Yeah right. K.
So the world's central banks went on an expansionary money printing since '08 that went straight to the banks balance sheets. There was this thing that separated commercial banking arm from the investment banking arm in the 1930's called Glass-Steagall law in the USA. They did away with that law in the 90's and since then banks have been playing casino stock market, first, with depositors' monies and after '08 with government bailout money. The banks are pumping all sorts of monies straight into their investment arms who in turn are buying up all the stocks. You also have the matter of sovereign funds like Singapore's, Norway's and Saudi Arabia with their huge portfolios. You have your average municipal and government pension funds and societies getting into the act via traditional brokers. And you have the humongous Australian superannuation industry with their army of investment advisers stashing your nest egg on god knows which stocks for that sweet monthly commission. Related to this are your boomers nearing retirement playing RSL pokies with this thing called SMSF (self-managed super funds). And lastly the nouveau riche Chinese millionaires and billionaries who've always like them gambling games like mahjong and Macau and Singapore and Star City Casino playing the stock markets too. Oh yeah, you also have high frequency traders buying up stocks at speeds and volumes that "hacks" the investment strategies of all of the above.
So yeah, you'll be competing with all the big institutional investors and hacker high frequency traders with their hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Dow Jones just hit 18,000, it's highest ever.
The NASDAQ hit 5,000, the highest it has been since the dot com bubble.
The ASX is creeping back up to 6000. Note that that highest it has ever been is around 6700 in 2007.
Some may call this a bubble. While others call this "the new reality", "the paradigm shift", "the tectonic shift", while others call it asset inflation.
So I don't know, should you invest in stocks? Is it a bubble? Is the housing market a bubble? Are government bonds giving shit yields like negative 3 basis points or something? Are wages increasing? Will they give us enough money to buy goods and services? Will corporations be able to generate enough revenue and profits from selling goods and services to meet those lofty stock valuations? Will meatloaf and toilet paper just tectonic shift up in price to meet the sky high valuation of the world's stock markets and your typical Sydney house price?
I don't know men.