The SP 500 just hit 6,791 points, another all-time high. And your dollar cost averaging plan is telling you to buy more index funds. But here's the problem the market's valuation is sitting at over two times its historical average. The last time we saw levels like this, 1999.com bubble. And 2021, right before that 25% correction. So should you keep blindly buying index funds at these sky-high prices, or is it time to do something different? I'm going to show you exactly what the data says, what the legendary Jack Bogle would do, and the one mechanism built into your strategy that protects you, even when you're buying at the top. Stay with me because by the end of this, you'll know exactly what to do with your next investment dollar. My name is Felix Preen, that's Winston back there. I used to be an investment banker. He mostly chews things. I'm also the founder of GOAT Academy, where I've taught over 20,000 students how to navigate the markets. And I'm also the co-founder of TradeVision.io. And I'm dedicating my retirement to help retail investors like you understand what's actually happening out there. And today I want to talk about something that's making a lot of passive investors uncomfortable right now. You've been told to just buy an old forever, which is generally great advice on the index, not so much on stocks. But when you're staring at a market that's priced for absolute perfection, sitting at all-time highs with a valuation that's only been exceeded twice in history, that advice starts to feel a little, well, uncomfortable. So let's do what Winston does best and dig into the data, the history, and figure out what you should be doing right now. Now, if you're thinking, Felix, I'm not really a huge index fund buyer, I actually like to pick stocks, then I've got something even better for you. I'm going to teach you live for about an hour or two on Tuesday evening, New York time, how Wall Street picks better stocks than you and what their simple rules are to find them, how to screen them, and how to set it all up. It's completely free of charge. All you've got to do is go to feedixfrends.org slash training, grab yourself a free ticket for that live event, and you'll learn. And on top of that, for this particular video, I'm going to give you a whole workbookslash research doc. So all the information that I'm giving you, which is going to be a lot, might seem a little overwhelming at times, is going to be there so you can reference it. And to get access to that, just go into our free community, literally free, no credit card needed, nothing needed, at feedixrensalc slash resource, and you you'll be able to download that document there for yourself as well so you become a better, smarter investor. So where are we right now? Let me hit you over the head with quite a lot of facts. No sugar coating here, right? As I'm recording this, the SP is trading at this level here. By the time you're watching it, it might be a little higher, might be a little lower. Doesn't unlikely to make a big difference to the value of this video. So far this year, we're up 15%, significantly more than the average. Very, very good year, right? But if you look at the valuation picture, there's something called the Schiller PE, price over profits. That's at 40. Historically, that sits at 16 on average. So this is basically normal. This is like, oh my god, we should be thinking about this. So we are basically paying two times what the market is historically worth. Now, have we done this before? Yes. Yes, we did. We did this in 1999. Uh, after that, we went down 49%. We did it in 2021. After that, we went down 25%. Uh, we also did it in 1929. Sorry to bring that one up. Uh, at that point, we went down 83%. And now. Okay, so not a deem and gloom video. Not trying to invoke fear here. I just want to give you the facts. This is just data. Like everybody everybody does everybody agrees with this data. It's just facts. And then I want to look at what's the opportunity in this. So I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you that here as well. So stay with me. But there is a little bit more. There is a magnificent problem out there, and it's called the magnificent seven problem. These seven tech stocks now represent 30% of the market. And look at the evaluations. Well, actually, Meta and Google look kind of okay to me. I actually think Google is quite an interesting one right now. Apple actually also looks all right. But look at Microsoft 37x PE ratio, Tesla 45, Amazon 50, NVIDIA 62. These are not historical averages. These are everything is gonna go perfectly right with AI. So the market is literally betting the ranch on AI delivering everything it promises. So what does that actually mean? Well, before you start panic selling, please don't. This is not financial advice. My goal is to give you more clarity and education and facts so you can make better decisions. I'm not telling you what to do here. High valuations don't automatically mean a crash tomorrow. But they do tell us something important. Future returns are likely to be lower. When these metrics are above 40, typically the 10-year annual returns are about 2%. Now, I'm not saying you can only make 2% the next 10 years. I know some people say that, and I think this is just fear mongering. I think with some smart moves, you could potentially do a lot better than that. And again, come and join me on Tuesday and I'll teach you how we pick stocks, because that's what I mostly do. So what I do basically, half the money goes into index