First-quarter GDP grew a soft 1.4%, but the U.S. economy might have more ‘spring’ in its step

US executives are selling stock at extreme levels:

The ratio of insider sellers to buyers hit nearly 6x, the most in at least two decades.

This is DOUBLE the average seen over the last 3 years.

This also exceeds the previous record of 5x seen in 2021 before the bear market…

The US stock market is dominating all other markets:

Currently, the US to global equity ratio stands at an all-time high of 3.2x.

The ratio has DOUBLED in just 8 years as US stock market returns have significantly outperformed global benchmarks.

To put this into a perspective,…

Retail investors are all in:

Total options average daily volume hit ~70 million contracts in November, near the highest on record.

Since 2020, the number of options traded each day has DOUBLED.

0DTE, or “0 days to expiration” options have now accounted for ~60% of volume…

The US economy is slowing:

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) fell -0.4% in October and hit its lowest since March 2016.

This index has not seen an increase for 32 consecutive months, the longest streak on record.

The streak has even exceeded the previous…