Three weeks ago, when stocks were holding on to dear life – and key support levels – amid a wave of bearish sentiment which threatened to drag risk below its July lows, Goldman took the other side of the trade and said it expected a huge market meltup in the coming weeks, a call which it doubled down on one week later. In retrospect, the vampire squid was absolutely correct, with the S&P soaring by 400 points in the past month…
… in the process demolishing the wall of worry, even if the meltup was widely missed by professional speculators – many of them crushed by the turmoil in bond markets – who according to Bloomberg, were going risk-off in stocks, cutting leverage at the fastest pace in months as many bearish bets backfired.
To be sure, the past months has been one for the history books; just consider these statistics:
- The S&P 500 ended October at 32.5 times profits, according to Leuthold Group that uses a five-year normalized earnings estimate; such a multiple was seen only once before this year – during the dot-com era.
- And yet, the S&P 500 is already 7% above the highest year-end target in a Bloomberg survey of Wall Street strategists that was conducted in January.
- Stocks rose for a fifth week for their longest rally in 14 months. After taking off amid robust third-quarter earnings, equities got a further boost from a string of dovish pivots from central banks.
- the Nasdaq 100 just scored two perfect weeks in a row, something that has happened only once before – in 2017. That year also marked the last time when the gauge posted gains in all but two sessions over an 18-day stretch. On that count, the S&P 500 just notched its best run since 1990.
- the Nasdaq 100 is up in 16 of the past 18 days – an extremely rare advance, and missing out is costly. And yet, similar runs have come in dismal years for equities – 2007 and 1999, specifically – suggesting to some that a crash may be dead ahead.
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Shocked Goldman Trader Admits “I Could Never Imagine Typing These Large Numbers”
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