In October, the average stock beat the S&P 500 by the widest margin since April 2009.
Almost nobody noticed, because everybody was busy watching tech fall apart. The Nasdaq-100 slid into a correction, the AI names got hit, and the headlines started asking if the bull market was over.
The way I sort of look at it, the bull market didn’t end.
It moved…And the big money moving into it is leaving a trail you can follow, if you know where to look.
In October, the equal-weight S&P 500, where every stock counts the same, rose 4.95% while the regular S&P 500 fell 0.91%. Bespoke Investment Group counts the swing from September to October as the biggest monthly reversal since at least 1990.
Tech fell 8.3% that month. Consumer staples rose almost 11%.
By Nov. 2, the Nasdaq-100 had closed 10.4% under its October record, and most stocks still went up that day. Two days later, the Dow had its best day of 2026, up more than 1,500 points, while semiconductor stocks fell about 3%.
Coca-Cola, of all things, closed at its 29th record high of the year on Wednesday.
So why does it feel like a bad market?
Because one industry has been driving the index. Warren Pies at 3Fourteen Research ran the numbers this year: the S&P 500 is up 71% on the days semiconductors rise and down 34% on the days they fall. As he put it, no industry has dictated index performance this much.
When semis crack, the index looks terrible. Meanwhile, a lot of the market is sort of quietly doing fine.
When I trade I need a mathematical edge. And the best one I know is institutional interest, meaning the footprints big funds leave when they build positions they can’t hide.
And they’ve been busy.
In the week through Oct. 15, hedge funds sold tech at the fastest pace in at least a decade, according to Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage data. Most of that selling came from funds dumping stocks they already owned.
That money didn’t vanish.
It went somewhere, and I think that’s where the next 20% is.
So I’m hosting a free, two-day briefing on Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 18 and 19.
I’ll walk you through the four factors behind the market “house fire” we’re stuck in right now, and why the richest investors are able to make these silent trades.
I’ll also show you how I’ve used institutional interest to win 96% of my trades over the last four years. Then I’ll name the three sectors in the hidden bull market and explain how I found them.
When you RSVP, you’ll also get my free report, “The Sleeper Stock to 10X in 2027.”
Andrew Giovinazzi