April’s Rally Was More Than a Sugar Rush

In 1952, the fashion world was in a quiet crisis. Paris couldn't agree on where a woman's waist should sit. High waist, low waist, natural waist, no waist at all — every designer had a different answer, and the phrase "the wandering waistline" became the shorthand for a moment when no one could agree on what normal was supposed to look like.

We're living through something similar right now — except the disagreement isn't about fashion. It's about the economy.

In April, consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since that same year, 1952. People feel rattled — by headlines, by oil prices, by geopolitical tension. And yet the stock market just posted some of its best monthly numbers in decades. The S&P 500 hit new all-time highs. The Nasdaq had its best month since 2002. The gap between how Americans feel and what markets are doing is about as wide as it has ever been.

Here's the thing: that gap is not a warning sign. It's actually a tailwind.

When pessimism runs this deep, it tends to lift markets over time rather than drag them down. Worried investors sitting in cash eventually come back in. Skeptics become believers. History shows that these moments of disconnect — where sentiment is depressed but fundamentals are solid — have more often extended rallies than ended them.

Every time sentiment has crashed this far — markets have responded:

Source: University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers; Fortis Analytics. S&P 500 forward returns are approximate 12-month price returns from each noted trough. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

And the fundamentals right now are genuinely solid.

01

What the Numbers Are Actually Telling Us

April's market performance wasn't a fluke driven by a few big tech names. Nine out of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished the month in positive territory. The gains ran from the largest companies all the way down to the smallest. That kind of broad participation matters — it signals durability, not a sugar rush.

The engine behind all of this is AI infrastructure. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are spending hundreds of billions of dollars building out data centers and the chip capacity to power them. That capital flows directly into semiconductor revenues, which flows into earnings across the broader market. This isn't hype anymore — it's a multi-year spending cycle with real numbers behind it. Growth is outpacing value, and we believe that continues.

02

Oil, the Middle East, and a Market That's Made Up Its Mind

Yes, crude oil spent most of April above $90 a barrel. Yes, the situation in the Middle East is genuinely unresolved. These are real risks and we don't dismiss them.

Capital is flowing toward growth, toward technology, toward the future — and away from the idea that energy prices control everything.

Europe is more exposed here than the US. Germany and Italy rely heavily on fossil fuels for industrial energy, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage as prices stay elevated. The US, as a net energy exporter, is insulated from the worst of it — and that supports domestic earnings.

Earlier this year, we leaned into commodities deliberately, and it paid off. But the environment has shifted, and we're shifting with it.

03

What We're Doing With Your Portfolio

For the first half of the year, we kept portfolios tilted toward value, mid-cap stocks, commodities, and higher-than-normal cash. That was the right call — it protected capital during a volatile stretch and delivered meaningful outperformance.

That chapter is closing. The earnings story, the AI buildout, and the breadth of April's rally have given us the conviction to move more aggressively. We are actively deploying our cash position back into growth-oriented equities. This isn't a leap of faith — it's a response to data that keeps pointing in the same direction.

The world is still complicated. Geopolitical risk doesn't disappear because markets rally. We're watching carefully.

But just like 1952's wandering waistline eventually found its shape — and the decade that followed became one of the most prosperous in American history — we think the current confusion will resolve itself. The earnings are real. The investment cycle is real. The breadth is real.

This is not the moment for excessive caution. It's the moment to make sure your capital is moving.