Anecdotally, our company's next couple quarters are projected to be a bloodbath. Spending is down everywhere, nearly all of our customers are pushing for huge cuts to their contracts, and in turn literally any costs we can jettison to keep jobs is being pushed through. We're hearing the same from our customers.

AI has been the only new investment our company has made (half hearted at that). I definitely get the sense that everyone pretending things are fine to investors, meanwhile they are playing musical chairs.

Back in my economics classes at college, a professor pointed out that a stock market can go up for two reasons: On one hand, the economy is legitimately growing and shares are becoming more valuable. But on the other hand, people and corporations could be cutting spending en masse so there's extra cash to flood the stock markets and drive up prices regardless of future earnings.