We’re in inning seven of the current equity market melt-up, which is to say it ain’t over ’til it’s over. And it (probably) ain’t over.

That’s according to Goldman’s — wait, scratch that, Citadel‘s Scott Rubner, who returned this week with a new note from his new desk.

If the question’s whether it’s time to fade the rally, the answer, in his words, is “We are not there yet.”

As most readers are well apprised, the vol seasonal turns challenging in August, but the equity seasonal is a September issue.

The simple figure above shows you September returns for the S&P going back two decades or so. They aren’t great. Indeed, since 1928, September’s the worst month of the year for the benchmark. (July’s the best.)

Rubner suggested adding index hedges midway through next month, given that September 2’s generally the seasonal peak.

The figure on the left, below, shows you the typical progression for the S&P in September looking back nearly a century. (Has it really been that long since the Depression? It seems like just yesterday.)

In the figure on the right, Rubner pans out to show you the entire Q3 seasonal. Again: Things tend to go ok until Labor Day, at which point it can get dicey.

So, what’s supposed to bolster equities over the next six or so weeks? Well, as documented here on a number of occasions, including this week in “Burning Questions,” institutional positioning’s still pretty subdued, even as cash levels have plunged.

And although systematics have re-allocated, they “still [have] room to add given the decline in realized volatility,” Rubner remarked, referencing the ongoing downward reset in longer-lookback measures of trailing realized, which are still seeing those April “shock” sessions drop from the sample.

At the same time, retail investors are inclined to buy dips — “you only live once,” as they say, and houses are too expensive. On Citadel’s data, retail was a net buyer of cash equities for 14 straight sessions through mid-week. That, Rubner remarked, was “the longest daily retail buying streak since December.”

And then there’s buybacks. Good ol’, wholesome buybacks. Wednesday, Rubner went on, was “peak earnings blackout.” From here, corporates “will be re-emerging from the blackout window” and August is “typically a positive month for corporate flows,” he said.

For the full year, the C-suite’s expected to eat $1 trillion of its own cookin’ to remain the largest source of US equity demand.