percentage drop in industrial metals, very China sensitive. Although the precious metals did inch a little bit higher, you know, Quincy, the dollar's been very strong this year, you know, up about 2% year to date, which is a big move for currency in what, you know, 20 days basically. So I think that's been part of why we've had this drag on international markets. Where do you think the dollar goes from here?

 

Quincy Krosby (07:03):

 

Well, I mean, we're going to have a sense of it when we go through the economic data this, especially this week with the inflation data on Friday, or was it Thursday or Friday? It's going to be important again based on the Fed and also the ECB. So the ECB we're getting, having some commentary there when they think they're going to have rate hikes. And this is about the interest rate differential, we're going back to the interest rate differential now, where it's, who's going to cut rates first, because that would mean your currency is going to come down. And with the Fed out there all week long, and it didn't matter which part of the FOMC they came from, the hawkish, the dovish, the message was the same. We're not, we don't think we're ready for a rate cut, you know, based on the market's perception market's timetable.

 

Quincy Krosby (08:01):

 

So that's another reason that the dollar strengthened and against the Euro, for example, as opposed to when the Europeans think they're going to get a rate cut. And it's interesting because Christine Lagarde was very careful and she basically said, look, I hear what all of the folks from the various countries within the Euro zone are saying, but at the end of the day, she said, we've got to be data dependent and we're going to be careful, and we don't expect it to be soon. So again, the dollar rising on the back of stronger economic data, on the back of a Fed that has been in unison, we are probably going to wait. And I think probably the most dovish, dovish from the Fed came from Bostic, head of the Atlanta Fed, who was very dovish up until recently. And he said, I don't see a rate hike coming until the third quarter, which from him is extremely powerful. And I think that also helped push the dollar higher.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (09:07):

 

Yeah. That Bostic and others are still trumpeting this kind of higher for longer narrative I guess so we're not yeah, yeah, we are certainly not expecting a cut in March, probably more May, June timeframe. And yeah, I mean, we're, the market's already moving a little bit in our direction. I know we're not the only ones out there saying three or four cuts rather than five or six or seven, but clearly the market's moving closer. We think four. But if it's not four, it's probably more likely to be three than five for cuts. So good stuff there, Quincy. Let's move on and let's celebrate these new highs some more. This is just so exciting. We don't get this very often. In fact, I guess it's been no

 

Quincy Krosby (09:51):

 

Champagne there, Jeff do you have champagne in Boston?

 

Jeff Buchbinder (09:53):

 

I don't have any champagne here. I got my Kansas City Chief's tumbler.

 

Quincy Krosby (10:01):

 

Oh, that was, oh, what a game.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (10:02):

 

I can celebrate their victory as well as these new highs. No, no alcohol during the day during the workday. But you know, I think it's important to point out that we haven't had a new high in two years, actually more than two years. So this is a long time coming. You'll see here in a minute that that's pretty long compared to history. This is just the basic S&P chart where you see that the breakout, you know, there's the expression from technicians. I think it goes the longer the base, the higher in space or something like that. <Laugh>, I'm sure many of you have heard that before. We had a really long, you know, two-year base building process, I guess you could say. And we're breaking out after that long delay that suggests above average returns going forward.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (10:50):

 

I'm not even going to put a damper on the all-time high story by talking about where downside support is. You know, let's just focus on the highs and where we might go. So, our year on target at the high end is 4,950. It's possible that this breakout takes us close to that or even above that because historically you tend to get these little bounces, it's probably the machines taking over, but you tend to get these little bounces after you hit all-time highs. You also tend to get pretty good performance one year out. So, here's this latest you know, high compared to all the other highs back to 1956. And you see here the length of the recovery this time was kind of slow compared to non-recessionary recoveries. The average non-recessionary recovery for a bear market to get back to its highs as 10 months.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (11:47):

 

This one was 14, so it was kind of in between the non-recession and the average, which of course includes the recessionary bear markets, where the recoveries have taken longer. And then if you look at time between highs, this time we are 24 months plus the average for all bear markets has been, at least during this timeframe, has been 30 months. So not too far off, but non-recessionary time between highs during bear markets 17 months. So we took a little bit longer. So I think we've kind of earned the right to get more gains from here. And that's certainly what history shows you. I've put this together to show you actually with help from Adam Turnquist, where do stocks go after the S&P hits a new high when it's been more than a year since the last high.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (12:36):

 

And you've got some pretty good numbers here. You know, not only is the average gain 12% median over 13% for the subsequent year, but you've been up every time except one. So I didn't count these, what is it, 12 out of 13? Something like that. Very, very high percentage. So, you know, this probably plays out again. So after you hit new highs, you might have clients out there, or you might be an individual investor doing your own thing. And you might be thinking you know, maybe this market's gone too far, right? Maybe hitting this high is a reason to sell. Well, the data does not suggest that is the case. We're still, we're not even done with year two of the bull market. Year two's of the bull markets have pretty much always been up. So the history tells you we can probably go higher from here. What do you think, Quincy?

