The stock market’s most hated rally keeps getting stronger — and the tape is starting to look historically unusual.
The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is now riding a 13-day winning streak, a run it has matched only once in four decades. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (^SOX) has gained 13 days straight only one other time in data back to 1994, while the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) has managed it just twice since its 1999 launch.
Those streaks are rare. The setting is even stranger.
Key markets, including the S&P 500 (^GSPC), Nasdaq Composite, Russell 2000 (^RUT), Dow Transports (^DJT), SOX, and XLK, are all at fresh records. That makes this look less like a bounce off the mat and more like a market that keeps refusing to back down.
That helps explain why this rally still feels so hated. In a recent interview, Trade to Close founder Olivia Voznenko said the bearish tell earlier this year — before the Iran war sell-off — was that there was “no blue sky breakout on any news.” But as she put it, “it’s not the news, it’s how traders trade the news.”
The weekly stats tell a similar story.
The S&P 500 is on track for its third straight weekly gain of more than 3% — something not seen since November 2002. The Nasdaq Composite, SOX, and XLK are also putting together the kind of three-week surge last seen off the lows following the dot-com bust, when tech was still widely viewed as broken and uninvestable.
The current broadening is notable too. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) just had its best week since October 2001, a sign this rally is no longer just about semis.
Those historical echoes are encouraging, but they are not a perfect fit. Unlike those 2001 and 2002 episodes, stocks are now breaking to fresh highs, which brings a less comfortable comparison into view: March 2000, when a similar burst of momentum arrived near the top of the dot-com boom, not the start of a lasting new leg higher.
And there’s one more wrinkle hiding under the surface. Market breadth has yet to fully confirm this breakout, even with the S&P 500 at new highs. So the rally is not getting an all-clear from every corner of the market just yet, as concentration concerns once again bubble to the surface.
Still, the tape has changed.
Over these 13 days, the market is no longer treating strength as something to sell into. It’s building on it and encouraging traders to buy even the shallowest dips. And Voznenko’s line remains the simplest way to read what is happening now: “It’s not the news, it’s how traders trade the news.”
