Well, I told you so.

I dare say I’ve trafficked in more bullish equity banter over the past two and a half months than during any rolling three-month period since this humble forum’s inception a decade ago. I wish I had a way to quantify “bullish banter.” Because I’d love to make that chart.

I’m not, as any long-time reader can attest, a bullish individual by nature. On the contrary: I’m an incorrigible pessimist. When the subject’s humanity, I’m a permabear.

But when the subject’s risk assets, I try not to allow my overtly dour worldview to color my outlook. Because the inescapable fact is, stocks go up over time and since the late-1980s, American capitalism’s unfortunately morphed into a cult that deifies the bottom line. Only a fool doesn’t recognize a rigged game, and this is a game that’s rigged by shareholders for shareholders. So, guess what I want to be when I grow up? A shareholder, that’s what.

On top of that, the setup since the panic lows in April was skewed heavily in favor of a rally back to record highs for US equities in the event Donald Trump eschewed the temptation to literally blow up the world. He came close on June 21, when seven B-2 bombers dropped 360,000 pounds of explosives on Iran’s mountain-side nuclear research bunker, but as it turns out, the Iranians were even less interested in going to war with the US military in June of 2025 than they were in January of 2020, when Trump incinerated Qassem Soleimani.

Fordo aside, Trump in fact avoided triggering the apocalypse, and because that’s what some folks were pricing in April (in a world where stocks are “supposed” to go up every, single day, a 20% equity drawdown equates to armageddon odds of roughly 90%), an S&P 500 trading at “just” ~20x on a forward multiple was a “bargain.” At the same time, the epic vol crush from the “Liberation Day” shock peaks (~60 10-day, ~50 one-month, ~30 three-month) triggered an enormous, rolling buy impulse from volatility-targeting models.

That chart’s simple, but it really is key: Systematic strats cut their exposure dramatically in April, so there was a lot to add back when the distribution of daily spot outcomes started to compress, pushing rVol lower as the “Liberation Day” shock sessions rolled out of the various lookback windows.

Anyway, a summer rally was a foregone conclusion. “TACO” helped, but so did retail investors, systematic re-leveraging, buybacks and, eventually, Q2 earnings season, which found corporate America clearing a bar that never really reset higher after being lowered sharply in and around the original tariff shock.

I went over most of that — and in greater detail — in the latest Weekly, which you should read if you haven’t. On Tuesday, on the heels of a mostly favorable CPI report, the summer 2025 stock melt-up culminated in yet another new record, the 13th since late June, when the S&P first reclaimed its February highs.

There’s the chart. Or a chart. Lots of records there. Records atop records.

A few words of caution looking ahead. The seasonal turns unfavorable in September for stocks. You know that. You also know that US shares are arguably overvalued.

The seasonal’s just the seasonal, but it’s obviously not a guarantee of any kind. As for valuations, remember that P/E multiples are historically a very poor tool for market timing. Don’t misconstrue that: Starting valuations are pretty much the only thing that matters over long investment horizons, but if you try to pick tops based on P/E multiples alone, you’re just gambling.

For whatever it’s worth, the pros who participated in the August vintage of BofA’s monthly fund manager poll agree almost uniformly that US shares are rich, as shown above. Indeed, that 91% share’s a record in 25 years of poll data.

Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday indirectly threatened Goldman’s Jan Hatzius. “David Solomon should go out and get himself a new economist or, maybe, he ought to just focus on being a DJ and not bother running a major financial institution,” Trump said, referencing Goldman’s often skeptical views on tariffs.

Oh, and Bloomberg helpfully pointed out that earlier this month, Trump’s nominee to replace Erika McEntarfer at the BLS suggested suspending the monthly jobs report. The bureau, E.J. Antoni said, during an interview with Fox, should instead report jobs data quarterly until such a time as the numbers are less volatile.