We’ve hit that point in the market cycle where investors aren’t sure what scares them more — missing the next leg-up or getting caught long when the bubble bursts.

The last few weeks have exposed deep anxiety buried beneath the global market euphoria. The same investors who chased AI-led rallies in US tech names, rode gold’s run to record highs, and sat comfortably atop frothy valuations are now second-guessing everything.

So this is the main market theme of the fall of 2025, what Reuters’ brilliant editor at large Mark Dolan calls a tug-of-war between FOMO (fear of missing out) and FOWO (fear of wipe-out). Now knowing for sure which hand to hold, traders are torn between the thrill of riding the late-stage rally and the dread of the next flash crash.

Not because earnings have collapsed. Not because the Fed has pivoted too far, or not far enough; but because the illusion of unbreakable momentum is cracking at the edges. What once looked like acceleration now increasingly resembles exhaustion. And what felt like breakout now coils like a trap.

Or does it?

The bull case was built on narrative steroids. Deregulation. Tax breaks. Productivity miracles from generative AI. A Trump presidency 2.0 that would unleash another wave of American industrial policy, tariffs be damned. In the US, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq staged a summer rally for the ages, with chipmakers, software giants, and even crypto-linked stocks piggybacking on each other’s highs. VIX slumped. Gold rallied. Risk, it seemed, was irrelevant again.

But beneath the surface, the fault lines widened.

US regional banks are once again under scrutiny.........

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