~37 compared to 15-20 being normal.

15-20 was normal for the 100 years ending 40-50 years ago. But of we look at the last 40 years or so, the CAPE has been higher, suggesting that we don’t know how what “normal” looks like going forward. More people are buying stocks than ever before due to retirement plans and poor bond yields, which pushes up the PE.

So whether ~40 is high for a PE going forward isn’t clear. The CAPE hit ~45 in the 2000 crash, and reverted to ~20 after the crash, yet the 2008 crash only hit ~26 and crashed down to ~14 and quickly bounced back to ~20. The 2008 had little to do with CAPE and more to do with corruption in the banking industry, whereas 2000 was almost purely oversized hype in the burgeoning tech market.

So is the normal range 20-30? Idk. Maybe 20 is actually low going forward, it’s unclear. Either way, 40 isn’t as outlandish as it was in the 2000s, and that pushed up to 45 before crashing.

there is a strong likelihood we are seeing a bubble.

Agreed. But if you drop out of the market and invest in other stuff, you would miss whatever the rest of the runup will do before it bursts, which could leave you worse off than someone just investing in the entire market by market cap. Ot could continue to run for 10-20 years, or it could pop this year, it’s impossible to know since it relies heavily on investors continuing to believe the hype and companies continuing to have something to back up that hype.