Stocks keep climbing despite all the turmoil and poor sentiment. If you're wondering why, look at earnings.

According to FactSet, S&P 500 earnings for Q3 are on pace to grow 29.0% from a year ago. If that holds, it will be the third straight quarter of earnings growth above 25%.

And companies usually beat the estimates. Based on how much the growth rate has typically risen during past earnings seasons, FactSet projects the final number will land above 35%.

Over time, stock prices follow earnings. When profits are growing this fast, a rising market makes a lot more sense, even when the mood says otherwise.

Many pundits have pointed to the Nasdaq's recent run, up 93% over the past three years, as proof we're in another tech bubble.

The comparison falls apart once you look at the Nasdaq's rolling three-year returns going back to 1974. Three-year gains of 100% or more have happened several times, including the early 1980s, the early 1990s, the early 2010s, and 2021. It's the late '90s, when three-year returns hit nearly 300%, that remain (for now) a one-time anomaly.

If I asked you to name the world's largest oil producer, I'll bet you'd name a Middle Eastern country. And you'd be wrong.

The United States passed Saudi Arabia and Russia for the top spot in 2018 and hasn't looked back. As the chart below shows, the lead keeps growing. Pretty fascinating.

The problem with log-scale charts like the first one below is that they make the returns look much closer than they actually are. The second chart shows roughly the same data (mine only goes back to 1928 and doesn't include small-cap, etc.), but in linear form. As you can see, the difference in returns is so stark that bonds and inflation look like they're part of the x-axis as equities ran away from both over time.

For investing time horizons measured in decades, be sure to do the math on what you're giving up to avoid equity's temporary (in the US, historically always temporary) volatility. It's far, far greater than what most people think.

I recently built the best Life Insurance Needs Calculator on the entire internet on the Market Return Data site.

It's thorough but easy to understand, and you can even download the output as a PDF if you want to keep a copy.

Reply and tell me what you think.

I created a new inflation calculator on the Market Return Data site.

You can pick any period, see how inflation moved over time, and compare today's rate with the compounded average for that period.

For instance, the last 50 years show large changes in inflation, and August's 3.4% was slightly below the 50-year average of 3.59%. So, for everyone in the media saying or implying that inflation is abnormally high today, the long-term data doesn't necessarily support that position.

For most of my career, my writing has been for other people’s audiences. As an advisor, I wrote for clients. Today most of what I write is for advisors to share with theirs.

This blog is where I write for myself. Plenty of it will be about investing, since that’s what I think about most. The rest will be about whatever has my attention that week. Consider this my personal social media feed, except you don’t have to endure all the noise to see it.

Most posts will be short. Every one shows up here in full—since I’m not optimizing for page views, but usefulness and fun—and in your inbox if you subscribe. There’s nothing to click through to read the rest.

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