Confession: I’ve Just Stopped Trading the Market

Hey, Ross here:

I’ve just stopped trading the market.

I explain what I mean later on.

But first, let’s look at what the market may be telling us next.

Chart of the Day

This is Goldman Sachs’ Equity Sentiment Indicator.

It measures how aggressively investors are positioned in U.S. stocks – with positive readings showing more bullish positioning and negative readings showing more caution.

And it has fallen for six of the past seven weeks.

It’s now sitting around -0.92 – the weakest reading since June 2025.

Historically, when sentiment has fallen into this range, the next month hasn’t exactly been spectacular.

Average S&P 500 return: roughly 0.3%.

Positive only about 53% of the time.

So broad positioning still looks pretty cautious.

Nothing crazy there.

But take a look at this next chart.

Nearly 45% of S&P 500 stocks now have a negative three-month beta.

Beta measures how closely a stock tends to move with the market.

Normally, if the S&P rises, most stocks rise with it.

If the S&P falls, most fall too.

Negative beta means stocks that move in the opposite direction as the broader market.

And right now, almost half the stocks in the S&P 500 have been doing just that.

That is a massive breakdown in the usual relationship between the index and the stocks underneath it.

So even if you perfectly call the next move in the S&P…

There’s a pretty good chance that tells you very little about what an individual stock is about to do.

And this changes the way we want to trade.

Insight of the Day

When stocks stop following the market, stop trading the market.

A lot of traders start with a market call.

Bullish on the S&P? Buy stocks.

Bearish? Stay away.

That works a lot better when most stocks are actually moving with the index.

Right now, they aren’t.

Nearly half the S&P has been marching to its own beat.

So I’d rather spend less time trying to nail every wiggle in the index…

And more time figuring out what’s happening inside the individual company.

Is the business improving?

Is something changing that Wall Street hasn’t fully picked up yet?

And are the people with the closest view of that business putting their own money behind it?

That last one is especially powerful.

Because when a CEO, CFO or Director starts buying a meaningful amount of stock with personal cash…

They’re making a very specific bet on one company.

Not the S&P.

Not the economy.

Not the Fed.

One business.

And in a market where individual stocks are increasingly ignoring the index…

That kind of company-specific clue becomes a lot more valuable.

That’s exactly what I’ll be covering in our encore LIVE session happening later today at 11 a.m. Eastern.

I’ll show you how I track legal insider purchases…

The warning signs that tell me which buys to ignore…

And the insider signals I use to find the transactions with the strongest conviction behind them.

It’s the same strategy that has pointed us toward opportunities like Crown Castle before an 851% move… Extra Space Storage before 1,204%… and Viking Therapeutics before 1,829%.

I’ll also show you several stocks these insiders are buying right now.

Click here to secure your seat for today’s encore LIVE training…

And I’ll see you in just a bit at 11 a.m. ET.

P.S. If you’re planning to attend on a mobile device, make sure you download the presentation app now so you don’t miss anything when it starts. See you there.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/goto/id1465614785
Android: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=goto&c=apps

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Ross Givens
Editor, Stock Surge Daily