It is a famous axiom of the stock market that there are only two emotions connected with
it: fear and greed. However, in the past few years, the more appropriate emotions might very
well be fear and loathing.
While the stock market has more than doubled since its recovery post the global financial
crisis in March 2009, hundreds of billions of dollars have left the U.S. equity markets in the
same period. Thanks to the financial meltdown and the bursting of the tech bubble that preceded
it at the beginning of the last decade, there has emerged a sense that the stock market is a fool’s
errand, and there is no reason to expect that investors can realistically profit from it.