US stock index Dow Jones, in points, source: tradingeconomics.com:
US stock index Dow Jones, in points, adjusted for inflation (M2 adjusted):
US stock index Dow Jones, in points, adjusted for inflation and income (M2 & income adjusted):
It looks like the real stock market returns are much lower than people think. The value of US stock market surely didn’t increased 21-fold since 1970. The last chart suggests it was only something like 2-fold increase.
I believe the REAL reason for log scales is to obscure the effects of inflation by creating support and resistance lines that are more linear. Also, the type of log scale can be altered to give the impression of linear change that is nearly straight. That leads to the suspicion that log scales are in fact created for longer term charts to obscure the damaging nature of inflation, wherever it occurs.
I went looking for agreement on this but was unable to find it. The suspicion remains but without other verification.
Great charts, but would be much more meaningful if plotted on log scale.