Comment by djbebs

Except that's not true.

At the end of the day all stock market returns come from one's of 3 things:

Dividends

Earnings per Share growth

Multiple expansion

Over the long run the speculation that you so decry ( which amounts to Multiple expansion) has a negligible impact (less than 1%).

Sure you have plenty of short term booms and busts, but over the long term they are really irrelevant.