The caveat is that 25% discount is year on year continuous highs for the last 12 years
This is the conundrum. But if it's the only game in town it seems to be where the printed money inevitably ends up. I refused to believe that the 'early' recovery in 2009 was real, and kept waiting for a sanity pull-back to get in when valuations were honest again.
Still waiting.
I'm really not cut out for this lark, obviously, despite fond memories of making 100% on a silver ETF in 2009... then a big loss on a bigger position in Brent crude; my timing was all wrong, but I still kick myself for not putting everything on oil much earlier, when it was at (then) record lows and my gut instinct was that it couldn't last, no matter what happened next. Never mind.
I remain fascinated by markets and their psychology; it's about as scientific as horoscope readings much of the time, but if enough people believe a stock's going up or down, it happens. The bottom line is that 'the market is always right' no matter what we think. All little guys can do is try to sit on the coat-tails of the algos and hitch a ride. This time does, indeed, feel different, but don't they all? I guess betting on things getting better is always the only real option, long term, because the alternative to inflating with printed money is fighting in the streets for loo roll. But I'd only ever put money into the markets that I could afford to lose
completely.
I'm not in that position now, for sure, but FOMO is powerful... which is why most little guys lose money, whether that's buying shares, bitcoin, or tulip bulbs. The human brain is designed for chasing wildebeest, digging up tubers and looking over your shoulder for sabre-toothed cats. It's not designed for trying to work out what the heck billions of people are going to do tomorrow. Safest bet is always "they'll make more people" and people need feeding. But covid-19 might just be the first in a trend in nature fighting back, so maybe even population growth is coming to an end for a while?
Market analysis is like porn... the more you think about it, the harder it gets. I'm going to stop thinking about it and go disinfect my mail. Shares in whoever makes bleach seems like the closest thing to a safe bet at the moment... I don't think extra cleaning is going out of fashion any time soon.