When everyone from your barber to your Uber driver talks stocks you know fundamentals have long been ignored. In 2025 that chatter is deafening. People brag about crypto holdings and leveraged ETFs like they built them. You see talk of FIRE dollar cost averaging and compound annual growth rates from folks still paying off student loans. It feels like investing became a participation trophy. Hold long enough and you win. But that is not investing.
This is chaos with a hashtag.
Look at the numbers. Since 2020 the S&P 500 more than doubled. Nvidia surged over three thousand percent through early 2025. Apple and Microsoft climbed past three trillion dollars in market value. Meme stocks and altcoins exploded. Fartcoin Dogecoin Pepe all ballooned into multibillion-dollar markets.
Meanwhile the smart money got crushed. From 2020 to mid 2024 the Russell 1000 Value underperformed Russell 1000 Growth by over thirty percent. Investors who cared about cash flow earnings and debt lagged behind. Fundamentals were treated like a forgotten language.
Now the tide is turning.
Inflation stands at 2.4 percent in May and core CPI holds at 2.8 percent. Interest rates remain steady between 4.25 and 4.50 percent. The Fed is on hold until inflation weakens further. Household debt hit a record eighteen point two trillion dollars in the first quarter of 2025 up nearly three percent year over year. Credit card balances climbed six percent to one point eighteen trillion dollars while auto loans fell slightly.
This shift in debt behavior matters. Mortgage credit card and student loan payments squeeze budgets. Overleveraged households cannot ride another speculative wave if rates hold.
The gap between printed money and real economic strength is cracking.
Markets end these rallies by reconnecting with fundamentals. This is not poetic. It is structural. Earnings must exist. Debt must be serviced. Growth must happen.
These cracks tell you the era of blind speculation is ending. The S&P 500 might wobble higher but that bounce will not last. When credit tightens and earnings disappoint retail will feel it first and hardest.
Grown-up investing is not exciting. It is consistent. Careful. Calculated.
When will fundamentals matter again? They already are. Slowly. Quietly. Then all at once.
The question is whether anyone still listens when the tide rolls out.