 

Quincy Krosby (13:30):

 

Well, no, absolutely. I mean, even without this search, even without the new highs the statistics indicate that we would've added maybe five or 6% to the end of the year, given the strength of last year and seven weeks as is also data regarding that seven straight weeks of the market highs, not new highs, but highs. And then you have the election year perspective. So, why not? And then how about, how about this? This is probably the one that everybody uses as January goes, so goes the year, and everyone was so depressed at the beginning of January as this market was overbought, then oversold, oversold, and now suddenly we have a January to applaud. And again, as January goes, so goes the year. That statistic, I think is pretty much intact.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (14:29):

 

Yeah, absolutely. It looked like, you know, the January barometer was going to fail us. It still could <laugh>, but boy, this has been a really strong comeback after a weak start to the year. I know these things don't always hold, but boy, this, you know, this rally's been nice, so we'll again, we'll celebrate it. We're going to keep it, we're going to keep it upbeat when we talk about new highs. I guess this isn't as upbeat. This is downright depressing. The you know, the human cost of what's going on in the Middle East on top of the economic cost with all of the shipping disruptions with attacks from the Houthi rebels that are ongoing, and then the U.S. and ally responses. This is a mess. So, Jeff Roach wrote the Weekly Market Commentary this week with some help from Lawrence Gillum, who put in some commentary about the Fed, of course, Jeff, our chief economist in LPR Research, Lawrence Gillum, our chief fixed income strategist.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (15:30):

 

And I think there's really this may be just a couple of key takeaways here. First is this will impact goods inflation a little bit, but right now, goods are in deflation. This is really not the inflation problem. You can see it here on this chart. The durable goods CPI is down, right? The orange line. Even non-durable goods down barely, but down. So they are in essentially deflation. It's the services. We've talked about this, I know on recent podcasts and written about this, how the problem is services inflation. A lot of that's housing. We still need to get that down. So this doesn't really change, you know, the a little bit higher shipping costs, shipping delays. We don't think it's enough to really change this storyline. And you're probably going to again, end up with the Fed cutting maybe around four times this year, not delaying those cuts because of Middle East shipping, you know, disruptions.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (16:35):

 

I guess that's the point I'll make there. So this is an index, we'll want to follow. It is the New York Fed Supply Chain Pressure Index. This is what we watched during COVID, right? When you had the lockdowns, you had the semiconductor supply chain virtually shut down, the supply chain you know, all gummed up all over the world for a lot of reasons, all tying back to COVID. So it's, you know, this index surged, what is it like mid-teens <laugh> on this index? It correlates to the PPI, which is wholesale inflation, which makes sense. So, the orange line, the PPI was up at 18, 19% at one point year over year. Anyway, come way down, as we know, those issues were largely resolved, but now you've seen this little bit of an uptick recently. That we could see more of that here in the very short term, but it's probably not going to continue for very long.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (17:38):

 

So, you know, I'm always scared to use the word transitory now, the Fed made that a bad word, <laugh>, but <laugh>, you know, we certainly are with ships can go around. I know it takes longer, higher cost, but ships can go around, things can be transported in different ways. Companies are resourceful in terms of how they get their goods where they need to go. And frankly, and Quincy, I'll ask your opinion on this. I mean, certainly the U.S., the U.K., and others are committed to you know, let's just say reopening shipping channels with, you know, whatever they have to do.

 

Quincy Krosby (18:15):

 

Well, yeah, absolutely. But I do want to point something out, and this is again, vis-a-vis the PPI, Producer Price Index, which has been coming down remarkably. And that is that we had the Empire Fed Survey, which is the manufacturing survey for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It's not one of the leaders in the manufacturing reports that we get, but the Philadelphia Fed Survey, which really is viewed as a reflection of the manufacturing heartland. I have to say, I went back and I looked at the prices paid components. They're up, Jeff, they're up in both of them. And obviously it was not reflected in the producer price index. So, you know, there are those who watch that and already they are, you know, how do you spell stagflation? It is curious that we're seeing the prices climbing in those reports. We're obviously going to get reports for the rest of the country, but the one that obviously, that we follow the most when they come out, it's always the New York one first.