funds, half I manage actively. And we have to just acknowledge that objectively speaking, the market is expensive. Now no matter how much you how you no matter how you slice it, whether you were a value investor or a growth investor, we are currently paying a premium price. Now, maybe you're still thinking, oh, Felix is now fear-mongering. Well, let me show you what just happened in 2025. This very year. Remember April, Liberation Day, Trump announced sweeping tariffs. What happened next? Well, the S P 500 dropped 10% in two days. Do you remember that? Largest decline since 2020. The fear index went up to 65, big, beautiful spike. And the market lost trillions in value. Now the market's recovered in May and June, particularly because the tariffs have walked back. But here is the thing: that uncertainty, it never actually went away. When Trump threatened bigger tariffs again, we lost another$2 trillion in just one day. And by the way, at the same time, the US government is shut down, right? So we don't have September jobs data, we don't have inflation reports. Um, the Fed is basically acting without any economic data. Uh, and we're kind of flying blind. And at the same time, the market sits at all-time high, pricing imperfection. So now let's talk about you. Say you are a passive investor, at least to some extent, because almost everybody is. You probably have a 401k or something like that, right? Which will be index funds. You're basically dollar cost averaging. That's basically your plan, right? So you're through a pension setup, you put some money into it every month, maybe your employer does the same thing. So you're buying, you know, whatever amount you're buying a month. Let me know down below in the comments. What is it,$500? Is it$1,000? Is it$2,000 a month? Like how much are you, how much are you putting in there? Let me know down below. And you've been told, don't time the market, just keep buying. But every time you hit that buy button at these all-time highs, you get that feeling in your gut, right? It's like paying full price for, I don't know what, televisions the week before Black Friday. Actually, I don't own a television, but um I'd recommend not owning one. You know you're probably overpaying, but you've been told to ignore that feeling. But is that the right move? Well, what could you do? You could reduce your contributions, you could wait for a better entry point. And this is where most investors make their biggest mistake. This is where I want to introduce you to someone who understands this better than anyone. But before we do that, if you want to learn exactly how Wall Street finds winning stocks, the strategies I learned during my time as a banker, join me for that live training at felixfriends.org slash training. It's the first link down below. So let's talk about the grandfather of passive investing, the goat of goats, Jack Bogle. Jack Bogle, this lovely gentleman here, is the founder of Vanguard Group, probably responsible for more wealth generation around the world than any other investor in history, including, yes, the Warren and the Peter Lynch and so on. Why? Because he made it possible for everyday people like you and me to invest in the entire stock market for basically zero fees. Before Bogle, investing was for the wealthy. High fees, active management eating up returns, and that's the wealth still exists, but it's gotten a lot better. So he changed everything by creating the first index fund in 1976. Now, here's what's fascinating. Back in 1997, as the market was forming one of its biggest bubbles ever, Jack gave a speech about investing during overvalued markets. And what he said then is eerily similar to what we're facing today. He said, in short, it seems to me that speculation, betting on higher and higher valuations, is in the driver's seat. Investment, betting on the fundamentals of yields and earnings growth, is in the back seat, probably even in the rumble seat. What is a rumble seat? That must be an American thing. Can someone please explain that to me? But maybe this sounds a little familiar to you, right? We're seeing the exact same thing today. Speculation on AI, on future promises, on what might happen. That's driving prices. It's not fundamentals, it's not current earnings, it's pure speculation on the future. So there are two possible outcomes here, and I put them on that presentation that you can hopefully see here. Outcome number one, which is the one we're rooting for, AI delivers. AI delivers and profits justify prices. Companies grow into the valuation. The new era of, you know, 15% a year is here. Everything the market is hoping for actually happens. Or AI disappoints and valuations collapse. PE ratios normalize, back down to sort of 13x where they usually are. Painful, because we go down about 30%, but not apocalyptic, except if you're about to retire. Now Bogle said in 1997 the US stock market is priced, I think, for the best of times, and only for the best of times. Sound familiar? Because that's exactly where we are in October 2025 because I'm recording this. We're betting the ranch on outcome number one. So here's the million-dollar question. Should you buy? Well, the data says this about market timing. Should you try to time it just a little bit? Well, Jack Bogle's answer from a 2001 interview, and I quote, I don't know anybody who has ever been successful in timing the market. And I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has ever been successful in timing the market. And there is data that