The Allocator

Applying Stan Weinstein’s Stage Analysis to identify weekly Stage 2 breakouts

Current portfolio setups below 👇

Just ran Joel Greenblatt’s Magic Formula screen on Russell 1000 stocks — the results are fascinating.

High ROIC, high earnings yield — pure quality meets value.

Here’s what came out on top 👇📊

How does my 2045 ETF Retirement Portfolio look?

Fully passive. Globally diversified. Built to compound for 20 years.

Curious to compare strategies — how are you investing for 2045?

Stock Screen:

Wide Moat + High ROIC + High Earnings Yield + Momentum

S&P 500 Free Cash Flow Yield at just 2.4% — over 2 standard deviations below its historical average.

History’s best entry points came with higher yields (COVID crash, 2022 bear market).

Today:
➡️ Bond-like returns
➡️ Equity-like risk
Little margin of safety for new capital.

Chart:
Maverick_Equity

#Gold has never been more expensive relative to US Consumer Price Index.

Shiller CAPE > 40.

For the first time since the dot-com bubble in 2000, the Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings ratio has crossed 40.

Such extremes have been rare in history — and they’ve never lasted.

Chart: multpl

Gold’s dramatic outperformance poses a dilemma for asset allocators.

Do we take profits and rebalance — treating gold like any other asset that’s run ahead?

Or is this time different, with gold’s surge acting as a warning sign of a much bigger fiat currency crisis?

European small caps look attractive on valuations vs. U.S. small caps.

The discount is even larger when compared with U.S. large caps.

#Stocks

S&P 500’s Price-to-Sales ratio is now more than double its long-term average.

Strong margins justify part of the premium. But if profitability normalizes, investors may find they’ve overpaid for growth.

Chart: Charlie Biello

#Stocks

US equities trade at record valuations. Historically, such extremes didn’t last and often led to mean reversion.

Stimulus may cushion weakness — but the margin of safety is thin. Diversification is key.

Chart via
@SarnaCapital

#Stocks

30 AI stocks make up 43% of S&P 500’s market cap

And since Nov ’22, they’ve driven nearly all returns + earnings growth.

New era or fragile concentration?

Chart: JPM

Since 2008, gold has outperformed equities outside the U.S.

Three drivers: easy monetary policy, aggressive fiscal expansion, lack of innovation beyond U.S. tech.

For investors, the takeaway is simple: diversification matters.

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

The lesson? Not all inflation is the same. Its root cause matters — for policy, for markets, and for investors

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

I’d argue the inflation surge around Covid will go down in the history books as a classic supply shock.

Lockdowns, disrupted supply chains, energy spikes, and labor bottlenecks created inflation dynamics that looked very different from the classic “demand overheating” story.

US markets closed, Europe sleepy—but changes ahead: Deutsche Bank back in Euro Stoxx 50, Rheinmetall replaces Mercedes. Bonds show stress (UK 30y at ’98 highs, Dutch pension reform looms), gold & silver surge, while S&P valuations look stretched. September could get rough. #markets

How much stronger would Apple be today if the billions spent on buybacks in recent years had instead gone into R&D?

Siri might not be lagging behind. Apple’s position in the AI race might look very different.

#Apple #Stocks

At the start of Meloni’s term, Italian government bond yields traded well above French yields. Today, that spread has all but disappeared.

The lesson? Political headlines often mislead. Capital flows reveal a very different hierarchy of trust.

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

For years, media narratives painted a simple picture:

🇫🇷 Macron as Europe’s political star, leading France into renewal.

🇮🇹 Meloni’s victory as the supposed “end of Western civilization.”

Markets, however, tell a different story.

Hopes for lower U.S. interest rates have recently sparked a strong rebound in small-cap stocks.

The critical question now: can this momentum truly reverse the long-standing relative downtrend versus large caps — or is it just another short-term rally?

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

A reminder: consensus often marks the end of a trend, not the beginning of one.

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

In 2024, the consensus was deafening: “Chinese equities are uninvestable. The only game in town is the Nasdaq.”

But markets love irony. Since that capitulation moment, Chinese stocks have quietly outperformed much of the world.

AI #stocks have reached an unprecedented weight within the S&P 500.

While this reflects genuine innovation, it also raises the risk of a sharp correction at some point.

The key uncertainty: from what level will it start?

Chart: BCA via Oktay Kavrak

Only a small part of US stock market outperformance has come from strong fundamentals. Most of it is driven by a stronger dollar and stretched valuations.

Chart: GMO

US banks now trade above pre-GFC valuations 📈

They also sit at a huge premium to book value vs global peers.

Would you buy a financial stock well above book?

Quality premium… or bubble risk?

Chart:
@johnauthers.bsky.social

And how are you currently positioned? Are you overweight or underweight US stocks in your portfolio?

Chart: John Authers

Since April, US stocks have regained leadership, bouncing back strongly after a brief correction earlier this year.

What’s your take — was that pullback just a healthy pause, or the start of a broader trend shift in favor of non-US equities?

Since the local low in April 2025, US stocks have outperformed emerging markets again — relative performance is back to late summer 2024 levels.

Chart: @johnauthers.bsky.social

The long-anticipated small-cap rally? Still nowhere to be seen.

Even the previously overvalued quality stocks are starting to come back down to earth a bit.

Chart via Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT, MBA & Andrew Sarna

2025 remains a momentum-driven market.

Looking at factor performance so far, momentum is once again clearly outperforming the other factors—just as it did in 2024.