We’ve been in a bull market for a long time now — give or take 17 years and counting.
But there have always been caveats.
It’s just the S&P 500.
It’s just the Mag 7.
No other markets are keeping up.
The stock market is too concentrated.
The fundamentals aren’t keeping pace with prices.
Things started to change in recent years.
Diversification is working again. All of capex from the AI buildout started supercharging earnings growth. The Mag 7 stalled out and everything else kept working.
This is finally starting to feel like a real bull market!
Let’s run through a bunch of charts.
We already know the S&P 500 hit new all-time highs last week.
Small caps stock are breaking out to new all-time highs as well:
The Russell 2000 is up almost 25% this year.
Mid cap stocks are at new highs too:
Emerging markets are just off all-time highs but are still up well over 20% in 2026:
Foreign developed stocks are also at new all-time highs:
This includes European stocks:
The bull market has gone global:
And it’s not like the performance of these other markets is coming at the expense of the S&P 500. The S&P is up double-digits this year.
But the 493 is outperforming the Mag 7. The equal weighted S&P 500 is outperforming the market cap weighted version.
Many investors have been worried about valuations for the majority of this bull market. But valuations are actually improving even as the stock market moves ever higher.
It’s counterintuitive and a tad surprising but earnings are growing at a faster clip than stock prices at the moment:
Earnings have been growing so fast that even though the stock market keeps increasing, valuations have actually fallen:
Tech stocks provide and extreme example of this phenomenon.
The tech sector is up 65% since the start of 2025. In that time the forward PE ratio of the sector has dropped from around 29x to 22x expected earnings:
Earnings estimates keep getting ratcheted higher for large caps, mid caps and small caps:
It’s not just earnings that are persistently rising. It’s profit margins too:
This is a proper bull market.
In summary:
We have new all-time highs everywhere you look, rising profits, falling valuations and ever higher margins.
Are there things to worry about in the markets right now?
There are always things to worry about.
Will this last forever?
Of course not.
Will this end badly at some point?
Probably.
Can anyone forecast when that will happen?
No.
My advice?
Enjoy the bull market while it lasts.
It’s a good one. Maybe one of the all-time greats.
Further Reading:
10 Reasons to be Bearish
*Charts via Exhibit A, YCharts and Duality Research.
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