“Investors,” we were told Monday, are curbing their outlook for equities following an “unexpectedly” buoyant first half.

That’s according to some boilerplate copy published by a mainstream media outlet during holiday-thinned trading. The investors weren’t identified, and there was no evidence cited to support the claim that they’re lowering their expectations for stocks. Whoever they are.

That’s the wonderful thing about financial media. You don’t have to support your claims about “markets.” “Markets” can be an entirely nebulous concept when you need it to be and “investors” can be anybody.

I’ll confess to being tired of “investors” anyway. “Investors” were dead set on the idea that a US recession was imminent in the first half and that equities were destined to revisit the October lows. “Investors” offered up a cornucopia of ostensibly plausible rationales to justify their claims. The bill from last year’s historic monetary tightening was due, corporate earnings were on the brink of a much deeper contraction, the upside from October was attributable to a net global liquidity impulse which offset Fed QT (and was poised to wane any minute) and so on.

Those justifications either didn’t pan out or just expired. Then “investors” found some other excuses. The regional banking crisis was proof that the Fed finally “broke something.” Lending standards were about to tighten further and that could worsen the CRE apocalypse when it finally arrives, to say nothing of the impact on already lackluster business spending. Consumers, terrified of collapsing banks, would retrench, eliminating whatever was left of corporate pricing power. Margins would evaporate into the late-spring sun, the profit warnings would proliferate and then, by God, the October lows would be revisited.

Those justifications either didn’t pan out or just expired. After that, “investors” pointed fingers at Jerome Powell. The Fed was “growing” its balance sheet again. Only they weren’t. But it looked like it! Sure, the securities side was still declining, but liquidity is fungible and somehow, Bank Term Funding Program loans and discount window borrowing were propping up stocks, if only by creating a false optic that QT had stopped.

Then the overall balance sheet started to decline again. After that, “investors” railed against the narrow rally. You can’t trust a rally that’s entirely attributable to just a handful of stocks (never mind that the top 10 stocks perennially account for around a third of a given year’s S&P 500 gains). It wasn’t sustainable, said “investors.” You’d need a new catalyst! Where’s that going to come from? Cue Nvidia.

Around the same time, “investors” worried the US might default, and that even if that didn’t happen, the deluge of T-bills that would accompany the post-debt ceiling deal TGA rebuild would siphon liquidity, to the detriment of equities. Maybe that’s a Q3 story, but it wasn’t a June story.

By late last month, “investors” were beside themselves. Outperformance for the Nasdaq 100 versus US small-caps was at unprecedented levels headed into H1’s final month. That couldn’t possibly be sustainable, they said. And it wasn’t. The Russell 2000 outperformed big tech in June. The problem for “investors”: Both rose.

Worse for “investors,” the equal-weighted S&P outperformed its cap-weighted counterpart for the first time since January. Discretionary cohorts joined systematics in adding equity exposure, and retail jumped on board too.

Insult to injury for “investors”: The US economy was outperforming expectations, pushing the Bloomberg economic surprise index to a two-year high.

As the curtain closed on the first half, the only assets on planet Earth not working were commodities and anything to do with Mao’s lumbering command economy. That too was amusing. Headed into 2023, “investors” were pretty sure that raw materials and Chinese assets were two places you wanted to be.

So, let’s assume “investors” are, as one outlet contended Monday, “tempering expectations.” Why in God’s name should we listen to them now?

Something about blind squirrels and nuts, I suppose.