"Just how unusual has the rip upwards been in Momentum? In a word: unprecedented"

1. Institutional investors vs. equites. "Equity allocation just hit its highest level in five years. April marked the biggest monthly shift since November 2020".

2. Hedge funds vs. Energy. Last "week's % net selling in US Energy stocks was the largest since Apr '25 and ranks in the 97th percentile on a 5-year lookback, though the sector is still net bought on a cumulative basis since the end of March."

3. Retail call buying. "We've seen a sharp uptick in call buying activity from retail investors on our exchanges, with over 52% of all retail opening activity in 10 mega-cap Tech stocks ... consisting of call buying ... the highest since the covid 'meme stock' era."

4. Momentum rally. "Just how unusual has the rip upwards been in Momentum? In a word: unprecedented. The S&P 500 Momentum has a live history back to November 2014, and a 'back-test' extending back to 1972. Across both live and hypothetical history, the index has never clocked a six-week performance as large as the current +30.5%."

5. Valuation vs. profitability. "Even after this big rally, the market is still trading more than one standard deviation below its long-term regression trend ... The R² is over 64%, meaning profitability and valuation are tightly linked: forward profit margins explain about 64% of the variation in forward P/Es."

ICYMI