Stocks Can’t Get Much More Expensive Than This

June 26, 2025 • 51 second read

With stocks within sight of new all-time highs, a danger we noted in the spring is back—markets are historically overvalued once again.

One measure of looking at the stock market is comparing its current valuation metrics to its historical average.

On an earnings basis, markets are now back to two times standard deviations over their average:

Turn Your Images On

The S&P 500 saw a short dip following Liberation Day in April… but is back to nosebleed valuations. (Source: Andrew Packer)

Only 5% of the time, the stock market is more expensive than it is now.

With corporate earnings yet to reflect the impact of tariffs – and with many of those tariffs likely to come inching back in July – it may be time to take some profits off the table following the stock market’s stellar rebound.

This doesn’t mean the market can crater immediately overnight in another Liberation Day move, but it does mean easy money has been made, and it’s time to start packing up.

Panic now, avoid the rush.

~ Addison

Ripple Effect

Stocks Can’t Get Much More Expensive Than This

Addison Wiggin

June 26, 2025 • 51 second read

market valuation

With stocks within sight of new all-time highs, a danger we noted in the spring is back—markets are historically overvalued once again.

One measure of looking at the stock market is comparing its current valuation metrics to its historical average.

On an earnings basis, markets are now back to two times standard deviations over their average:

Turn Your Images On

The S&P 500 saw a short dip following Liberation Day in April… but is back to nosebleed valuations. (Source: Andrew Packer)

Only 5% of the time, the stock market is more expensive than it is now.

This doesn’t mean the market can crater immediately overnight in another Liberation Day move, but it does mean easy money has been made, and it’s time to start packing up.

Panic now, avoid the rush.

~ Addison

Beware: The Permanent Underclass

October 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Back in the Global Financial Crisis (2008), we recall mass layoffs were driving desperation.

Today, unemployment is relatively low, if climbing.

Affordability is much more of an issue. Food, rent, healthcare, and childcare are all rising faster than wages. Households aren’t jobless; they’re stretched. Job “quits” are at crisis-level lows.

In addition to the top 10% of earners, consumer spending is still strong. Not necessarily because of prosperity, but because households are taking extra shifts, hustling gigs, working late into the night, and using credit cards. The trends hold up demand but hollow out savings.

It’s the quiet form of financial repression. In an era of fiscal dominance, savers see easy returns clipped, workers stretch hours just to stay even, and wealth slips upward into assets while daily life grows harder to afford.

Is Tokenization Inevitable?

October 3, 2025 • Ian King

Last month, Nasdaq asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for approval to let tokenized stocks and ETFs trade on its main exchange.

If approved, these digital shares would sit side-by-side with traditional equities. Meaning, they would fall under the same U.S. securities laws that govern $50 trillion in annual equity trades.

And this rollout could begin as early as 2026, once the Depository Trust Company — the clearinghouse that settles every U.S. stock trade — updates its systems to handle digital tokens.

If it happens, this won’t be a small tweak to the machinery of finance. It’ll represent the first major step toward moving Wall Street onto blockchain infrastructure.

And we don’t have to imagine what it might look like…

Because it’s already happening.

The Myth of Productivity, Again

October 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

The launch of ChatGPT in October 2022 ended the pandemic-era bear market in stocks. The AI story has been the predominant narrative for three years now. The indexes on Wall Street are at historic highs, surpassing 2000, 1968, 1929… the last three tech-inspired bubbles.

But ChatGPT did something else. It brought the idea of “productivity gains” back into the economic conversation.

The Stablecoin Standard

October 2, 2025 • Mark Jeftovic

Stablecoins have proceeded rapidly from being a grey zone through which capital would traverse as it moved into or out of the crypto-economy, to becoming an extension, if not a nascent pillar, of the fiat money system itself.

Coinbase Head of Institutional Research David Duong sees the market cap for stables hitting $1/2 trillion by 2028 (which would be somewhere between a 4X and 5X from where we are now).

Demetri Kofinas recently interviewed Charles Calomiris, former Chief Economist at the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and it was eye-opening to hear someone of his stature speak so matter-of-factly about how the structure of the banking system is evolving in realtime.

Beware: The Permanent Underclass

October 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Back in the Global Financial Crisis (2008), we recall mass layoffs were driving desperation.

Today, unemployment is relatively low, if climbing.

Is Tokenization Inevitable?

October 3, 2025 • Ian King

Last month, Nasdaq asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for approval to let tokenized stocks and ETFs trade on its main exchange.

If approved, these digital shares would sit side-by-side with traditional equities. Meaning, they would fall under the same U.S. securities laws that govern $50 trillion in annual equity trades.

And this rollout could begin as early as 2026, once the Depository Trust Company — the clearinghouse that settles every U.S. stock trade — updates its systems to handle digital tokens.

If it happens, this won’t be a small tweak to the machinery of finance. It’ll represent the first major step toward moving Wall Street onto blockchain infrastructure.

And we don’t have to imagine what it might look like…

Because it’s already happening.

The Myth of Productivity, Again

October 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

But ChatGPT did something else. It brought the idea of “productivity gains” back into the economic conversation.

The Stablecoin Standard

October 2, 2025 • Mark Jeftovic

Coinbase Head of Institutional Research David Duong sees the market cap for stables hitting $1/2 trillion by 2028 (which would be somewhere between a 4X and 5X from where we are now).