 

Quincy Krosby (19:23):

 

We tend to just, we don't push that aside, but it's not as much of a bellwether as is the Philadelphia Fed Survey. So we're going to have to see whether across the country we are seeing that the price is climbing higher also with oil that's the one we watch. That one has been oil coming down. And that has been helpful. We don't, there are many reasons, but we are on both sides of this argument, Jeff, aren't we, that if oil prices climb higher, that adds to the inflation story. And today, I think did you see oil clock in at what was it 77 on West Texas Intermediate. We haven't seen that in some time.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (20:08):

 

Yeah, we've expected oil to bounce a little bit on what's going on in the Middle East. It has not much to date, so we'll certainly keep watching that. So yeah, there's potential for a little bit of upward pressure on goods inflation. And that could cause the Fed to maybe slow down and, you know, would cause me to say, well, maybe three hikes or three cuts are more likely than four. So thanks for that, Quincy. Let's move on to earnings. This is a more, I mean, it's more pleasant topic for sure than attacks on you know, shippers in the Red Sea, but it's not as glorious as the all-time highs, certainly on the S&P 500. That is earning season. And the start has been messy. Here's our earning season dashboard which we started up this week for the fourth quarter earnings season.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (21:00):

 

It's, it's mixed, right? So revenue's pretty normal, up 3% tracking to that. That's not a bad number at all. 60% of companies beating revenue, that's pretty good at this stage. That's pretty typical. So nothing to be worried about. The earnings picture, though, maybe it's too strong to say it's something to worry about, but it is messy. Two thirds of companies have beaten bottom line estimates to date. It's only about 50 companies, and it's pretty much all financials and why financials have been messy? The banks had to pay special assessments to replenish the FDIC deposit insurance fund after the bank failures of last March. So if you back those out, these numbers would look a lot better. So you really have to, as I like to say, peel back the onion. Right now, if you include all those charges, which of course are not going to be recurring, you end up, you know, not with a I'm sorry, if you include the charges, you're down 1% on S&P 500 earnings.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (22:13):

 

If you take them out, you're up more like 1%, right? It's that big of an impact on S&P earnings. As we broaden out and we get companies from other sectors, which we're going to start to do here very soon, especially next week when we get the big tech, we're going to get a much better picture of how strong the earnings will be for Q4. But we do think it's still possible, excluding all those charges to hit something like 5%. It's not going to be easy. It is after this weak start, but we think 5% is still doable. You know, big drivers of that. I mean, tech is going to be a huge driver because it's the biggest chunk, right? You see here in my bullets on the left, biggest Q4 earnings contributors, communication services and tech. And why is communication services a big contributor?

 

Jeff Buchbinder (23:02):

 

Because it has Meta and Alphabet and Netflix and high growth digital media companies like that. So that's really where the earnings growth is coming from. We talked about that last week. The Super Six is growing earnings at like 50%, while the rest of the market is seeing earnings declines of six, 7%, right? And that's why those, a lot of these gains for the big cap techs are justified. So that's really where we're going to be focused. Not so much on the messy numbers from the banks. We're really going to be watching tech. So here's the ramp. So despite the fact that we've had this messy start, 2024 estimates based on consensus have only come down 0.4%. That is not much. The average drop is a couple percent anyway. So we aren't seeing outsized reductions in estimates as a result of what we've heard from the banks.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (23:58):

 

And you see here, this ramp of earnings growth is still reflected in those estimates. So maybe this is too aggressive. Strategists like ourselves, think $233 in S&P 500 profits, which is only about five or 6% earnings growth. LPL research thinks 235, which is more like seven to 8% S&P 500 earnings growth. These consensus expectations reflect bottom up. So you take individual analyst estimates of individual companies and aggregate them all up so they don't have as broad of a view of what's going on in the world. I used to do that. I don't mean that in a negative way, <laugh>, but when you just cover one industry or one sector, sometimes you don't have as good of a handle on the big picture. And those estimates almost always tend to be too high. So don't expect 22% earnings growth in Q4 '24, that's just probably too aggressive. But the point is that ramp is in place. We still think we get that ramp and can get, you know, mid to high single digit earnings growth in 2024 if you, you know, don't have these big bank charges again, which we don't think you will. So, any thoughts on earnings, Quincy?

 

Quincy Krosby (25:19):

 

Well, just, you know, as we keep pointing to tech, and especially given that the S&P 500 forward earnings over 19%, now, what is it? 19.4 forward earnings, it's rich and it is all predicated on big tech, let's face it. They've got a high, a high bar when they come out with their earnings. There's no doubt about it. And what we're seeing though, is that the upward revisions, the most recent upward revisions are coming from tech. And that, and that's good news. That's very good news because, you know, they are the core of this surge in the market and the high in the market what you want to see is that the revisions coming from tech. That what's important. So we'll see how that holds on the guidance.

