/ June 06
Daily Briefing
*Stock Screener is now live in the V2 app! Detailed presentation to follow…
*Yesterday was a fluid day in terms of major news items; we'll synthesize them in a bullet-point format while pointing out that the stock market acted well in the morning session and poorly in the afternoon session;
*The S&P 500 climbed as high as 5,999.70 but just couldn't make it over the 6,000 threshold and was eventually driven as low as 5,921.20, with stocks like Tesla (TSLA, -14.3%), Costco (COST, -3.9%), Brown-Forman (BF.B, -17.9%), and Palantir Technologies (PLTR, -7.8%) in the driver's seat;
*Here is a glimpse of what unfolded:
*President Trump and President Xi had a phone call and agreed to have their respective teams meet again soon; this news hit early, and market participants seemed to like the idea that the tone of the call sounded more conciliatory than combative;
*Elon Musk decried the one big, beautiful bill on social media and urged lawmakers to "kill the bill," which ultimately drew the ire of President Trump, who expressed his disappointment in Elon Musk and suggested in his own social media post that terminating Elon's government subsidies and contracts would be the easiest way to save billions and billions of dollars in the budget;
*The European Central Bank voted to cut its key interest rates by 25 basis points; while that news was expected, it did not weigh on the euro, which was up 0.2% against the dollar;
*Q1 productivity decreased 1.5% (vs consensus -0.8%) versus the preliminary report of a 0.8% decrease; unit labor costs, meanwhile, were revised up to 6.6% (vs consensus 5.7%) from the preliminary reading of 5.7%;
*Initial jobless claims for the week ending May 31 increased by 8,000 to 247,000 (vs consensus: 235,000); continuing jobless claims for the week ending May 24 decreased by 3,000 to 1.904 million; however, the four-week moving average of 1,895,250 is the highest level since November 27, 2021;
*The trade deficit plunged in April to $61.6 billion (vs consensus: -$117.2 billion) from an upwardly revised deficit of $138.3 billion (from -$140.5 billion) in March; exports were $8.3 billion more than March exports, but imports were $68.4 billion less than March imports;
*Circle Internet Group (CRCL, +168.5%) had a wildly successful debut; after pricing its IPO at $31.00 per share, the global fintech specializing in stablecoins traded as high as $103.75 before closing the session at 83.23;
*Briefly, there was some good and some bad in the newsflow, so it was rather fitting that breadth figures reflected a mixed disposition; advancers and decliners were about even at the NYSE, while decliners led advancers by a 13-to-9 margin at the Nasdaq;
*Tesla was the biggest drag on the underperforming Nasdaq and fellow growth stocks, which underperformed value stocks today; overall, buying interest was subdued, as the totality of the news wasn't enough to maintain the market's bullish momentum in front of tomorrow's Employment Situation Report;
*There was only one sector that eked out a gain; that was the communication services sector (+0.06%); the consumer discretionary sector (-2.5%), hurt by Tesla, was the worst-performing sector, followed by consumer staples (-1.2%), which felt the pressure of losses in Costco after a report showing a moderation in same-store sales for May and losses in Brown-Forman, which disappointed with its earnings results and FY26 outlook;
*The remaining sectors logged losses between 0.1% and 0.6%.