Complacency in US stocks ?

S&P500 is sitting at all time high. AI is the unstoppable train. Life is good if you are long stocks.

BUT there are two forces at work... Oil price staying high. Rates are going up in many countries. The latest headlines for rates are USA/France. Inevitably, economies will slow if these two forces persist.

This article from AFR is worth a read.... Under the surface, breadth (in the S&P) is weak...

https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/five-big-cracks-in-global-markets-have-opened-up-20261005-p612tf

"The first crack is in public equity markets. The apparent strength in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, which closed at a record high on Friday night, isn’t all that it seems – both indices have got bad cases of bad breadth.

A healthy bull market is one where lots of individual stocks in an index are taking part in the rally. In a market where breadth is poor, the index gains are driven by a relatively small number of companies. According to Goldman Sachs, market breadth is at its lowest level since the dotcom bubble, and several statistics tell the story.

For example, the median stock in the S&P 500 is 17 per cent below its all-time high, and a staggering 400 of the 500 stocks are trading below their 50-day moving average. Meanwhile, concentration is off the charts as just three stocks – Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft – represent over 21 per cent of the index.

The breadth story for the Nasdaq 100 is similarly striking: nearly 60 per cent of the stocks in the index are in bear market territory, down at least 20 per cent from their previous peaks.

These breadth numbers make a lie of the idea that stocks are unaffected by surging bond yields. Yes, a handful of very large tech companies that appear insensitive to rising interest rates and bond yields – for the moment at least – are driving the index higher."

Headline number may be fine but something is brewing under the surface.

Plus US mid term election coming up... The US market may swing around, depends on the election outcome.

These days, can earn pretty decent interest rate in bank deposit... Not a bad time to slow down and move to cash....and wait it out if you ask me.