backs this up. There's a study from 2000 that looked at like 66,000 investors, and the active traders, how much did they make? Made 11%. The market made 17%. Now, I want to add to that something. The reason active traders tend to underperform is because they don't know what the heck they're doing. I know quite a lot of people who massively outperform the market. So I think when someone like Jack Bogle says that, you have to bear in mind he's the vanguard founder and he's trying to sell index funds because that's how they make billions of dollars. So you have to always think about who's telling you something. There are plenty of hedge funds, plenty of investment banks, and loads and loads of individual traders out there that beat the market again and again. I'm not promising you that, but it is a fact, right? And how do they do that? Very simple. They have rules, they're disciplined, they have automations. The retail investor out there who calls himself an active trader is usually a FOMO buyer who just follows whatever the latest thing is. So I'm not a market timer. I don't try to sell the top and buy the bottom because that's an impossibility. So I think we can all agree on that part of the jack. But can we do things a little smarter? Can we follow the money? Can we see what Wall Street's buying, which is what moves the market and jump on that ship rather than be on the sinking one? I believe we can do that. My opinion. You have to come to your own. But if you look at the SP 500, and I do this too, you see, so I pick stocks, but I also just buy every single Monday. I buy stock by an index fund as well. Um, and that the reason I do that, by the way, is because it keeps my family happy. Um, because they know that is going to deliver a certain certain return over time. Um whereas you know I could lose my marbles, right? It's entirely possible. Maybe you think that's already happened. Let me know in the comments. But if you look at the SP 500, every single 15-year period has been positive. So even after 1929, 2000, 2008, 2020, if you held for 15 years, you always made money. Now, what's the problem with that? This is the sales pitch for buying index funds, right? And it's correct. And if you're young enough, you should definitely keep doing that. Now the question becomes what's your retirement schedule looking like? And that's, I think, where people need to be a little bit more conscious of this. But yes, maybe the next 10 years gives us only 2 or 3% returns instead of the 10. Although if this government's got anything to do with it, they're going to print enough money to make sure that doesn't happen. But if you're a long-term investor, you're a passive investor, the data basically says keep buying. Because if you keep buying, there is a clever mechanism built into the strategy that actually protects you when prices are high. Because there is something here that works. And by the way, this only works for index funds. It does not work for individual stocks. The theory does not hold. But let's say you put$1,000 into an index fund every quarter. Let's make the maths really easy. The market crashes. What happens? Now your ETF, your stock price is only$100. So you get to buy 10 shares with your$1,000, right? So that$1,000 now buys you 10 shares of a thousand, so 10 times$100, right? That's what you're buying. 10 shares. Now, what if the market is rallying like mad, like it is right now, and your shares now cost$200? Well, what happens? Your$1,000 buys you only five shares. So do you see what just happened? When the market is expensive like it is right now, you automatically buy fewer shares. When the market is cheap, you automatically load up the truck. So you're not trying to time the market, the math is actually doing it for you. The system is designed to protect you from overpaying. And this is why it doesn't really matter that we're at all-time highs. Yes, you're buying fewer shares than you were a year ago, but that's exactly what you should be doing. And when the inevitable correction comes, and that'll be 10% or 20% or 30% or whatever, your same thousand dollars will automatically buy way more shares. You don't have to make any decisions. You don't have to time anything, you just keep showing up. So the Bogle philosophy, the Vanguard philosophy, and bear in mind he's the biggest seller of ETFs out there. Own all of American businesses. He expected companies to grow at about 7% a year. You get about, so you get 7% growth. This is the Bogle plan. You get about 2.5% dividends on top, and that gives you about 9.5% per year. And yeah, some years it'll be 30, and some years it'll be minus 20, but over time you get that. And that's historically been actually quite accurate. So if you're somebody who doesn't want to spend much time investing, just keep buying the index. I try to do it every week or every month whenever your paycheck comes in. So don't stop your plan. That's the worst thing to do. Now you've got to do the same thing when the market tanks, by the way. You really got to do the same thing when the market tanks because at that point your shares are on at a discount, and that's where you're gonna do. And that's why I would generally automate this. But unfortunately, what most investors do is they only buy when the market's up and they stop buying when the market goes down. That's what makes you underperform again. So you do need a strategy, and you do need to look at like what are your goals, what are your time frames, and everything else. So you need to assess, like, first