Since the low of early March, 2009, the capitalization of global equity markets has more than doubled, rising by $29 trillion. Valuations now are only $7 trillion shy of their late 2007 high. It would be an understatement to say that "fortunes" have been won, lost, and won again in the past several years—the magnitude of the collapse and the rebound have been more than anyone could have imagined. It is a testament to the resilience of markets, risk-takers, and workers that the global market economy has not collapsed under the weight of the fiscal and monetary policy errors that contributed to this extraordinary volatility. There are still plenty of problems left to deal with, but the recovery to date inspires hope that the problems can be overcome with time.
I like this chart and have watched a version of it for the last few years after using it in a small presentation in 2009. But I do think in this era of qe and other activist central banks that the rebound in the real value or purchasing power value of global equities has not made nearly as big a recovery as it has in nominal dollars. All part of the stealth taxation of fiat money governments.
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