The Quality Stocks Index Is A Screaming Buy… For The Long Haul

The gap between high-flying tech stocks – soaring far beyond their earnings growth – and companies delivering slow, but steady growth, has reached an extreme last seen in 1999:

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Quality stocks are underperforming the overall market at levels seen in the late 1990s. (Source: Jeff Weniger via X)

The S&P 500 Quality Index ranks companies not by market cap or a compelling AI story, but rather by fundamentals. Earnings, profit margins, and financial leverage. Reasonable debt.

You know, the kind of stuff that makes your eyes glaze over. And the type of companies we like to hold for the long haul in our model portfolio.

Today’s underperformance in quality stocks is another sign that we’re in a cycle where tech earnings are driven by a story, not by fundamentals – classic signs of a bubble.

While most data points we’ve reviewed indicate the bubble is still in its early stages, the Quality Stocks Index at this extreme is a sign of a late-stage bubble.

Today’s Quality Index gives you another reason to take some profits off the table now, as we’ve prescribed in thePlunge Protection Plan.

~ Addison

P.S. We’ve invited New Yorker, Andrew Zatlin, to join this week on Grey Swan Live! for obvious reasons: we want to get a boots-on-the-ground look at what incited young voters to elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, to office in the world capital of finance. It’s an entertaining subject, at the very least.

With customary aplomb, we expect Zat to regale us with his thoughts on Mamdani, the purported exodus of finance bros to Florida and Texas and what the Federal government shutdown revealed about unemployment and the real economy behind the AI capex spending bubble. More to come…

If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

The gap between high-flying tech stocks – soaring far beyond their earnings growth – and companies delivering slow, but steady growth, has reached an extreme last seen in 1999:

Turn Your Images On

Quality stocks are underperforming the overall market at levels seen in the late 1990s. (Source: Jeff Weniger via X)

The S&P 500 Quality Index ranks companies not by market cap or a compelling AI story, but rather by fundamentals. Earnings, profit margins, and financial leverage. Reasonable debt.

You know, the kind of stuff that makes your eyes glaze over. And the type of companies we like to hold for the long haul in our model portfolio.

Today’s underperformance in quality stocks is another sign that we’re in a cycle where tech earnings are driven by a story, not by fundamentals – classic signs of a bubble.

While most data points we’ve reviewed indicate the bubble is still in its early stages, the Quality Stocks Index at this extreme is a sign of a late-stage bubble.

Today’s Quality Index gives you another reason to take some profits off the table now, as we’ve prescribed in thePlunge Protection Plan.

~ Addison

If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

If I were to sum up the mindset of New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, it would be We want something for nothing, and we want the rich to pay for it. Instead, they will get nothing for something, and they will pay for it with a degraded quality of life.

Mamdani’s victory was paved with ingratitude for the blessings New Yorkers receive daily. The mindset demanding “something for nothing” from society is not just a political phenomenon, but a profound lapse in economic understanding and moral character.

Stablecoins — those blockchain-backed dollars like USDC and Tether — are expanding faster than any traditional banking product in history.

Each new token represents demand for short-term U.S. assets, deepening global liquidity while quietly helping finance the national deficit.

The catch? It moves power from banks to algorithms. That’s a good thing for you and me.

However, Treasury collateral will ultimately replace bank credit as the foundation of money. The U.S. dollar will gain reach, but further lose control.

In plain English: there’s a new wave of easy money coming fast. We expect this will boost the already terrifying bull market even higher.

This is a perfect time to “panic now, and avoid the rush,” as we outline in our Plunge Protection Strategy. Sell ⅓ or half of your positions into the buyer frenzy. Let the rest of your winners ride.

Real assets in general tend to hold their value during inflationary periods — because they’re not just paper promises. They’re tangible. They’re productive. They’re the raw inputs the economy is actually built on.

One of the most obvious opportunities right now — possibly the most mispriced sector in the entire market — is energy.