The Melt-Up Trigger: The Playbook For The Credit Cycle Melt Up
Why the sequence of shocks matters more than any single data point, and what the risk curve is telling you right now
The Melt-Up Trigger: The Playbook For The Credit Cycle Melt Up
The S&P is pushing higher. The Russell is outperforming. Oracle is up 12% on the day. Software is finally catching a bid. All of this is happening while most people are still trying to figure out whether the geopolitical shock was a bear market catalyst or not. It was not. Today, I laid out the credit cycle framework for why we are in a melt-up setup, what is driving it mechanically, and where the risk curve goes from here. Below are the main talking points. The weekend paid report is linked in the section below.
LIVESTREAM FROM TODAY:
Today’s Livestream: Main Talking Points
1. Credit cycles are path-dependent, not clock-dependent. There is no predefined length to an expansion. The post-war expansion of the 1960s ran over a hundred months. The one following 2001 ran less than half that. The 2009 cycle ran 128 months before COVID ended it by external shock rather than internal exhaustion. The cycle does not follow a schedule. It follows the sequence of shocks inside it. That shift in framing changes everything about how you allocate capital right now.
2. The geopolitical shock was a stress test, and the balance sheet passed. When a shock moves through the system and nothing cracks, that is not noise. It is information. Corporate leverage at the hyperscaler level is low. AI credit issuance is accelerating through the volatility. Junk bonds have erased March losses and gone positive on the year. The lowest quality credits in the Russell 3000 are sitting near all-time highs. The shock revealed the underlying balance sheet, and it is not what the stagflation narrative requires it to be.
3. Real rates are 48 basis points from turning negative and that is the mechanical trigger. One-year real rates have already made new lows. We are 48 bips from negative. The last time real rates went deeply negative, the system produced a full TINA melt-up where people losing real purchasing power in cash were mechanically forced into risk assets. The Fed pausing into a short-term supply-side inflation impulse produces the same setup. You do not need a cut. You just need the Fed to do nothing while inflation runs above the nominal rate.
4. The equity risk curve moves mechanically with cost of capital, not randomly. When real rates rise and credit spreads widen, capital is forced up the quality curve into balance sheet strength and out of leverage and speculation. When real rates fall and spreads tighten, capital moves back down the curve into high yield, small cap, and non-profitable growth. That is not a sentiment story. It is mechanical. Right now the movement is down the risk curve. High yield outperforming mega cap, low quality Russell outperforming S&P, non-profitable tech beginning to catch bids. These are not coincidences. They are confirmation of the setup.
5. Central bank balance sheets are not the right liquidity input, and that has confused everyone. Central bank balance sheets have been contracting or flat. People who track only the central bank balance sheet said liquidity was falling, equities should not be rising. They were wrong. Liquidity also flows from government bill issuance, private sector debt issuance, fiscal spending, and cross-border flows.
6. The stagflation risk requires two things simultaneously that the current data does not support. Durable transmission of the inflation re-rating into core CPI, and a Fed response that compounds rather than absorbs the growth slowdown. Core CPI projections remain broadly neutral. Base effects are adding downward pressure on year-over-year numbers. The Fed is at pause as the most hawkish available outcome. The stagflation path is not foreclosed, but the evidence for it is not building.
7. PPI this week is the next data point that matters. Headline PPI expected at 4.6%, up over 100 bips from the last print. But ex-food, energy, and trade, the more core component, is only expected at 3.8% versus 3.5% prior. A small acceleration. If core PPI accelerates significantly beyond that, it reintroduces the hike discussion. If it does not, the normalization path holds and the melt-up setup strengthens.
8. PURR and Oracle remain the two largest positions and the thesis on both is unchanged. Oracle up 12% today, software sector finally rallying. Per continuing to make new highs while Bitcoin chops in a range. PURR is the only institutional-grade vehicle for US investors to front-run the Hyperliquid regulatory integration. The macro liquidity setup that is building is the exact environment that makes that asymmetry most powerful.
[SLIDE DECK]
Here is the slide deck and regime dashboard from the livestream today:
Weekend Report: Credit Cycle Playbook: Stagflation vs Melt-Up
If you missed the paid report I published over the weekend, this is the one to go back and read before the week gets going. It is the full analytical framework behind the actual sources of liquidity and how they connect to the credit cycle.
Tomorrow: Capital Flows | My largest bets in the credit cycle melt up
Daily at 8:30am MST
Tomorrow I am going to zoom out and explain the two largest bets I am taking in the credit cycle right now: PURR and ORCL
LIVESTREAM FOR TOMORROW: LINK
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How long do you think a melt up can last? These IPOs are going to take from other stocks in the market.
Michael Howell is saying that global liquidity has peaked for this cycle. It sounds like you disagree?