Goldman's US High-Beta Basket Falls 37% in July

Goldman’s US Equity Sentiment Indicator*, fell for the fourth week in five now into negative territory at -0.13, the least since late March. The current reading is consistent though with a 1-month average return of around 1% since 2009 with a positive rate over 50%. *The indicator combines “six weekly and three monthly indicators that span [across the more than 80% of the US equity market that is owned by institutional, retail and foreign investors]. Readings of +1.0 or higher have historically signaled stretched equity positioning. Readings of -1.0 or lower have signaled very light positioning and have historically been a statistically significant signal for subsequent S&P 500 performance”. From the Week Ahead (https://lnkd.in/eKq39YCa).

Goldman’s US Equity Sentiment Indicator*, fell for the fifth week in six moving further into negative territory at -0.45, the least since late March. The current reading is consistent though with a 1-month average return of around 1% since 2009 with a positive rate over 50%. *The indicator combines “six weekly and three monthly indicators that span [across the more than 80% of the US equity market that is owned by institutional, retail and foreign investors]. Readings of +1.0 or higher have historically signaled stretched equity positioning. Readings of -1.0 or lower have signaled very light positioning and have historically been a statistically significant signal for subsequent S&P 500 performance”. From the Week Ahead - https://lnkd.in/emEssCPp

Goldman’s US Equity Sentiment Indicator*, fell for the sixth week in seven moving further into negative territory at -0.92, the least since June 2025. The current reading is the second worst bucket for forward returns consistent with a 1-month average return of around 0.3% since 2009 with a positive rate around 53%, but we're very close to the much stronger bucket at -1.0. *The indicator combines “six weekly and three monthly indicators that span [across the more than 80% of the US equity market that is owned by institutional, retail and foreign investors]. Readings of +1.0 or higher have historically signaled stretched equity positioning. Readings of -1.0 or lower have signaled very light positioning and have historically been a statistically significant signal for subsequent S&P 500 performance”. https://lnkd.in/eRVkVx72

Goldman’s US Equity Sentiment Indicator*, fell for the third week in four to 0.27, the least since June 5th. The current reading is consistent with a 1-month average return of around 0.7% since 2009 with a positive rate a little under 60% From the Week Ahead (https://lnkd.in/epx787_6).

Goldman's trading desk: “The market is exhibiting signs of nervousness across a myriad of indicators. This attitude toward risk is not just theoretical, investors are quite literally putting their money where their mouth is in terms of portfolio risk allocations.”

Big day ahead for the Federal Reserve and your retirement savings. Here’s my latest for TheStreet (no paywall!). Do read and share.

BofA sees overall systematic positioning in global equities as having extended positioning further, now nearing the top of its 5-year range (the highest since February). And after briefly flipping to a bias to sell across all scenarios last week — the first time in a month — they are back to a bias to buy, selling only in a significant move to the downside, where the bulk of the risk still sits though. The first layer of sell triggers remain around 2% lower for the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 while the Nasdaq-100 has more cushion (~−4%). Specifically they see: +$35B of buying in a flat market (from −$1B of selling the prior week); +$5B of buying in an “up” market (from −$9B; “up market” defined as the 97.5th percentile price path or ~+3.5%, similar to Goldman); and −$126B of selling in a “down” market (from −$163B last week and −$114B the prior week; “down market” defined as the 2.5th percentile price path or ~−2.9%, different than Goldman who uses −4.5%).

📜 New on the Reuters Global Markets Forum - the *GMF Lens*: When policymakers cap 30-year yields below 5.30%, investors don't vanish - they relocate, Mehnaz Yasmin reports. Citi's Dirk Willer on why Treasury's aggressive buyback effort could backfire, creating negative dollar pressure; Plus why Citi just dumped Treasuries, bought gold, and shorted the dollar. https://lnkd.in/dwT5fAer Sidenote: 'GMF Lens' is our new series of deep-dive live interviews with capital allocators and risk managers run on the Reuters Global Markets Forum, hosted on LSEG Messenger, to interpret recent market developments through the perspective of positioning and flows https://lseg.group/3KFHrhe LSEG Data & Analytics #assetallocation #fixedincome #forex #debt #markets #bessent #treasury #gold #dollar

🚨 ALERT: Goldman Sachs warns of a potential “earnings bubble” as it expects profit growth to slow, but not collapse.

Goldman (Coppersmith): We went home Friday with a huge collapse in broad index panic. Our GS Panic Index fell -3pts Friday, the third-largest 1 day decline in the last three years. So we entered the weekend with continued dispersion, recently rebuilt Tech longs, and much less broad­ index fear priced, which heightened the focus on the Al (and Iran) headlines.