‘Sharon’ Dumps $8.2 Billion Into Popular Stock ETF

I’ve seen the chart shown below floating around today and I imagine you have too, but I think it’s worth highlighting here for anyone who might have missed it:

(Bloomberg)

So that’s basically a mad retail (read: home gamer) dash to jump on the Dow 21,000 bandwagon. As you can see, Wednesday saw the biggest daily inflow into SPY since late 2014.

That underscores a point I’ve been making for days and indeed it confirms what anyone who follows markets should already know. Namely that when you plaster “Wall Street hits record” all over every paper in the country, mom and pop are going to call their broker and figure out the quickest way to try and catch the wave. Cue inflows into the “dumbest” (or “smartest”, depending on the context) vehicle on the planet.

I’d say this is probably a good time to revisit what’s quickly become a classic Heisenberg vignette…

I got up early on Saturday.

Earlier than usual.

Apparently, falling asleep to documentaries about the sectarian divide isn’t conducive to REM sleep. Who knew?

Out on the porch in the predawn hours peacefully enjoying a morning smoke, I wave to the 70-something lady next door. Our places are separated by a couple of sand dunes between which sits an old, wooden skiff that’s been there since I was a teenager and thus well before I actually bought this place.

But despite the fact that “next door” here doesn’t exactly mean “next door” in the traditional sense, I can still hear Sharon (the neighbor) talking. It’s a particularly surreal scene. She lets the dog (some manner of spaniel) off the leash, and it does what dogs do in the morning on the beach – it frantically runs this way and that, trying to decide which scent to chase before ultimately giving up and breaking into a dead sprint towards the surf which, in this low light, is like white foam on an infinite sea of black coffee.

Sharon is talking on a Bluetooth earpiece (something she absolutely loves doing as it apparently makes her feel less old). Given the hour, my guess is she’s talking to her friend in Wales – a childhood pen pal-turned real pal thanks to modern technology. She’s talking about Trump. And, hilariously, the market.

She doesn’t mention the Dow by name (she likely has no idea what a “Dow” or an “S&P” is). All she seems to know is what she heard on the nightly news; that stocks have closed at record highs for eleven straight days for the first time in three decades.