Chart of the week: QE rewards lazy investors

published 11 March 2019

"A rising tide lifts all boats," says Tim Price in a Price Value Partners note. This chart is a stark illustration of the effect of a decade of rock-bottom interest rates and quantitative easing (money printing).

The liquidity flood has ensured a 360% increase in the S&P Total Return index, which includes reinvested dividends. But an index constructed by Deutsche Bank, which tracks 1,000 top-quality global blue chips chosen for their high scores in key metrics such as profitability has climbed by just 8% in a decade.

You would normally expect quality to be rewarded by the market, but in this era of central-bank activism, making the effort to find good stocks is "useless". You might as well "[plop] your money willy-nilly into crappy stuff".