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

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

As copper flowed into the United States, LME inventories thinned and backwardation steepened. Higher U.S. pricing, tariff protection, and lower political risk made American warehouses the most attractive destination for metal. Each new shipment strengthened the spread.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

Bears on the Prowl

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Under the frost-crusted shrubs, the bears are sniffing around for scraps of bloody meat.

They smell the subtle rot of credit stress, central-bank desperation, and debt that’s beginning to steam in the cold. They’re not charging — not yet. But they’re present. Watching. Testing the doors.

Retail investors, last in line, await the Fed’s final announcement of the year on Wednesday. Then the central planners of the world get their turn: the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and the European Central Bank.

Treasuries just suffered their worst week since June. And in Japan — the quiet godfather of global liquidity — something fundamental is breaking.

Silver continues its blistering ascent. Gold and bitcoin have settled in at $4,200 and $92,000, respectively.

How To Guarantee Higher Prices

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s absurd, really, for any politician to be talking about “affordability.”

The data is clear. If higher prices are your goal, let the government “fix” them.

Mandates, paperwork, and busybodies telling you what you can and can’t do – it’s not a surprise why costs add up.

In contrast, if you want lower prices, do nothing– zilch. Let the market work.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

December 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

Pablo Hill: An Unmistakable Pattern in Copper

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

Bears on the Prowl

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Under the frost-crusted shrubs, the bears are sniffing around for scraps of bloody meat.

Treasuries just suffered their worst week since June. And in Japan — the quiet godfather of global liquidity — something fundamental is breaking.

Silver continues its blistering ascent. Gold and bitcoin have settled in at $4,200 and $92,000, respectively.

How To Guarantee Higher Prices

December 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s absurd, really, for any politician to be talking about “affordability.”

The data is clear. If higher prices are your goal, let the government “fix” them.

Mandates, paperwork, and busybodies telling you what you can and can’t do – it’s not a surprise why costs add up.

In contrast, if you want lower prices, do nothing– zilch. Let the market work.

Gideon Ashwood: The Bondquake in Tokyo: Why Japan’s Shock Is Just the Beginning

December 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.