– And by lately, I mean the past several years or more.  The value of the S&P 500 index of stocks, where most of us hopefully have a good chunk of our retirement savings stashed into index funds, is up about fifty seven percent in just the past two years. And it has more than doubled in the past five. S&P returns (including dividends) since 2019, graph by the excellent portfolio visualizer website. This means that on a net worth basis, if you felt like you were only halfway to retirement as recently as the Covid Era, you may have suddenly blown right past the finish line. And some of us who were already retired long before that, may find ourselves eyeing up expensive properties or engaging in other money-burning-a-hole-in-our-pocket behaviors.  Is this real? Or is it all a bubble or some other sort of financial illusion? As one reader recently asked me in an email: “The market seems to be in a huge bubble right now due to all sorts of hype around Artificial Intelligence.…