Today, I’m sharing 7 of my favorite investing & economic charts from the past month.

If you want the big-picture takeaway before diving, here’s the summary:

• Earnings growth (not rising valuations) is driving most of this year’s market returns.
• The 1999 comparison is likely overblown because today’s leaders are highly profitable.
• Market concentration is high, but the largest companies also generate a large share of earnings.
• Consumers remain resilient, but inflation is rising faster than wages again.
• Prime-age employment remains near its strongest level in 17 years.
• Household debt payments remain low relative to income.
• Unsettling headlines are normal, but time remains a long-term investor’s greatest advantage.

Looking at the headlines through the lens of longer-term data can make it easier to stay thoughtful and avoid reactive decisions.

I hope the charts below help provide that perspective.

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Before we dive in, did you catch this week's podcast? 👇

3 Questions That Reveal Your Real Inflation Risk in Retirement In this episode, I’m simplifying how to think about inflation in retirement, including the 3 questions that reveal your real risk, why headline inflation can mislead, and how to better protect your plan. 🎙️ Listen now on ​Apple​, ​Spotify​, or ​YouTube​.

Favorite Charts (May 2026)

#1 - Earnings Are Rising While Valuations Are Falling

Across most major regions, companies have continued to grow profits, and that growth has been the primary driver of returns this year.

At the same time, valuations have actually fallen in many areas, meaning investors are paying less for each dollar of earnings than they were before.

That’s an important distinction because markets don’t appear to be rising due to investor optimism. In fact, consumer sentiment recently hit a 70-year low, suggesting the opposite may be true.

The stronger explanation is more fundamental: businesses are growing earnings, and that growth has been doing most of the work.

The same pattern shows up over longer periods, too. Valuations have expanded over the last decade, but earnings have still driven most market returns.

And here’s how the last 10 years of market returns have stacked up across the globe:

#2 - The Comparison to 1999 Is Probably Overblown

With earnings doing so much of the heavy lifting, comparisons to the dot-com bubble deserve some caution.

Yes, parts of today’s market look expensive. But the companies leading the market today are far more profitable than many of the companies driving returns in 1999.

According to Nasdaq, 99.9% of index exposure is profitable.

Half of the index is generating net margins between 25% and 50%, while another 20.4% is generating margins between 50% and 100%.

In other words, today’s market leaders aren’t just benefiting from investor enthusiasm, they are producing extraordinary profits.

That doesn’t mean valuations no longer matter or that markets can’t disappoint. But it does suggest today’s environment is very different from the speculative excesses of the dot-com peak.

#3 - Profitability Helps Explain Why Today’s Largest Companies Are So Large

Market concentration is a fair concern.

The 10 largest companies now represent nearly 40% of the S&P 500’s total market value, which is a meaningful level investors should understand.

But that number leaves out an important detail: those same companies also generate roughly 35% of the index’s total earnings.

In other words, their size isn’t driven by investor enthusiasm alone. They are also producing a large share of the profits.

That doesn’t mean concentration risk should be ignored, or that today’s leaders will stay on top forever. But when the biggest companies also generate a similar share of earnings, their weight in the index becomes much easier to explain.

#4 - Consumers Are Still Resilient, But Wages Are Starting to Lag

Much of the market and economic data remains surprisingly resilient, but the picture isn’t perfect.

Inflation has picked back up recently, helped by higher oil prices and ongoing geopolitical tensions. As a result, wage growth has now fallen behind inflation for the first time since 2023.

That doesn’t mean consumers are suddenly in trouble, but it is a reminder that inflation hasn’t disappeared. When prices rise faster than paychecks, households feel it quickly...even when the broader economy still looks healthy on paper.

#5 - Employment Data Is Still Solid

One useful way to evaluate the job market is to focus on prime-age workers (people between 25 and 54).

This group is generally old enough to be done with school and young enough that most are not yet retired, which makes it a cleaner read on the employment picture.

Prime-age employment peaked at 80.9% in mid-2024 and currently sits at 80.7%. That’s slightly below the peak, but still higher than any month between 2008 and the start of the pandemic.

So, while concerns about the job market are understandable, the core employment picture remains strong.

Among the people we would expect to be working, more are employed today than during almost any point over the past 17 years.

#6 - The Household Debt Situation Is Still Solid Too

Another useful way to evaluate consumer health is to look at how much income is going toward debt payments.

On that front, the picture remains encouraging.

Household debt service — the share of disposable income used for required debt payments — remains below every pre-pandemic year on record.

That doesn’t mean every household is in great shape, or that higher rates haven’t created pressure in certain areas.

But in the aggregate, consumers are still using a relatively small share of income to service debt, which is a positive sign for the broader economy.

#7 - Time Remains the Ultimate Margin of Safety

History reminds us that the headlines are almost always unsettling.

There is always something to worry about: inflation, elections, wars, recessions, rates, debt, valuations, deficits.

The list changes, but the discomfort rarely goes away. And yet, the longer investors stay invested, the less those headlines tend to matter.

That’s why we plan carefully for near-term spending needs: to avoid being forced to sell long-term investments at the wrong time and give the portfolio time to recover, compound, and participate in market returns.

Time allows investors to endure the headlines and benefit from the progress underneath them. Historically, the longer investors have held, the better their odds have tended to be.

Bottom Line

Inflation has not disappeared, wages are under pressure, and market concentration remains elevated.

At the same time, earnings are growing, employment is solid, household debt still looks manageable, and today’s market leaders are far more profitable than the headlines often suggest.

That’s why thoughtful investing requires holding two ideas at once: the environment is never perfectly comfortable, but it also rarely needs to be.

A well-built plan doesn’t depend on every headline being positive. It depends on having enough liquidity, discipline, and time to let long-term progress do its work.

📚 What I've Been Reading

• Why It’s So Hard to Spot a Stock-Market Bubble (The Wall Street Journal)​
• How to Coordinate Retirement Savings With Your Spouse (Center for Retirement Research)
• The Problem With Trying to 'Die With Zero' (The Purpose Code)
• Some Indexes Accelerate Entry for Massive IPOs (Schwab)
• Land Appreciates. Homes Depreciate. (Housing Notes)
• That Word Does Not Mean What You Think It Means (Parental Advisory)​

Thank you for reading!

Please reply to this email with comments, questions, and/or feedback.

Stay wealthy,

Taylor Schulte, CFP®