Lessons From Past Lift Offs

The big things you need to know:

• First, our review of S&P 500 performance during the Fed hiking cycles that have occurred since the mid 1990s reminded us that the stock market tends to stumble at lift off, with a median initial drop of 9.6% (ex 2022, which was an extreme outlier). This keeps us vigilant for a near-term tier 1/garden variety pullback of 5-10% in the S&P 500.
• Second, other things that jumped out in our updates this week included the sharp drop in AAII net bulls to levels that have generally marked the low since early 2025 when the liberation day tariffs shocked the market (which suggests investor sentiment is at a crossroads), and the choppiness we continue to see in most major positioning trades (Growth/Value, US/non-US) other than Small Caps which have continued to underperform Large Caps.