This Stock Market Move Is Impossible to Ignore

What a Stock Rally 

Yes, I know this is a crypto newsletter, and yes, I know I’ve spent most of the past 2 years deriding Coinbase and crypto brokers for only talking about macro instead of educating investors about the idiosyncratic events happening in DeFi and RWA tokenization… but I can’t help but talk about the equity rally over the past few weeks. It has been truly historic. Granted, with the advent of 0DTE options and Robinhood’s stranglehold over retail equity investors, we’re witnessing once-in-a-generation events multiple times per year, but this rally was still breathtaking and one-of-a-kind.

Below are some charts that I found fascinating:

1. I’m on record multiple times over the past 7 years saying, “Middle East Wars don’t matter for markets,” as empirical data supports how to invest (or ignore) a Middle East conflict. According to Deutsche Bank, historical data show it usually takes about three weeks (15 trading days) for markets to bottom after a geopolitical shock, followed by another 3-4 weeks to recover those losses. While this recent episode saw a big dip in week four, extending slightly beyond the 75th percentile of historical geopolitical losses at this point, the subsequent rebound has been impressive, with the market gaining +10% over the last ten trading days.
   
   
   
2. The last 10 days have been unlike any 10-day period in the market since 1950, with the 10% return ranking in the 99.7th percentile of all 10-day returns.
   
   
   The S&P 500 finished up more than 3% for 3 weeks in a row. This has happened only twice in history, at the '82 lows and after COVID. Stocks were up 33.9% and 32.3% a year later after those signals.
   
   
   The NASDAQ saw a 13th consecutive daily climb, a winning streak not seen since early 1992. Looking back over the NASDAQ's 55-year history, only three other periods have seen longer winning streaks: 16 days in 1985, 19 days in 1979, and 15 days in 1977. This places the current run in an impressive historical context.
   
   
   
3. Call volumes went bananas, but that is the new norm now that Robinhood retail traders are turning the stock market into a casino.
                                                                                                     Source: Zerohedge
   
   
4. Uh oh. Hedge funds started the week more bearish than they were at the peak of the Liberation Day bear market in March 2025. That’s not a good recipe for success given the market rally.
   
                                                                          Source: Goldman Sachs
   
   We've now had 9 weeks in a row of more bears than bulls on AAII. 
   
   
                                                                                                        Source: Carson Group
   
   Goldman Sachs' most shorted stocks were up 24% since March 30th. 
   
                                                                                  Source: Zerohedge
   
   
5. The short squeeze has been epic. CTAs bought more than $86Bn in global equities over the past five sessions, one of the biggest buying sprees on record. And Goldman Sachs’ futures strategies desk has a model that expects an additional $70Bn of buying in the next five sessions. 
                                                                         Source: Goldman Sachs
   
   
6. The 8 best days for the S&P 500 during President Trump's second term have all been “TACO trade” rallies, with sharp reversals from the president on Tariffs driving the biggest gains in 2025 and reversals on the Iran War driving gains in 2026. 
                                                                           Source: Creative Planning
   
   
7. Despite lots of prognosticators calling for a stock market crash when the “bubble” bursts, there really isn’t much evidence of a bubble in equities. The P/E multiple is down 18% (pretty rare) while EPS growth continues to trend higher.  
   
   
   Meanwhile, the Nasdaq forward P/E ratio is below the 10-year average.
   
                                                               Source: Revere Asset Management 
   
   And 84% of S&P 500 companies have beaten revenue estimates to date for Q1, which is above the 5-year average of 70% and above the 10-year average of 67%.  
   
                                                                                     Source: FactSet
   
   
8. The only saving grace for bears might be this. Historically, some of the biggest weekly rallies have occurred during massive bear markets. So if you’re hoping this is just a bear market rally, you might consider sharing this chart with people.
   
                                                                       Source: Some bear who is really scrambling right now 
   
   Now, what does all of this mean for digital assets? Honestly, I have no idea. Many crypto assets have staged modest rallies the past three weeks as well, but the upside beta versus equities has been pretty underwhelming, especially when you consider how much downside beta this market experienced from October through February. Retail attention has been heavily concentrated in equities and commodities at the expense of digital assets for much of this year. Pretty much all correlations between digital assets and equities broke down on October 10th, but ETH has basically tracked the NASDAQ for the past month. Still, a healthy overall equity market is generally better for digital assets than a weak market.
   
                                                                                   Source: TradingView
   
   Meanwhile, Michael Saylor and Strategy (MSTR) have almost single-handedly been supporting Bitcoin (BTC), as they continue to sell their 11.5% preferred (STRC) in ATM offerings anytime STRC trades above $100 (which happened for 2 weeks prior to STRC going ex-dividend on April 15th), resulting in ~$4 Bn of Bitcoin purchases over the past three weeks.
   I don’t have much of a conclusion other than this has been one hell of a run for stocks, a pretty underwhelming rally for crypto, and an absolutely punishing stretch for macro and long/short hedge funds. 
                                                                                 Source: BitcoinQuant