When we think of inflation we usually think of how much food, electricity or gasoline costs.

But there is another aspect as well: how much it costs us to buy financial assets.

The above chart at first glance may appear to be due to the strong performance of the 500 largest U.S. companies. But this is misleading: I believe it reflects more the effects of massive printing and inflation than how companies are doing.

The charts for the stock markets of countries with high inflation are similar: the more currency printing and inflation, the more the stock market rises.

That the S&P, which has an average return of about 10% on average has risen 30% in the last year is sobering. Let's think that in November 2020 we were already out of the stock market slump that was the COVID.

At the end of the day, anyone like me who has money invested in the S&P 500 can't be too happy about the 30% return because if we discount inflation it comes to almost nothing.