Three burning questions for the market in 2025
Are U.S. stocks overvalued? Will AI pan out? Do markets care who’s in the White House?
Investors are starting to feel a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance—that grating feeling when two beliefs you hold don't quite line up.
On one hand, the U.S. market is soaring on the back of AI optimism and potential tax cuts.
And on the other, companies’ stock prices, relative to their actual earnings, are starting to loosely resemble the run-up to the Dotcom bubble of the late 90s.
So which belief will win out in 2025: boom or bust? Let's parse this conflicted outlook by examining three questions in particular:
Are U.S. stocks overvalued?
Around this time last year, we said the booming market at the time might keep going if the Fed lowered interest rates in response to cooling inflation.
Interest rates did tick down, and boy, did markets take notice. Through the end of November 2024, a 90% stock Betterment Core portfolio returned roughly 17.6% year-to-date.
Such a run, however, begs speculation of yet another reversal, a swing of the pendulum toward less frothy valuations and a drawback in portfolio returns. The S&P 500 currently costs about 25 times more than what those companies are expected to bring in over the next 12 months. For comparison, this average “price-to-earnings” ratio over the last 35 years has been 18x.
Taking the perspective of a long-term investor, however, these ratios matter less than you may think. So long as you stay invested for more than a few years, chances are the market as a whole may “grow” into its valuation.
Remember 2021 when a group of tech-centric, risky stocks were darlings of the pandemic and shot to the moon? Analysts rightly called foul—those kinds of valuations shouldn’t be sustainable.
But within a few years the market was setting fresh all-time highs. An investor who had sold or stayed on the sidelines would've missed out on all that growth. So if you’re tempted to sell “high” right now, remember this:
On average, investing at all-time highs hasn’t resulted in lower future returns compared to investing on any given trading day.
On the contrary, buying when the market has never been higher leads to slightly higher average returns in the long run. You can never be sure exactly when a growth cycle will end.
Will AI pan out?
A big driver of this bull market has been optimism surrounding artificial intelligence and the big tech companies powering it, like Amazon, Google, and the computer chip-maker Nvidia. They’ve rallied big-time over the last 12 months, and as a result, they make up an increasingly large share of the U.S. and global stock market.
A debate, however, surrounds their outperformance and the hoopla around AI in general. Some analysts argue that a good amount of AI investment won’t ultimately prove fruitful, while others foresee significant boosts to productivity and profits.
There’s that grating feeling again—the potential of revolutionary upside sitting right next to worries that it’s mostly hype. In the face of uncertainty, all one can do to lower their risk is hedge their bets and diversify. Our portfolios’ stock allocations take this to heart, offering significant exposure to Big Tech, while also investing in European, Japanese, and emerging markets. It’s these less expensive equities that provide a potential buffer in the event AI’s ambitions fall short.
Do markets care who’s in the White House?
Right now, markets aren’t sure exactly what to make of President-elect Trump’s proposed economic agenda. Promises of corporate tax cuts, while fueling the recent surge in stocks, could in practice increase inflation. Same goes for tariffs and mass deportation. And rising inflation could in turn pause or reverse the recent trend in interest rate cuts. But until more details emerge, or the policies themselves are actually put into practice, we won’t know their full effect.
Instead of sitting back and anxiously waiting, we suggest taking a look at the chart below. It shows that markets tend to rise over time regardless of which party holds the presidency. Maintaining a consistent, diversified investment approach is the best way to navigate political and economic cycles. That, and maybe cooling it a bit on your news consumption.
So what now?
As always, it’s impossible to know exactly how long each growth cycle will last, so consider erring on the side of staying invested. If you find yourself sitting on too much cash, now might be the time to put it to work in the market. You can invest it as a lump sum, which research shows may offer higher potential returns. Or you can sprinkle it into a portfolio over time. Most importantly, however the market performs in 2025, we suggest zooming out and reminding yourself you’re in it for the long haul.
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