Acynic would say that investors know the price of everything and the value of nothing. But the reality could be much worse because they may not even know the price. For decades, investors, policymakers and academics have taken financial market prices as the critical gauge for the overall expectations on the economy and company performance.
Of course, some acknowledge that markets can get carried away as bubble dynamics develop, and ever since the 2008 financial crisis a veritable industry has developed, trying to identify the next bubble to burst. Indeed, not a day goes by without Cassandras calling for the imminent collapse of China under a mountain of debt, or the break-up of the eurozone or America’s corporate balance sheets buckling under years of heavy debt issuance.
Yet, through all of this, the sanctity around the market price has remained. Most don’t question whether basic formation of market prices is faulty. What if market gyrations are less to do with shifts in expectations on the economy or company performance, and more to do with participants coming to terms with a less well-functioning market?