DC Lite #227

Welcome back to DC Lite: Daily Chartbook’s free, entry-level newsletter containing 5 of the day’s best charts & insights. Upgrade to get all 30 charts.

Administrative note: As a reminder, I will be taking a few days off at the start of next week to celebrate the arrival of Baby Chartbook. Thanks again for your patience and understanding!

1. Fed vs. mortgage rates. "The rate cut timing ended up being the recent bottom in the market for mortgage rates."

2. Gold vs. money supply. "Gold is perhaps the purest hedge against monetary inflation, and while the correlation is not perfect, the increase in money supply seems to be a big driver behind gold’s impressive rally."

3. R2K speculative positioning. Large speculator positioning in Russell 2000 futures is the most net long since January 2021.

4. Corporate tax proposals vs. EPS. "All else equal, we estimate that Harris’ proposal to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would be a 5% hit to EPS, while Trump’s proposal to lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% would boost EPS by 4%."

5. Mag-7 vs. Other 493. The Mag-7 are expected to report earnings growth of 18.1% YoY in Q3 compared to just 0.1% growth for the Other 493. This gap is expected to narrow in the quarters that follow.