If you’re wondering how much support equities have potentially received from the vol-sensitive mechanical bid over the past three months, the answer is more than $70 billion.

That’s according to Nomura’s estimates of demand from the vol-control universe, which has re-allocated back into stocks amid a decline in portfolio vol.

Realized one-month is effectively 0%ile on a one-year lookback. Remember: Volatility is your exposure toggle, as Charlie McElligott is fond of saying.

“This ‘collapse in realized vol’ dynamic is fueling a substantial grinding source of demand for US equities,” McElligott said Monday.

That demand has amounted to $72 billion over three months, he estimated, noting that overall vol-control equities allocation is back to 14-month highs.

Remember: This is a latent impulse. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but you could say it builds up in the pipeline as vol recedes, and the longer equities remain a semblance of well-behaved, the more likely it is to manifest and continue.

“Looking ahead, the vol-control setup [could see] continued ‘buying’ if the tape can sustain < 1.0% or lower daily changes looking out two to four weeks into earning season,” McElligott went on.

The scope of that buying could be as high as $31 billion if (and that’s a big if) the market trades in a <0.5% range over the next month or so.