A european flag with arrows instead of the starts at the bottom being torn apart in the middle

Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi

Jul 7th 2026|4 min read

“The stock MARKET is not the economy” might be a cliché, but it is still jarring to see quite how far the two can part ways. Surely economic growth should be good for shareholders? Yet study after study has suggested the opposite. One by Jay Ritter of the University of Florida, for instance, compared the returns on 16 countries’ stock markets with their GDP growth per person between 1900 and 2002. The two appeared, if anything, to be negatively correlated—meaning that the faster a country became richer, the worse its investors tended to do.

An illustration showing bonds, and AI circuit lines with small business people standing on top

Europe’s economy is a mess. Its stock markets are a steal