Welcome back, investors. For me, optimism can be hard to shake even in the worst of times. But when almost all the data confirm the pep in my step, it’s impossible to doubt that things will keep getting better before they get worse.

Room to run

If this were a market bubble about to pop, it would be acting very differently. 

When bull markets wind down, leadership typically narrows, company earnings lag stock prices, and investors crowd into the same handful of bets. 

The opposite is happening right now. 

Performance is broadening across regions, market caps and sectors, while earnings — not speculation — are doing the heavy lifting for asset prices. 

Wall Street expects profits to rise meaningfully this year across large-, mid- and small-cap stocks, pushing earnings to levels consistent with sustained growth. 

That directly challenges the idea that the S&P 500’s gains are just a byproduct of a small group of tech giants. Earnings momentum is accelerating without a strong bias for the Magnificent 7.

Share prices, meanwhile, show the same pattern.

Roughly two-thirds of stocks — small, medium and large — are trading above their 200-day moving averages, with levels well above historical norms. 

As Opening Bell Daily has reported for over a year, breadth like that does not resemble a bubble waiting to burst. 

The global outlook reinforces the point.

As resilient as US markets have been, other countries’ stocks are once more taking the lead in 2026. 

The benchmark indexes in Japan, Brazil, China and the UK, for instance, are all nearly doubling the S&P 500 year-to-date. 

Again, that type of dispersion would be an anomaly among history’s great stock bubbles. 

Peak exuberance tends to coincide with global convergence, with capital crowding into the most dominant country’s market. What’s unfolding now is something like diversification — across countries, sectors, and market caps.

To be sure, none of the above means there are no risks.

Geopolitical uncertainty with Greenland, Iran and Venezuela could still inject new variables for investors. Drama at the Fed continues to draw headlines. 

Gargi Chaudhuri, chief investment and portfolio strategist at BlackRock, told me on Full Signal that anything like a shock with interest rates or oil prices could jolt markets.

A slowdown in consumer spending, she added, could also present a negative drag on asset prices.

Still, none of that implies stocks are priced to perfection or irrationally exuberant. 

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📊 Markets are trying to figure out Greenland. President Trump is pushing for Denmark to hand over the region to the US, though investors haven’t reacted too much or considered it an extreme risk. (WSJ)

🇪🇺It’ll be hard for Europe to hit back against US in markets. With President Trump threatening more tariffs, some investors believe the EU could retaliate by selling some of its $10 trillion in US bonds and equities. But that’s easier said than done. (Bloomberg)

🤖OpenAI made $20 billion in annualized revenue for 2025. The ChatGPT-maker’s CFO announced the number Sunday, up from $6 billion the year prior. She added that daily active users for its products continue to hit records. (Reuters)

🗓 January 20, 1986: The US celebrated its first federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, honoring the civil rights hero for the first time on the calendar.

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