Downtown Josh Brown

No, I won't call anybody out.

Well, I think the most interesting part is I think that most investors, and I think for people who study history, this is the exception, but most investors want the equity market to reflect good times and good diffuse times, meaning that not just a few companies are spending, but many companies are spending.

There is good growth.

There is good job growth.

But when you study history, the equity market doesn't always reflect good times.

In fact, if you had to say, if you dropped a quant onto it, and I'm kind of a quant,

And you said, is the equity market reflective of good times or is that a hedge against bad times?

You'd almost say that it's more often the hedge against bad times.

I mean, think of all the things that have gone wrong over the last five years and the equity market is 70% higher.

So this is the trick, I think, of investing that when you study history, like you understand all the risks, all the headlines, like all the problems that can go wrong and your downside risk is, well, what if they don't go wrong in the way that you think that they will?

then you give up on average returns of 8% a year, which is one of the few asset classes that can actually keep pace with inflation.

So I think that's the tug of the riddle with equity investing.

Oh, it always goes back and forth.

But the problem is the data.

I think that that's what's helpful, right?

If you say, like, consumer confidence is at all-time lows, like, is that a problem?

And you go, well, wait a minute.

You'd actually rather be buying equities when consumer confidence is low relative to high.

Right?

I mean, but same thing with uncertainty.