Between the end of the global financial crisis in early 2009 and the end of the 2021 share market melt up, US shares returned an astonishing 486 per cent – a compounded annual return of 14.5 per cent.

It was enough to make other share markets look positively pedestrian: Europe was up 228 per cent; emerging markets 251 per cent; Japan 266 per cent; and Australia (the laggard) was 198 per cent.