 

Quincy Krosby (26:19):

 

And the other thing I want to mention regarding tech, because it is so important, and as you call them, the six now not to mention Tesla's guidance, whatever he can do, but what we're looking for is the monetization. And we're getting signs of it, of the innovation that that has been very costly and timely. You know, it takes quite a while for AI to so to speak, become a reality. And that's what we're starting to see. And we saw it with Nvidia, we saw it with Microsoft, and you could and Apple, and we could see what Meta has in in mind. That's very important for the market because if they don't do that now, then I think the market is not going to be as helpful in supporting them going forward. So that, again, that's the monetization of all of the research and development and innovation that's been going on. So this is going to be important for the earnings season.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (27:21):

 

Yeah. Good point. AI is clearly a long-term trend, but people might be getting a little bit too excited about the impact on Q4 earnings from AI. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, we'll have to see. But you've seen big moves in Nvidia, big moves in AMD and some others. Microsoft you mentioned so we'll see. Yeah. High bar. These companies got to beat and surprise against very high expectations. It's not going to be easy, but the point still holds that this, the earnings growth out of that group is going to be very, very strong. And that's going to carry us we think to a pretty good overall earnings growth number in Q4 for S&P 500 profits. And we think it's going to be good enough to still carry tech and the related areas Yeah.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (28:10):

 

To strong gains in 2024. So let's go to the week ahead, Quincy. It's a huge week. I mean, when I was putting this together, I took, I forgot about the ECB and the Bank of Japan <laugh>. Actually, initially I even forgot about GDP <laugh> because it's backward looking and I was just really honing in on that core PCE deflator number, right? Which is monthly. GDP is backward looking and more stale data, and we kind of know it's not much of a driver or market moving typically and all of that. So but there's a lot of earnings too this week. So there's a lot going on. Actually the leading indicator is beat expectations, but they were down again on Monday morning. What do you think is, has the potential to move markets this week from this economic calendar? What are you watching most closely Quincy?

 

Quincy Krosby (29:05):

 

Well, needless to say, the PCE is the most important because it's that important for the Fed. And, you know, we know, we know what has driven markets you know, moving the needle for markets and getting the markets ready for a surge. It has been inflation coming down. And so we'll see where core inflation hits, super core for the PCE. That's going to be extremely important. And the mark, I think that's probably the most important indicator for, you know, when the Fed is going to cut rates. I mean, it could surprise to the point that suddenly we get a, you know, March 20 moves higher. Most likely not, but it is that important and remember why it's so important because this surge in the market, the most recent one, has been predicated on Treasuries. The auctions not having as much supply. That was one thing on November 1, and the other was Fed pivot, belief in a pivot, and also the expectations for rate cuts. So that's very important for the market, and I think that the PCE is going to be kind of ripped apart, if you will, under the hood and so on, to see how quickly inflation is coming down.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (30:28):

 

Yeah, absolutely. That was the one that I was going to star certainly out of all of these, although it's always interesting when you get the first read on GDP, but I think the market's been expecting something around 2% GDP for Q4 for a while now.

 

Quincy Krosby (30:44):

 

At 2.4. Yes. At 2.3, 2.4.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (30:47):

 

So anything in that neighborhood is fine. Yeah. Maybe we get a little bit of an upside surprise because there's still a lot of skeptics, I guess. The BOJ and ECB meetings, central bank meetings in Japan and Europe are probably not going to give us anything market moving. I mean, you know, it's possible, but very unlikely. Bank of Japan's probably not going to do anything meaningful because they had an earthquake over there, and that's probably going to you know, cause them to back off of any thought of tightening, you know, raising their range for their interest rate targets or raising rates or anything like that. So probably get nothing out of them. ECB probably get nothing out of them, right? I mean, they're going to align with the Fed. Legarde, as you mentioned, Quincy, you know, guided to the summer.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (31:41):

 

That's probably what we get out of the Fed and the ECB or late spring. So probably going to just repeat the same messages that they've been repeating, similar to what the Fed's probably going to start doing at their next meeting, which I think is next week. I know they're in the quiet period now, and you're probably going to get the same kind of message out of the Fed that they're just going to wait and watch the data and for now do nothing. So, anything else this week that you think is worth noting? Anything on the earnings front? I know we get Procter & Gamble, we get Tesla, I think we get Netflix this week, so we start to broaden out a little bit. What are you watching on the earnings calendar, Quincy, or anything else that we may have missed that you want to highlight?

