[mrep]

Meh, most of what they are buying is just our own governments debt [0]. Now, you can certainly argue investors are buying more equities now that there aren't as many treasury securities to buy, but equity returns aren't even abnormal from historical returns. Inflation adjusted Annualized S&P 500 Returns with Dividends Reinvested for the past 15 years are 6.738% versus 7.690% for the 15 years before that [1].

[0]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm

[1]: https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

[stult]

You're comparing one of the strongest economic expansions in US history (1991-2001, brief, small recession, then 2001-2007, stopping at 2005 of course) to a period bookended by two of the worst recessions in US history (2007, 2020). It should be concerning that equity returns don't differ very much. That means they aren't correlated with the underlying economy.

[mrep]

The great recessions was definitely one of the worst, but it was followed by the longest bull run in the history of the united states and it is way to early to claim this crisis as being one of the worst recessions in US history.