Connor Bates

GS Prime: "On a trailing 20-day basis, the recent pace of selling of global AI stocks by HFs is the largest in more than five years."

Source: GS trading desk

GS's Vol Panic Index surging to 9.57 out of 10, making the third-largest daily jump on record.

Source: GS

L/S gross leverage saw its largest weekly decline since Covid. Net leverage is now at five-year lows.

Source: GS

Another example of how “the signs were there” all along.

Again, let me emphasize that this is MUCH easier to recognize in hindsight.

But there's always something to learn from looking back, studying the clues, and figuring out how to better recognize them in real time.

And that's really the message I'm trying to get across with some of these tweets today, both for myself and for others.

It's not about pretending we could have predicted everything. It's about learning from what happened, our market awareness, and improving our ability to recognize these signs the next time around.

The goal is continuous improvement.

The story of 2026. Extreme to extreme.

From a 5-sigma overshoot in Momentum relative to Low Volatility in June... to the absolute carnage we've seen in Momentum stocks... one of the worst drawdowns on RECORD for Momo basket now.

Remarkable how quickly the pendulum can swing from one extreme to the other.