Peak Sharemarket?

Above is my preferred Sharemarket index - the Wilshire 5000. I like the Wilshire because it takes into account all shares that are traded, not just those that make up the DJIA or the S&P 500. Moreover, the way the index is set up, each point represents around US$1 Billion. So when the index goes up, say 10 points, it means that around US$10 Billion has been invested into the entire sharemarket. When it drops, say, 100 points, it means that the entire sharemarket has dropped by around US$100 Billion.

If you look at the index, you'll see that I have chosen the "five year" option, which shows how the market has performed over a few years. What strikes me as interesting is that the market this year has essentially reached a plateau. It's gone up and down (like all sharemarket indexes do) but the prevailing trend has been neither up nor down, but neutral.

It reminds me of Hubbert's Peak.

Considering the fact that the price and availability of oil affects the entire marketplace, it would seem logical that the market would reflect this in a share market index like the Wilshire 5000. So long as the world economy remains addicted to cheap oil, the price of shares will inversely reflect the increasing cost of oil - the higher oil prices go, the lower the share market will go.

Oil production, for the past 12 months, has been flat. It, too, has reached a plateau.

Of course, the index you see does not take into account the falling US Dollar. If that were the case you would not see a rocky plateau after "07", but a steady downward slide.

The only time a decoupling can occur (between oil prices and share market) will be when oil use is more efficient or removed entirely from use. That'll take a while...