The stock market has been strutting into the spotlight lately, with talk — however premature — of a new AI-driven bull market popping up nearly everywhere you turn.
Now, though, it’s a different world: Interest rates, or yields, have risen significantly. That’s bad if you’re borrowing, but if you have money to invest or stash somewhere safe so you can pay your bills, there are plenty of appealing options. But for high-flying tech stocks like these, timing is everything. Many are still down from the market’s peak on Jan. 3, 2022. So is the benchmark S&P 500 index, which is why I’m not confident this is a bull market for stocks, at least not quite yet.
Essentially, Nvidia profits will need to soar for many years to justify the company’s price. Perhaps artificial intelligence will make that happen. I’m not counting on that, though. “Bond math tells us it won’t happen,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, said in an interview.
What all this means is that TINA no longer applies: There are viable alternatives to the stock market right now.