Financial history shows that the American Dream is alive and achievable

Brent Schutte, chief investment officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co., says that the current economic cycle is in "overtime," a point where the stock market gets narrow. As the cycle ends, however, he expects the market to broaden out, which could carry it higher, just driven by small-cap stocks and other industries. As a result, he says investors should stick to their plans and not let their portfolios get too focused on what has worked lately. "This is where, if you are an individual investor, your job is to get from Point A to Point B to Point C in your life. The way that you do that is that you don't concentrate, which can win magnificently and lose magnificently, and if you lose magnificently, you're not going to get back on track." In the "Talking Technicals" interview, Thomas Samuelson, chief investment officer at Vineyard Global Advisors, says the technical underpinnings of the market are solid — though he also took notice of the narrow bands of strength — and sufficient to avoid deterioration into a bear market while the market focuses on the earnings story. "We're pushing $400 a share for earnings next year for the [Standard & Poor's] 500," Samuelson said. "If it trades at 23 times (earnings), you could get up to 9,000. That's 24% higher from here." John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, says that index discounts in municipal bonds and taxable bonds are wide compared to their three-year history, which is creating good opportunities for investors to find closed-end funds trading at wide discounts but supported by improving fundamentals. Scott, who also is chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, uses his firm's "trifecta analysis" to select four funds as exemplars of the opportunities available to income investors now.

Bill Stone, chief investment officer at Glenview Trust, says that the stock market "continues to price in that the Iran conflict is going to be over [soon]," which has kept the focus on blockbuster earnings numbers, which have been so strong that they have overcome virtually all economic and stock market concerns. He expects that earnings trend to continue, powering the market through some summer doldrums to where it finishes the year on a positive note. "Stocks don't go up short-term always with earnings but, long-term, earnings are the fuel that sends stocks higher," Stone says; with the earnings trend in place, he says long-term investors should be less concerned about worrisome headlines about inflation, war and more. Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, looks at the Procure Space ETF (ticker: UFO) as his "ETF of the Week," noting how the fund has been a rocket ship this year, and that it will be worth watching as the SpaceX IPO launches this week and markets adjust to having that big-name stock joining the space-race sector. In the Market Call, Hank Smith, head of investment strategy at The Haverford Trust Co., discusses the benefits of companies that pay growing dividends and that have an A-rated balance sheet.

Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments, says that she is expecting the market to suffer some late summer doldrums as seasonal economic impacts end and mid-term elections put their traditional damper on enthusiasm, but that there will be some support for the market near year's end, making for "a positive year, but nothing like we've seen in the last two years." She acknowledges that makes her forecast a bit more sour than many observers, but says she thinks the market is showing signs of rotating and broadening out, and that change will slow down stock gains. Also contributing to that will be continued economic uncertainty; Fernandez does not expect a recession, but noted that stagflation could be hard to avoid if inflation gets higher and stickier and the War in Iran continues past the end of this month. In the Market Call, Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services — which publishes "The Best Dividend and Income Investments" newsletter — discusses the firm's analytical system, called Quadrix, for sizing up a wide range of factors, and notes that a lot of the stocks that have been leading the way have fundamentals that should allow them to keep going strong from here, regardless of the broad economic storm clouds that are making many investors nervous. Plus, Chuck answers a question from a listener who thinks his strategy of trying to make his baby grandson a millionaire in 65 years is "just showing off," because "Really, how much will a million dollars be worth then?"

Jacob Pozharny, portfolio manager for the Bridgeway Global Opportunities Fund  a market-neutral fund that looks at global macro factors — says that every infrastructure boom in history has led to massive capital expenditures, to the point of over-capacity, then demand destruction and a cycle that leaves users better off but hurts the companies that get caught in the mix. He cites railroads, telecommunications dot-com companies and more as examples and he says that "boring industries " will be the users of AI and the long-term winners, which will benefit small-cap and emerging-market names.  Dryden Pence, chief investment officer at Pence Capital Management, says in the Market Call that he looks for "chokepoints of new technologies," places where consumption is creating demand imbalances that working to the long-term benefit of many of the market's biggest names Matt Zajechowski discusses research published by Lemon Law Experts, which looked at over a million National Highway Traffic Safety Administration consumer complaints filed in the last decade and found six of the 10 worst-rated vehicles overall have been discontinued, but remain widely available on used lots. He says higher car prices are forcing more lower-income consumers to consider cars that the public dislikes. 

Joe Kalish, chief global macro strategist at Ned Davis Research, says 2026 has had surprising narratives but unsurprisingly solid results, and he expects that to continue, without significant recession risk or big trouble ahead. Kalish discusses often overlooked economic numbers, like a financing gap where demands to fund capital expenditures outstrip available capital and the level of real gross value added for non-financial corporations (essentially, GDP for things other than financial companies), to explain how and why this economy looks healthier than the worrywarts think it is. He does outline his concerns, but thinks the economy can overpower most or all of them in fairly short order. David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, says that the new wave of huge initial public offerings like SpaceX and Anthropic puts index-fund investors in The Danger Zone, noting that indexes are considering changing rules to quickly accommodate the new stocks, which creates artificial demand that will further drive the prices of the stocks up. That creates potential for index investors to effectively be overpaying to get into the IPOs, and also leaves them vulnerable if the stocks fall off after the initial excitement. While the rules changes are up in the air, Trainer says the pressure to change rules and include fresh IPOs changes the landscape for the future. In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses the market's message to Broadcom, which exceeded earnings expectations but failed to raise future guidance on AI-driven revenues; he says the market is punishing "sandbagging," a practice of understating expectations so that they are easy to beat, but he says the big price drop created a buying opportunity for investors. He also discussed the heightened volatility around the positive jobs report, which he says is based on the fear of a hike in interest rates that he says long-term investors should not be too worried about. Plus, he examines Bitcoin, which has lost about one-quarter of its value in less than two months, which he says is testing traders faith, but which isn't making him nervous as a long-term buy-and-holder. 

Long-time technical analyst Jeff Bishop, head of Bullseye Trades, says the stock market is "priced to perfection, perfection, perfection," and while he isn't saying stocks are overvalued, they are at least fairly valued, which means the stock market here has more downside risk than upside potential. As a result, Bishop says that while he is trying to wring the last of the momentum out of the market, he has been moving into short positions and expects to soon have "the largest short position of my life." Bishop says that the current market move has been parabolic, and while he doesn't think it will end in a catastrophic event, he says the red flags are flashing warning signs that signal a 5 to 10 percent pullback over the summer, potentially getting bigger towards the fall. In the Market Call, Roger Conrad, chief analyst at Conrad's Utility Investor, talks about how concerns over energy markets and high demand for power have created big tailwinds for utility stocks, but that the gains haven't lifted valuations to where stocks are dramatically overpriced. Conrad — who also runs the Dividends Roundtable on Substack — talks about how his methodology allows for a "dream price' and a "profit-taking price" and says that he expects heightened volatility to have him making both moves fairly regularly for the rest of the year. Steve Baffico, executive vice president and head of listed products at Bluerock — which runs the Bluerock Private Real Estate fund — says that investors will be moving out of direct lending and private credit funds in search of HALO investments ("hard assets, low obsolescence), which will bring them to private real estate, helping to drive the sector. Bluerock's fund recently converted from an interval fund to a closed-end fund — and has raised its distribution four times in recent months — and he believes it can will soon hit its target of 8 to 8.5%. He talks about how that kind of yield is being achieved, and the three sectors the fund is focused on.

Joseph S. Moore, author of "How to Get Rich in American History: 300 Years of Financial Advice That Worked (& Didn't)," says that America is dealing with "Big Woe" (as in "Woe is me"), but that examining the past makes it clear that "The American Dream is alive and well." Moore points out that what people think is unique today has all been played out in the past, comparing cryptocurrency to the thousands of self-issued currencies that existed before the start of the Civil War, prediction markets to the "bucket shops" of the 1800s and more, but he also notes that the advice that people think "always works" has not actually proven that if you look throughout financial history. "The dynamic, changing economy we live in is evolving," he says, "so hopefully we can learn something from the past to better understand where we are in the present." Kelley Wright, editor at Investment Quality Trends — now celebrating its 60th year, making it one of the longest-running investment newsletters — brings his dividend-with-value focus to the Market Call. Plus, in the ETF of the Week, Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, examines a unique Treasury-focused fund as a way to ride out current rate swings while goosing yields in the ultra-safe portion of your portfolio.

Craig Callahan, founder and chief executive officer, ICON Advisers — manager of the ICON Equity fund, which is up more than 25% year-to-date — says the market, even at record highs, is right around fair value, meaning he doesn't see over-pricing or investor behavior typical of market peaks. As a result, so long as earnings stay strong — and he describes current earnings as being at levels of "crazy, silly growth" — the market will climb the proverbial wall of worry higher, potentially for the next few years. Mark Boulton, portfolio manager at Pictet Asset Management, says that the standard emerging-markets investment play — heavy on technology stocks and weighted to China, Korea and Taiwan — misses the point of true "emerging markets investing," which is to benefit from rising economies and countries that are seeing expansive GDP growth. Boulton, who runs the new Pictet Emerging Markets Rising Economies ETF, says Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and frontier markets like Vietnam and Kazakhstan have better growth prospects and are likely to outpace developed markets and deliver better long-term results moving forward. Chip Lupo discusses the 2026 Household Debt Survey from WalletHub, which showed that more than half of Americans say their household is struggling with debt, and more than 2 in 5 expecting their household debt to increase in the next 12 months.a

Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, says it's "hard to argue" with a stock market that has returned to record high levels on the back of a 9-week winning streak for the Standard and Poor's 500. Turnquist says that kind of streak has only happened 10 times before, with the momentum leading the market higher a median return of 8 percent six months after the streak. Turnquist added a note of near-term caution, saying he will not be surprised to see some summer consolidation, particularly in the technology space, but he made it clear that he expects those temporary declines to be buying opportunities. In The Big Interview, Ron Deutsch, head of portfolio strategy at Magnus Financial Group, discusses why investors who are scurrying for safety, wanting to reduce their fears are pursuing strategies that may come up short under the pressure of today's markets. He discusses how balancing risks may involve moving money to areas that safety-first investors think are high risk — but which the market has shown to be relatively safe — without going too far to the end of the spectrum. Tiana Patillo, financial advisor manager at Vanguard, discusses a recent survey by the firm, which found that more than 70% of women say they are confident about saving money, yet nearly half of them acknowledged that their savings may not be keeping pace with inflation. And speaking of inflation, Chuck answers a listener's question about whether his son's use of "buy now, pay later" programs at the gas pump makes any financial sense at all.

The big story in the week ahead is expected to be the IPO of SpaceX, and Kyle Guske, investment analyst at New Constructs, says this deal is ugly right from the jump, putting the new stock in The Danger Zone before it even goes public. Guske notes that SpaceX has no earnings , a negative economic book value, a share structure that leaves virtually all control with Elon Musk, and that nearly all money raised in the launch will go to pay off prior debts. When the IPO goes through, however, there will be "this massive valuation on a company that, right now, is unprofitable," and that will have to deliver huge amounts of future growth to justify the expected market price. Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses SpaceX too, noting it is part of a broader IPO wave that is less about great investment opportunities and more about venture capitalists cashing out while the getting is good. In "The Week That Is," Marolia also looks at Americans' growing credit-card debt load which — unlike the soft, emotional data of consumer sentiment — shows how consumers are struggling with inflation and explains how that struggle could be the thing that trips up the economy if consumers wake up and cut spending. In The Big Interview, Dominic Ceci, chief investment officer at Johnson Financial Group says that the economic growth story has "captured the hearts and minds" of investors, allowing them to keep climbing the wall of worry to get the stock market back to record highs. He says that growth picture could be changing, as artificial intelligence gets to a "prove it" phase, inflation stays higher for longer, and the impacts of War in Iran move from the potential problem of the fighting's first few days to the undeniable impacts seen only as the conflict moves past the 90-day mark.