of all, what's your timeline? Is it less than five years? Is it 25 years? Somewhere in between, we need to figure out the allocation. What are your income needs? Like, how much money do you actually need? How much money are you gonna get from pension funds that'll actually pay out Social Security or whatever? What's the gap? And how much what do we therefore need to have as a portfolio to build that gap? And how much can you invest without too much stress? Now, I would say invest a little bit more than you feel comfortable with, because that's actually gonna make a huge difference. And then the real question, and I call it the stomach lining test, how much of a drawdown can you handle? Can you handle 30% down? Can you handle 50% down? Heck, I see some portfolios. I've looked at about 20,000 people's uh portfolios. I see people who are like 100% in one stock or 100% in quantum or something. Well, can you handle a 90% drawdown? Well, because that's what's gonna happen to you at some point. It might go back up, but it's it's a likelihood. So for most people, you need to be handled, be able to handle that 30% drawdown. If you don't, you need to just study a little bit more to get yourself comfortable because that's gonna happen to you again and again and again and again, and you just see that as an actual opportunity. So the real problem for most people is um, and I put a little short out on my actually yesterday on Instagram, I think, um, was concentration risk, right? So in your portfolio, how concentrated are you on particular stocks? And if you're buying the index, well, the problem is that 30% of the index is top five companies, all AI stocks. And all the gains, it's they those guys make up for much, much larger percent than 30% of all the gains in the market. Which then begs the question well, if the top five make up all the gains, why the heck do I own the other 495 companies that are underperforming? And we're gonna talk about that a bit if you join me on Tuesday at feedexfronts.org slash training, because I personally think that there is a smarter thing that we can do with at least some of our allocation. And again, that's you know really that. So, what do people always say? People say, oh, you know, do SP, maybe international, small mid-caps. The international thing, I put that very much in brackets because often you understand that even less and comes perhaps with greater risks and currencies and so on. So that's something that you might not want to do. Now, if you're a European or a Brit, I would still say you want to be in the US market. It's the greatest stock market in the world by far. It's where all the money is. So you don't need to own, you know, French stocks just because you happen to be French or whatever, or British stocks because you happen to be British. And that's one of the reasons the British pension system is so miserable because they only ever invest in their own stocks and it's hugely underperformed. I know of late because you guys are running a war there for profit. Um, some sectors are doing quite well, but generally the market's been pretty, pretty abysmal. And you're not gonna find many great European or British companies. It's just the truth. There's no innovation there, there's only regulation, right? So again, there's gonna be some people kicking off in the comments there. Uh go for it. So, bottom line, market is expensive, the market is very concentrated. We're at all-time highs. We could see a drawdown. That's true in all markets, by the way. What's the answer? Look, if you're youngish, so you've got like 15 years plus of income generation times ahead of you. Um, if you have a sustainable plan, you can handle volatility and you're diversified, keep buying. If not, you might want to reduce allocation. You might want to move some money into bonds. If you can't commit, well, someone else is gonna have to handle your investing for you because you can't handle it. And if you're 100% SP 500, you're actually not that diversified. So, action items, review your current plan. Actually, make a plan, write out a plan, right? Look at some of those ETFs out there. Vue is obviously the Bogle ETF, which has very, very low fees. Check your timeline. Automate your contributions so that you don't bottle out when the market dips. And doing this and making a plan, and I literally do this every Sunday. Literally, I review my plan every single Sunday. It becomes, it starts off as a little painful, and then it ends up being some of the happiest thing you can do. Share it with people in your life who matter to you, please, because that way you have someone who holds you accountable, and then everybody's on the same team as well. So if you are um got some value out of this, uh join us on Tuesday, and we're going to be talking about stock picking. Not timing the market, but being a bit smarter about following where the money is flowing, because the only thing that moves the market is where the big money is flowing. So, what we do is uh we follow that money. But maybe you uh agree with this ETF salesman, which is I don't want to do any of that. I'm just happy with average returns, in which case, keep buying ETFs in an automated plan. And then your only lever is putting more money into that, which is something you can control. I love you for watching. I love you for tuning in. I hope you got some value out of this. If you did, share it with people. Make sure you take advantage of the resources down below. That's what we make them for you. And all the best.