Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

totalrealreturns.com

71–80 of 279 posts

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#71
Having all lines normalized so they start from a common point at x = 0 would be helpful. That would allow reading the total returns as percentage of the initial (1987) investment and compare them.

Similarly in the drawdown chart, if it starts at 1987, it makes no sense to start the dollar at -81%. If I am looking at a chart from 1987 to 2022, I want to see how the dollar did compared to other assets in that time period.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#73
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total US stock market cap is $45T[1] and M2 is $20T[2]. Are you sure currency prices can't be influenced by the stock market? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1277195/nyse-nasdaq-comp... [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/default.h...

I think that just furthers the point- there isn't enough 'money' in M2 to 'pay' for all the stocks in the stock market. Yet there that value sits and real estate is another 20+ trillion in land value. In other words the actual 'money' is a transactional grease for the wheels of commerce- notational/bookkeeping mechanism. The sale of Apple (the largest value stock in America) as a whole probably couldn't be accomplish…

A change in preferences from holding dollar reserves to holding stocks could change the value of the USD, that's what I am saying.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money (cash) is not wealth. Wealth can be created, or destroyed. The clearest explanation I've read for this was a PG essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html specifically the "Money Is Not Wealth", "The Pie Fallacy", and "Craftsmen" sections. Of course this essay has a positive/optimistic take on it, but certainly wealth can be destroyed as well.

That's true, but I am not aware of any wealth indices, only price indices, and price indices can only increase and decrease relative to each other.

> I am not aware of any wealth indices

Term you’re looking for is “benchmark.”

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#75
One suggestion I would have - it's great that you can drag on the graph to choose a different time period. But the data at the top isn't changed by that change of time period, e.g. https://totalrealreturns.com/s/AAPL stays 1980 to current. Obviously Apple wasn't doing well before the return of Steve Jobs, so it'd be nice to see the data for a shorter time period e.g. in my case I'd love to look at e.g. APPL for 2000 onwards.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#76

How can everything go down at once, doesn't the money have to go somewhere? Best hypotheses so far along with how to test them: 1. Perhaps the parts of the CPI that companies in the stock market can produce are being outpaced by the components that are not produced, like real estate, and so can't contribute to an increase in share prices. (How to check: Look up changes in the CPI components, which are detailed in the…

Unrealized gains can simply evaporate. If a crap company has a 1 B valuation and it fails, that money is gone. The value in stockholders portfolio just goes down, not to anywhere in particular.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#78
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that just furthers the point- there isn't enough 'money' in M2 to 'pay' for all the stocks in the stock market. Yet there that value sits and real estate is another 20+ trillion in land value. In other words the actual 'money' is a transactional grease for the wheels of commerce- notational/bookkeeping mechanism. The sale of Apple (the largest value stock in America) as a whole probably couldn't be accomplish…

A change in preferences from holding dollar reserves to holding stocks could change the value of the USD, that's what I am saying.

Change in preferring the Yen or the Euro, maybe, but I've never read/seen anything that would reinforce the idea that the dollar would be weakened by preference for holding other assets whose values are ultimately figured by their worth _in dollars_.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#80

Wish it had the 70s, or ideally, the whole 20th century. The 80s-2010s has been a period of unusually low inflation and consistent market returns, buoyed by the end of the Cold War and entry of the developing world into the world economy. There's a good chance that we revert to the mean going forwards and see much more geopolitical instability and resource constraints.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN