(Bloomberg) -- The US stock market can flip into a correction territory as retail and institutional buyers are running out of steam, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Scott Rubner, the bank’s managing director for global markets and tactical specialist.
“The flow dynamics change dramatically starting Monday and I am on correction watch,” Rubner wrote in a note to clients Thursday.
US stocks hit a new record high on Wednesday despite uncertainty around tariffs and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path. Strong gains have been driven by resilient corporate earnings and strong flows from retail and institutional investors. But these dynamics could change starting from Monday, Rubner wrote.
Demand from retail traders, which have been piling into US stocks at a record pace this year, is expected to slow down ahead of the tax paying season in March. Flows from pension funds can also “run out of juice,” according to Rubner attributing it to seasonal trends. January and February are typically the strongest months of the year for yearly asset allocations, followed by weaker inflows in March.
Positioning across trend-following systematic funds also looks bearish. Commodity trading advisers, or CTAs, which buy or sell stocks depending on the market direction, are estimated to sell about $61 billion in US stocks over the next month should markets go lower, compared to only about $10 billion of buying in a bullish scenario.
On top of that, options market positioning also points to some volatility. According to Goldman’s estimates, dealers are currently long $9.8 billion of S&P 500 gamma, which acts as a market buffer when dealers are buying the dip. However, the bank’s index trading team estimates that 50% of this long gamma position rolls off Friday, and the market will have the ability to move more freely next week.