Today, I’d like to take a deep dive into the fascinating world of global finance and explore how global liquidity has reshaped the stock market since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Over the past decade and a half, central banks around the world have been pumping money into the financial system, almost as if cash could grow on trees.
This wave of liquidity has changed the way markets move, fueling long bull runs and altering the nature of bear markets. In this post, we’ll unpack what this “flood of money” really means, how it has transformed investor behavior, and why understanding liquidity has become essential to making sense of today’s financial landscape and what does that mean for bear markets, investor confidence, and the long game?
Liquidity: The Market’s Lifeblood
Let’s start with the basics. When we talk about liquidity in the context of global markets, we’re talking about the cash (or near-cash) that central banks like the US Federal Reserve (FED), European Central Bank (ECB ), Bank of Japan (BoJ) or even our own Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) pump into the financial system....