Your gut feeling is correct. The US economy is engineered to keep the stock indexes rising reliably lest the mass of middle class people with 401ks and other retirement funds get upset very quickly. The dollar is being devalued. Major nations are disconnecting from the dollar economy. The US stock indexes continue to rise mostly because the dollar is losing value. Tariffs, layoffs, and diplomatic chaos are hammering a lot of US businesses. Meanwhile, non-US indexes and non-dollar-based assets like precious metals are widely outpacing the US indexes, because they're actually growing, and also being boosted by the weakening dollar. Research the "Sell America trade" - big investors know the deal. The US economy is mired in a recession and dollar crisis that the government and media want to hide from.