The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that equity investors enjoyed a great 2024 despite warnings at the start of the year of an impending bear market. Guest columnist Tom Czitron says that Monday's sell-off in tech stocks, sparked by the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model, should now serve as a wake-up call not to let complacency settle in as the new year unfolds. Even though talk of an equity bubble has diminished in recent months, overall valuations are still near record levels in the U.S. stock market. The odds of 2025 being a good year for stocks are lower than most years. The S&P 500 Index returned 24.88 per cent in 2024, including dividends. This followed a total return of 26.08 per cent in 2023. Given all the complaints that Americans and Canadians had about the economy, one could be forgiven for being confounded by the outsized returns of the markets. Yet again, we are reminded that the real economy and capital markets do not necessarily move in lockstep with each other. Meanwhile, the Canadian stock market has lower valuations but earnings potential is not as attractive in the U.S., and when a bear market comes to the U.S., it will spread to this side of the border.