Macro Dashboard Update

Epic Equity Squeeze / Global Macro Dashboard

Merely a week ago, Trump was openly discussing the annihilation of an entire civilisation. Seven days later, the S&P is trading at 7000 after touching 6600 a week ago. Let that sink in.

Markets have an extraordinary ability to reprice hope at warp speed. The ceasefire headlines, however fragile and however far from any real peace deal, were enough to trigger an aggressive short-covering rally for the record books. Hedge funds net bought global equities for the first time in eight weeks. US-listed ETF shorts declined by over 11% in a single week — the largest weekly percentage covering in ten years. CTAs hoovered up an estimated $19 billion in US equities, the biggest single-week surge in systematic buying since August 2024. This wasn’t conviction buying. This was a positioning squeeze dressed up as a rally.

Beneath the index-level rebound, the tape was far from indiscriminate. There was clear demand for leadership and aggressive shorting of laggards, nowhere more visible than inside the AI complex, where the gap between winners and losers hit an all-time high. Software net exposure has collapsed to just 1.4% of total US net, a full round trip back to the record lows we saw in late February. Meanwhile, consensus still expects 12% year-on-year S&P earnings growth this quarter, with Info Tech alone accounting for nearly 90% of the index's total EPS growth. The micro keeps getting stronger even as the macro remains deeply unresolved.

And that’s the puzzling situation for many investors. While the market has declared the war as over, I wouldn’t be so quick to close that book. The Islamabad talks produced nothing concrete. Iran still controls the Strait. The ceasefire is armed, fragile, and could unravel at the drop of a hat. Since the conflict began, headline PCE forecasts have been revised up by a full percentage point, GDP growth has been cut, and unemployment expectations are creeping higher. The stagflationary undertow hasn’t gone away just because the VIX has come in.

Here’s what I keep coming back to. Our dashboard flagged last week that momentum in equities had turned. Not hope, not narrative, not vibes — the model turned. And this is the point I want to stress, especially for those who found the past few weeks disorienting. It’s easy to get anchored by headlines, by the emotional whiplash of annihilation rhetoric one day and rally mode the next. The models don’t care about any of that. They read price, flow, and structure. When they turn, you pay attention. When they don’t, you stay disciplined. That’s the entire point of having a process.

A reminder that the dashboard, the underlying individual charts and the signals are all now located on our newly dedicated site under pa-globalmacro.com.

Paid subscribers can access all current tools using their emails. I am working on additional tools and delivering content directly to subscribers, so bear with me.

The 2026 buy-and-hold portfolio is now at a new high, having comfortably outperformed US equity indices through the recent volatility. The hedges embedded in the portfolio performed their role during the drawdown and remain in place. While the market may have moved on, the risks haven’t. A renewed flare-up in the Gulf, a breakdown in the ceasefire, a Hormuz headline at 3 am — any of these could reprice risk as violently as the rally just repriced hope.

For paid subscribers, I’ve broken down the positioning data in detail below, the key flow signals, what the model is telling us across asset classes, and how I’m thinking about the portfolio from here.

Let’s go!