I’ve been talking about a divergence between economic growth and asset prices being bridged by central bank liquidity and here it is, courtesy of FTAlphaville:
US stock market cap to GDP (Exhibit 2), one of Warren Buffett’s favoured valuation metrics, is currently 1.12x, clearly high by the standards of the last 60 years. The measure is at the very least a reminder that growth in 2014, rather than liquidity, is essential to prevent an overshoot of the equity market.
Of course it might deflate owing to a surge in real growth. You never know!
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
