Japan's years of quantitative easing, forced financial repression, and Koo-nesian stimulus efforts are an altogether too accurate test-tube for the accelerated policies that Bernanke has engaged. A glance at the charts below and one wonders how many times did Japanese investors look at the equity market's exuberance relative to bond yields and scoff greedily; how many times did Japanese equity managers ask "what are you gonna do, buy JGBs?" But time and again, the Japanese equity market realized the errors of its ways and attempted to 'creatively destruct' the status quo - only to be dragged kicking and screaming into the next bubble. What awaits the US?
Japan from the 1990/1 highs - time and time again the equity market pulled away in exuberant hope only to have its Koo-nesian heart broken... The pump-priming failed as the carburettor was flooded... Since 2009, Japanese equities finally stopped kidding themselves and sank along with JGB yields...
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S&P 500 from the 1999/2000 highs - one can't help but wonder where stocks go next. The timing is so similar to Japan also... (2-3 year after highs stocks decouple higher and 8 years after they recouple; then decouple again... in Japan this second decoupling was around 4 years - which is about now for US equities)... Greenspan tried to pump-prime in the mid-2000s and that ended badly, now Bernanke has tried even harder...
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If history is any guide, we will see US equities revert (just as Japanese equities did) - and with current rates implying an S&P 500 below 400, that would be quite a show.
But of course - it's different this time...
Charts: Bloomberg