U.S. Real Retail Sales and Recession U.S. real retail sales stand at 1.65% YoY. About 70% of U.S. GDP is personal consumption. In the past, U.S. real retail sales trended sideways before the recession began.

S&P 500 Technical Composite A composite of technical breadth measures is still signaling overbought conditions in the S&P 500. That could give investors a reason to trim positions and rebalance portfolios as the risk of…

Indexed Returns of AI-Related Portfolios vs. Equal-Weight S&P 500 The AI rally has largely been an infrastructure trade, rewarding chipmakers, data-center builders and cloud platforms, while leaving software and productivity stocks behind. Image: Goldman Sachs…

Flows into Gold Funds Demand for gold funds is picking up again as retail investors return to ETFs, central banks keep adding to their reserves and the macro backdrop continues to favor gold. Image: Goldman…

Global Cross Asset Risk Sentiment Global investors are firmly risk-on, but sentiment is constructive rather than euphoric, keeping the door open to further gains. Image: TS Lombard

Top 7 Hyperscaler Capex Forecast This year, the top seven U.S. hyperscalers are on track to pour almost $900 billion into capex, with 2027 set to drive the total toward $1.5 trillion. What began as…

U.S. Corporate Profits and S&P 500 Relative Total Return to U.S. Treasuries Earnings are still riding on nominal growth, and with valuations creeping higher, strategists see enough fuel to stay tactically bullish on U.S. equities…

Long/Short Momentum Factor Returns Around 3-Month Rallies of 20%+ The AI trade has cooled, but the broader trend remains intact. Price action still looks typical of a momentum rally, setting up the possibility of another…

S&P 500 Annual Total Return by Change in Reported EPS Earnings drive corrections by severity, not direction. The deeper the earnings decline, the deeper the market decline. Every 20% market drop has arrived alongside a…

Median 2-Week S&P 500 Returns Going back to 1950, the S&P 500’s first half of September ranks as the sixth-weakest half-month in the annual cycle, a seasonally weak period for equities. Image: Goldman Sachs Global…

U.S. Equity Valuation Metrics (Z-Score Since 1900) U.S. stocks have priced in a lot of good news, with most valuation metrics more than two standard deviations above their historical averages. But momentum could keep the…