The exuberance in the western world’s stock markets is palpable.

The lead is coming from Wall Street where the end of year celebration was lubricated by a 30% gain. Thanks to the Federal Reserve printing $1 trillion out of thin air for “bankers” and the market to feed on.

This has little to do with economic fundamentals. This one graph sums that all up nicely.

As you can see, 2013 was the year that the stock market (blue line) lost any attachment to the realities of the corporate profits (yellow sticks) that supposedly underlie share values. (That’s just to October: by the end of the year the blue line was reaching for the sky!)

But the real long term economic problem is the red line. Profits and the market have left the real economy way behind. Something has to break.

Another spin on a similar theme is a graph going around dubbed the death cross. You can do lots of things with graphs and numbers, but this certainly says something. Whilst forward expectations of economic growth steadily sank, the market took off. Since when did that make any logical, economic or market sense?

2014 looks like a good time to exit share investments before the high frequency traders’ algorithms do, don’t you think?