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What a year this has been, and what an insane past few weeks…

The market has been in an oil CRAZE, and it seems that despite the worry of the oil markets, despite the overvaluation of the markets, despite the insane debt levels of the US government, despite it all… the money printer that is the United States stock market has pushed forth to higher and higher levels.

Year-to-date, the stock market has risen nearly 8% — a figure I honestly thought was near impossible. Since 1993, the SPY has averaged an 8.65% CAGR, with relatively few major drawbacks. The following graph represents the market’s CAGR as it changes throughout the years from 1993 to 2026. Make a note that nearly anytime we see a dip in the graph, the market is offering an incredible buying opportunity.

It should come as no surprise that in recent years, CAGR has made massive jumps. Since 2023, the market CAGR has been 17.85%, and assuming positive returns through the end of 2026, we will be looking at the fourth consecutive year of gains.

Since 1993, the market has seen more than 3 years of straight gains for more then 4 months in a row only 3 times. Once from 1995 - 1999 (5 years), another time from 2003 - 2007 (5 years), and now from 2023 - 2026 (4 years). I am sure I don’t need to remind you what happened in the years following those great market runs ending in 2000 and 2008.

One thing I do think is important to mention, however, is the returns that we have been experiencing these past few years relative to the most similar bubble. Before the Dot Com bubble that occurred in 2000, the average returns were 26%, while the current average returns are 18%.

Now, I am not saying that before any kind of market downturn, we need to average 26% returns, but I did just want to show that the market still does have room to run relative to what we have seen historically.

One of the largest differences we have now, relative to the 2000’s crash, is real earnings growth. Companies are truly seeing earnings growth, and we know that earnings growth typically translates into growth in the S&P 500.

We can also look at the two (earnings growth and SPY growth) on the same chart, and get a similar depiction.

Again, here you can see that things track quite similarly along with one another. When there is an increase in earnings, the SPY tends to see an increase in the price of shares.

I wanted to share all of this information for two reasons.

* The market doesn’t go up and to the right for infinity. There has to be a reason for the market’s value to increase.

* We are approaching levels of growth that have historically pointed to following declines.

This week, I just wanted to look at some quick, super generalized trends we are seeing just with the S&P 500 relative to recent events and how substantially different they are from normal. I also wanted to note the fact that even though we are extremely far away from normal, we are also very far away from the insanity that we had in the 2000s.

I know that the mainstream media makes it feel so deeply that the world is falling apart, but the reality is that we are still okay.

Yes, the world is crazy, and the market is volatile, but overall, the market’s momentum is positive, and earnings keep proving the growth in the S&P isn’t nonsensical.

Now I want to get into my portfolios and some potential research bets later this week. For now, I want to get into and share the current stocks we are invested in. We have had relatively solid performance on these picks to date (as is seen on our website https://thesimpleside.news/research for paid subscribers).

I just wanted to share all of the current bets as well that exist outside of the portfolios.