EXCLUSIVE: Cem Karson Says S&P 500 Record Run Is Unlike Anything Seen In A 100 Years As Market Clocks Another High

• Kai Volatility Advisors founder Cem Karsan told Stocktwits in an exclusive interview that the current rally has no historical parallel in the last 100 years.
• This time around, he said investors have been “trained” to buy market dips due to persistent government and policy support.
• Karsan expects stocks to continue climbing through the summer before risks increase later in the year.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were on track to extend their record-setting rally in morning trade on Thursday, even after back-to-back inflation reports came in hotter than Wall Street expected.

“We have never, ever seen a rally of this speed at this size not coming from a 20% decline or greater,” the founder and CIO of Kai Volatility Advisors, Cem Karsan, told Stocktwits in an exclusive interview. “We have nine instances in 100 years. This is a one-in-a-hundred-year, first-time-only, data set of one in a century. I haven’t seen this before. It’s a new one. And yet I’m numb to it.”

In the previous session, both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh record highs and also hit new intraday peaks, despite investors facing off against another round of elevated inflation data.

The S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) edged 0.33% higher at market open. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the fund rose to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish’ territory over the past day, accompanied by chatter at ‘normal’ levels.

The Nasdaq tracking Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ) moved 0.23% higher, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) rose 0.44%. Both saw retail sentiment in the ‘bullish’ zone alongside ‘high’ levels of chatter. 

Why Cem Karsan Says This Rally Is Different

Karsan noted that in all nine previous instances of a comparable rally in the 100-year dataset, the common thread was a prior crisis. Markets had fallen 20%, 25%, 30% or more, while investors were under positioned, scared, and short. He noted that it was usually a government response in the shape of a liquidity injection, rate cuts, or fiscal stimulus to reverse the downtrend. 

The current rally also had investors under allocated, shorts squeezed but arrived without the prior decline, according to Karsan. The crisis that typically forced that under allocation was replaced by an administration actively creating it.

“The one difference is why the data set is a one. It’s the first time in history, in a century of history, that the government has been this activist and interventionist in squeezing the market into that context.”  

— Cem Karsan, Founder & CIO, Kai Volatility Advisors

According to Karsan, the administration’s public messaging and policy approach have reinforced investor confidence that market weakness will repeatedly be met with supportive rhetoric or policy actions.

“It’s not you sensing it,” he said in the interview. “You’re being trained. You buy the dip and you better buy the dip or you better not be short, because the admin’s gonna come in.”

The Market’s ‘Buy The Dip’ Reflex Keeps Strengthening

Karsan stated that the scale of the current rally is creating its own liquidity cycle. He said that the entire global equity market is valued at around $300 trillion and estimated that a 20% rally creates $60 trillion in new collateral for corporations, private equity, and leveraged entities to deploy. 

By comparison, the U.S. government’s pandemic-era fiscal response totaled roughly $6 trillion to $7 trillion. “The incremental amount that moves markets on a daily basis is about $75 billion,” Karsan said. “The whole market is $300 trillion. Pocket change.”

Karsan also compared the current environment to the late stages of the dot-com boom. In 1999, S&P 500 earnings growth reached roughly 30%, supported by massive capital spending on internet infrastructure. In the latest quarter of 2026, earnings growth came in near 27%, he said.

How Long Will The Stock Market Rally Last?

Karsan said he still expects markets to push higher through the summer. He pointed to June options-expiration flows, seasonal volatility compression, and continued enthusiasm around America’s 250th anniversary celebrations and the World Cup as factors that could keep risk assets elevated in the near term.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they pulled the V-bottom this April,” Karsan said. “The June vol compression kicks in and then everybody leaves for the beach. The whole thing is: juice it for the summer.”

Karsan believes the next major signal will come through market leadership rotation. He expects AI and semiconductor stocks, which have dominated the rally, to eventually lose momentum as dealer hedging flows shift. At that point, sectors that have lagged the rally, like energy, commodities, and parts of software, could begin outperforming.

“Until it breaks, let the good times roll,” Karsan said. “We are going to squeeze through the summer and then this doesn’t end well eventually.”

The S&P has risen 8.23% this year, while the Nasdaq Composite has climbed over 12% and the Dow Jones has lagged with a gain of just 3.30%. 

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