Over the past eighteen months, the market has been absolutely flooded with money. In 2018, U.S. companies poured well over $1.1 trillion into buying back their own stock. In 2019, they’re doing the same thing, but at an even faster pace. Central bankers around the world have managed, intervened, and blasted a firehose of cash any time the market dared descend a tenth of a percent. And a hapless public has, of course, been gobbling up everything from Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) to Beyond Meat Inc (NASDAQ:BYND).
And with all these trillions and trillions of dollars that have been hurled at the market, what has it done over the past 18 months? That’s easy to answer.
Nothing.
Allow me to share these major indexes in a percentage format. Kindly note that in spite of all the wild ups and downs, and net change over these timespans have been absolutely zilch. Zero. Nothing.
Of course, in a truly organic market, we would be much lower. 30%? 50%? More? We’ll never know. But in this sickeningly-contrived faux equity space that has been created for our amusement, cast your eyes upon what has, over 18 months, been an abject waste of time and energy.
