Just noticed something worth paying attention to in the broader market. The S&P 500 has been on an absolute tear these past few years — up nearly 80% over three years, which is pretty wild when you think about it.

For a while there, everything was riding on growth stories. AI plays like Nvidia, companies in quantum computing, weight loss drug makers like Eli Lilly — all of it skyrocketed. The Fed was cutting rates, the economy looked like it might improve, and investors were just throwing money at anything with growth potential. Valuations got stretched in ways we hadn't really seen since the dot-com days.

Here's where it gets interesting though. If you look at the Shiller CAPE ratio — basically a measure of how expensive stocks are relative to earnings — it hit above 40 earlier this year. That hadn't happened since 2000. Strikingly similar to that bubble, right?

But something just shifted. The CAPE ratio declined for the first time in almost a year. It's a small move, but it matters because it's the first real sign that valuations might finally be cooling off.

Now, here's what history tells us: when valuations decline, the S&P 500 tends to follow. That doesn't mean crash incoming, but it does suggest we could be heading into a period where the index stagnates or pulls back. Could last weeks, could be a bit longer. The strikingly clear pattern from past market cycles shows these moves don't always last long, but they do happen.

Obviously if you're in this for the long game, short-term dips aren't the end of the world. The index always recovers and compounds over time. But near term? Worth keeping an eye on earnings reports, Fed commentary, and how the big growth names actually perform. Those will tell us whether this is just a breather or something more significant.

The market's been too good for too long. A little correction might actually be healthy at this point.