Looking for a simple bull case? Of course you are. Who’s going to turn down a little confirmation bias for an incurable penchant to chase rallies?

I’m just kidding. But I do have a simple bull case for you: Over the past century, the median return for US equities from mid-October through New Year’s Eve is better than 5%. That’s according to Goldman’s Scott Rubner, who also said that if you screen for election years, the median return during that window is more than 7%.

Simple math suggests that if (median) past is precedent, we “should” see SPX 6150 at least by year-end, and maybe 6250.

There’s the visual proof, straight from Scott himself.

Much as it pains to me to say it, that’s probably about as good a bull case as any other. I’m pretty adamant (and always have been) about the notion that fundamentals matter far more than any seasonals or sentiment patterns, but the line between fundamentals and non-fundamentals is blurry. Take seasonals for example: They aren’t coincidence. There are reasons for the seasons, so to speak, and those reasons are in many cases fundamentals-based.

Rubner’s a flows guy. The flows guy, maybe. In his latest, he reiterated that we’re “entering a positive equity flow-of-funds trading environment” with corporates exiting the blackout in just 10 days, and executions set to accelerate (see the table in the middle, below).

Not that anyone needs a reminder, but just in case: The corporate bid is the largest source of US equity demand. Companies “have scope to add ~$6 billion per day, every day, to close out the year,” Rubner remarked.

The figure on the right, above, shows you the median monthly equity flow impulse as a percentage of AUM. Every week, I do a flows update showing net buying (or net redemptions) from equity-focused ETFs and mutual funds. The right-most chart above uses the same dataset.

“Households buy equities in November [and] households really buy equities after election years,” Rubner went on, adding that “this happens even if you do not unwind your T-bill position (but I am sure that some may).” That latter remark could be an oblique reference to David Kostin’s latest, which found Goldman’s research-side equities chief (Scott’s on the trading side) casting doubt on the cash-to-stocks rotation narrative, which Rubner’s floated from time to time.

Editorializing a bit further around recent equity gains, Rubner said he “didn’t have ‘spooky 6k’ by Halloween” on his bingo card. I don’t think he’s giving himself enough credit. It’s true that Scott suggested the next several weeks might be a bumpy ride prior to a November-December rally, but he also said recently that his SPX 6000 call for year-end might be too low.

He was pretty unequivocal in his latest. “The equity market selloff is canceled,” Scott said. “I think the S&P 500 is well north of 6K by the end of the year.”