 

Quincy Krosby (32:30):

 

Well, I'm, I'm watching Tesla very closely because, you know, obviously they remind me of Apple sometimes in so many different indexes, right? Or sectors. So that's why I'm watching, as you mentioned, consumer discretionary and what the plans are for selling those cars. Especially as EV has slowed in the U.S. I just want to hear what he has to say. I mean, cutting the prices is seemingly not enough for the market. So we'll see what his guidance is.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (33:06):

 

Yeah, and I think maybe one theme out of this earnings season will be that anything that's really China exposed is going to have a little more trouble than maybe had been previously thought. We'll have to see, you know, since it's hard to trust the data out of China it's really interesting to watch companies, right? And listen to CEOs and CFOs talk about the environment over there, certainly with Tim Cook, and Apple we'll be doing that. So, we'll get more insight into China over the next, you know, five, six weeks of reporting season. But that could be a theme that emerges that, you know, China's slowing, certainly Tesla's selling cars over there and you know, a lot of these sort of old guard companies that have, you know, Starbucks has been around and been in China for long time, as an example.

 

Jeff Buchbinder (33:58):

 

Yum Brands has always cited, right? Companies like this big global brands that have been in China for a long time. It'll be interesting to hear what, what those yeah, yeah. Have to say. But I continue to think though that profit margin expectations are just too low. So that's another thing I'll be watching when I hear from companies this week. See the numbers, you know, aggregate them all up. It just seems like a 1% haircut to margins quarter over quarter is too big. And that's what's reflected in consensus expectations, even if you take out the bank charges. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, right? Yeah. So pretty, it is pretty widespread pessimism. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>. So, I think that companies will generally be able to clear those, those low bars. So with that we'll go ahead and wrap up. So thanks so much Quincy for joining this week. Thank you. Really a fun one to do celebrating the new highs.

 

Quincy Krosby (34:56):

 

Cheers

 

Jeff Buchbinder (34:57):

 

of the S&P 500 after such a long wait. So happy new high day or new high day plus one <laugh>, right? Which is really cool. So don't, yeah, again, the history shows that stocks don't stop when they get to new highs if it's been a while. Probably more gains ahead. Obviously history doesn't always repeat, but we think there's a good chance it does. So, we at LPL Research continue to recommend folks stay fully invested where appropriate. So thanks for joining. As always, we'll be back with you next week with another edition of LPL Market Signals. Take care, everybody.

In the latest Market Signals podcast, Chief Equity Strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder and Chief Global Strategist Quincy Krosby celebrate the S&P 500’s new record high on continued strength in the technology sector, share some early thoughts on earnings season, and preview a busy week ahead.

Stocks moved solidly higher last week on the back of strong gains from the technology sector and the “Super Six,” i.e., the Magnificent Seven minus Tesla (TSLA), whose shares lost 3% last week. Tech powered the S&P 500 to its first new high in more than two years. The strategists discuss what history tells us about where stocks may head next.

The strategists characterize the start of earnings season as messy while warning investors to “peel back the onion” and look at results excluding the significant charges incurred by banks to replenish the FDIC deposit insurance fund.

Finally, the strategists preview a busy economic calendar this week that includes the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, fourth quarter GDP, and central bank meetings for the ECB and Bank of Japan

Tune In Now

Listen to the entire podcast to get the LPL strategists’ views and insights on current market trends in the U.S. and global economies. To listen to previous podcasts go to Market Signals podcast. You can subscribe to Market Signals on iTunesGoogle Podcasts, or Spotify and find us on the LPL Research YouTube channel.

 


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IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

This material is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. There is no assurance that the views or strategies discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal. Any economic forecasts set forth in the podcast may not develop as predicted and are subject to change.

References to markets, asset classes, and sectors are generally regarding the corresponding market index. All indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment and do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Stock investing includes risks, including fluctuating prices and loss of principal. Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

High yield/junk bonds (grade BB or below) are not investment grade securities, and are subject to higher interest rate, credit, and liquidity risks than those graded BBB and above. They generally should be part of a diversified portfolio for sophisticated investors.

Any company names noted herein are for educational purposes only and not an indication of trading intent or a solicitation of their products or services. LPL Financial doesn’t provide research on individual equities. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.

The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, or the Agg, is a broad base, market capitalization-weighted bond market index representing intermediate term investment grade bonds traded in the United States.

All index data is from FactSet.

All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

This Research material was prepared by LPL Financial, LLC. 

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