[aquila48]

“When your currency is debasing, stocks will be expressed in terms of ‘more dollars’.”

Exactly - the difference between now and 1999 is that in 1999 the Fed was not pumping in $85 billion of new base money every month. When I sell my bond to the Fed, I immediately have to start looking for something to do with that money - some other investment - and stocks are definitely at or near the top of that list. Does it create a bubble? Yes. And when will that bubble pop? When the Fed starts cutting back. And when will that be? Who knows... but what has become clear is that investing is no longer about studying the financials of a company, but studying the politicians and bureaucrats in DC.

[palmer]

You have described the reason that the Fed's policy has been such a spectacular failure. Normally a deep recession like the one we had would be followed by an enormous boom. But the reason it hasn't is not lack of demand or deflation as the Fed believes, but lack of confidence in the soundness of the currency. More specifically, people are not investing, but speculating and waiting for the crash.

People who leave money in stocks for the longer run are usually into companies that speculate for them (that's what I try to do).