QOTD: Mature Markets Don’t Mean Mature Investors

Check out the big brain on Ben!

Other factors I’d include in the discussion around why valuation averages have been creeping up for decades, in addition to collapsing investment costs:

1. Aging population, longer lifespans means growing demand for equity portfolios
2. Advent of the 401(k) and the concept of retirement in general
3. Influx of money from newly-minted developing-market billionaires (affects luxury real estate too)
4. The institutionalization of stock market investing (professional management versus the Boy Plunger)
5. Larger, more well-established blue chip companies, whose shares act as quasi-bonds
6. Secularly increasing profit margins thanks to technology, diminution of capital-intensive smoke stack companies
7. The 30-plus trend of moderating inflation / falling interest rates

I’m sure there are other reasons but this post at A Wealth Of Common Sense hits on a big one that no one talks about.

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and now, a brief rant about historic valuation (TRB)