Moderately bullish positioning — Margin Debt YoY +53.7%, Buffett Indicator 219%, Shiller PE (CAPE) 40.70.

The CAPE ratio compares prices to 10 years of inflation-adjusted earnings, so a single boom or bust year doesn't distort it. Today it sits near 36–39 versus a long-term average around 17 — a level exceeded only in 1929 and the 2000 dot-com peak.

Worth knowing Miscalibrated, not broken. Three forces inflate it versus history: post-2001 accounting changes around goodwill and intangible write-downs depress reported earnings (Shiller himself has acknowledged this); the index is now ~30% asset-light mega-cap tech that justifies higher multiples; and earnings are increasingly global while the ratio is treated as US-only. It's still useful for 10-year return forecasting and US-vs-international comparison — but notoriously bad at timing crashes. A "fair" modern CAPE is probably closer to 25–28 than to the old 17.

This compares the total value of the U.S. stock market to the size of the economy (GDP). The logic: over the long run, market value and output should grow together, so a very high ratio suggests stocks have run ahead of the real economy. It currently sits near 232% — above even its dot-com-era peak.

Worth knowing Treat this as a regime flag, not a signal — its denominator is broken. The market cap on top reflects the global earnings of U.S.-listed companies, while the GDP on the bottom counts only domestic output. Roughly 41% of S&P 500 revenue now comes from abroad (about 56% for Big Tech), and the index's seven largest companies — earning huge sums overseas from software and intangibles that GDP barely measures — are now a third of the entire index. If Amazon's India business were shut down, its stock would fall but U.S. GDP wouldn't move at all: the linkage is one-sided. Adjust for global revenue, for intangibles, or for interest rates (Buffett also originally used GNP, not GDP), and "severely overvalued" softens toward ~185%. The honest read: at 232% this is not a cheap market — but how much is genuine overvaluation versus a metric that's simply obsolete is unresolved.

The National Association of Active Investment Managers reports how much of their clients' money is currently in stocks — from net short (below 0) to leveraged long (above 100). It shows what professionals are actually doing with real money, not just what they say.

Worth knowing It reflects real positioning, but it's a survey and positioning can swing quickly. Read it as a trend rather than a single week's snapshot.

This tracks how fast investors are borrowing against their portfolios to buy more stock, measured year-over-year. Rapidly rising margin debt reflects growing leverage and risk appetite; sharp declines often accompany forced selling during downturns.

Worth knowing Partially reliable. FINRA margin debt only captures traditional brokerage borrowing — it misses leverage hidden in options, total-return swaps, and synthetic instruments — so it understates how much borrowed money is really in the system. Rising margin debt is a genuine warning; flat margin debt is not an all-clear.