Albert Edwards sees trouble. Potentially. And also perpetually and perennially, by the way, which is why “some” market observers dismiss Albert’s warnings as, at best, the ad nauseam naysaying of a man who may be right one day, but never today.

“It takes a particular type of (weird) person to stand out from the crowd and be willing to say the unsayable, i.e. be a proverbial ‘pain in the neck,'” Edwards wrote Wednesday. “That is me.”

Yes, it is. But Albert’s mischaracterizing a bit. It’s not that he’s a “pain in the neck.” That’s not the reason his analysis is summarily ignored by the financial media which, let’s face it, loves a bear narrative.

Rather, Edwards’s analysis doesn’t get any coverage because it doesn’t matter (he doesn’t have any of the house calls at SocGen) and also because there’s nothing to it, at least as it relates to equities.

Sometimes his macro critiques are decent, but if he’s talking about stocks, it’s just three or four pages of (very simple) charts typically credited to somebody else, accompanied by 300 or so words of doomsaying, most of which is completely generic.

I’m not trying to hurt any feelings here, but this is a source of confusion for some market participants, and particularly for some of my readers who often wonder “Who is this Albert fellow, and why do I only see him quoted on ‘alternative’ portals and occasionally on social media?”

Edwards is a four-decade (and counting) capital markets veteran, and he does have quite a bit of professional experience in macroeconomics, having worked at the BoE. But, like me, he’s a legend mostly in his own mind.

So, when Albert paints a picture of himself as a maverick and the lone(ly) dissident voice in a cacophony of bullish banter, it’s a lot like my autobiographical mythologizing: Self-aggrandizing disguised as self-deprecation.

Don’t get me wrong: Far (far) more people know Edwards than know me, but that’s a low bar. We both have cult followings. His cult’s just exponentially bigger than mine. Outside of our cults, nobody cares what we have to say. That’s just the (harsh) reality of it, although personally (i.e., as it relates to my own writing) I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That’s the context for this week’s Edwards missive, which can be summarized as follows: Valuations for US equities are elevated and if the tech leadership doesn’t deliver on the growth front, those valuations may prove unsustainable, particularly given where bond yields are compared to 2021, when free money turbocharged what came to be known as the “everything bubble.”

“The last time US PEs were this high was in 2021 when the 10-year yield was a supportive 1%,” Albert said. “Any further rise in yields would be problematic for stocks.” I agree, and in fact I’ve said as much explicitly on any number of occasions over the last month or two.

The figure gives you a sense of the uncomfortable juxtaposition: US 10s are loitering between 4% and 5%, but equity multiples have richened inexorably commensurate with a historically narrow melt-up to a succession of fresh all-time highs on the cap-weighted benchmarks.

Edwards also highlighted the yawning disparity between earnings reality (trailing EPS) and earnings hope (earnings expectations).

I must say, that’s a comparison I think’s worth a mention, albeit perhaps not as a harbinger of inevitable doom.

The figure above, from Edwards, is familiar to those of you who’ve read his work this year. It’s the ratio of forward EPS to trailing earnings.

Commenting specifically on tech, Albert wrote that the sector’s “heavy with the burden of optimism [as] forward earnings expectations run way ahead of trailing reality.”

US tech, he went on, “must deliver on that optimism.” Albert quoted Gerard Minack on that point, calling 2025 a “show me the money year.”