This Chart Shows Retail Investors Going All-In Like Never Before

You piled into stocks in November, didn’t you?

Just go ahead and admit it. You were lured by everything we described on Tuesday evening in “When Tailwinds Become Headwinds.”

Your imaginations are filled with visions of blowoff tops, spectacular melt-ups, billion-dollar Bitcoin bonanzas, and tech rallies flying off into the wild blue yonder like an “unleashed” Icarus, whose wings refused to melt no matter how high he flew.

And who can blame you? You’re force-fed a steady stream of propaganda about how the market has been democratized thanks to ETFs. You’re encouraged by pundits who tell you that you don’t need professionals to guide you through capital markets. And  E*Trade is running commercials about the dumbest guy in high school buying yachts (literally).

Meanwhile, central banks are perpetuating this fantasy and after years of jawboning and $15 trillion in liquidity injections, they have finally “succeeding” in making the CB “put” self-fulfilling. Markets have become so conditioned that the policymaker put no longer needs to be explicitly reiterated.

Perhaps that explains why you doubled down last month. How do I know that? Because TD Ameritrade told me so.

“The IMX saw its largest single-month increase ever in November, increasing over 15% to hit an all-time high of 8.53,” the broker says on its website, citing an proprietary index that tracks holdings, positions, trading activity, and other data from client portfolios held by real investors each month and rolls it all up into an index. Have a look:

As TD goes on to note, “clients were net buyers for the tenth consecutive month, positioning their accounts for more exposure to equity markets.”

And why not, right? As E*Trade advises in the infamous yacht commercial linked above, “don’t get mad, get E*Trade. Or TD. Whichever you prefer when it comes to worshipping the sacred equity cow.