They say the market is on borrowed time. Same chorus, same script. Recession around the corner. Credit markets flashing red. Consumers pulling back. Retail falling apart. Housing sliding. We’ve heard it for months.
But the tape does not care.
Every time you think it should roll over, it just keeps climbing. You want to know why? Because the things that actually move this market are not weak. They are on fire. Nvidia just added three hundred billion dollars in value in five trading days. Microsoft is quietly stacking enterprise AI revenue faster than any software cycle in a decade. Google is ripping. Apple is finally wide awake and throwing billions at its own stock like it discovered religion.
These four names are not just big. They are half the index. And they are not flashing weakness. They are dragging the entire market higher.
Meanwhile, the same crowd keeps yelling about delinquencies and defaults. Yes, borrowing costs spiked. What did you expect after the fastest rate hiking cycle in four decades? Of course there will be pain. But this is not 2008. Unemployment is still under four percent. Corporate balance sheets are strong. The banks are not blowing up. The system is absorbing it.
The Fed sees all of this. Powell is not blind. He does not want a crash in an election year. He wants to coast. He wants a soft landing. And if anything cracks, he cuts. One bad payroll print and the press release is already written.
And here’s the punchline. This market is not priced for perfection. It is priced for slightly less bad. It is pricing the chance that we might actually get a few cuts. Yields are easing. Buybacks are rolling. Liquidity is shifting back in. And nothing else is offering a thirty percent return year to date like the QQQ.
The real problem is not the market. The real problem is you. You are still stuck in 2022. You do not trust green candles. Every rally looks like bait. Every breakout looks like a trap. But markets do not crash when everyone is scared. They crash when everyone is dancing. Right now, most people are still hiding in T bills and buying puts.
And while they hide, capital is flowing into tech. Into semis. Into size. Boomers are auto investing. Apple is buying hand over fist. And Powell is hoping AI can bail him out. This is not euphoria. This is disbelief. And that is exactly why it keeps grinding higher.
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice.