This only means that the FED hasn't been increasing its purchases since 2014. It has maintained an over $4 Trillion (trillion with a T) balance sheet, and it continues to roll this money over. Ending QE would mean stopping repurchasing and letting the balance sheet shrink - quite different in substance and effect than tapering.
This also ignores the fact that QE purchasing has continued to accelerate at an unsustainable rate in many of the world's largest economies, such as Japan.
In addition, central banks are (and have been) purchasing stocks directly to prop up the markets. The Bank of Japan spends over $800 billion yen a month buying stocks and ETFs, resulting in the central bank owning a massive 75% of ETFs in the entire market.
If you don't understand the problems with central banks owning three quarters of the market and what that means in the future (near and far) then you don't understand markets. Nobody knows when the "extend and pretend" strategy employed by central banks around the world for the last decade will fall apart, but everyone informed understand that it won't last forever. The longer we keep our heads in the sand the worse the problem will ultimately be.
There's no question its going to pop - the question is when. It could be tomorrow, or it could be 5 years from now. Certainly central banks are going to do everything in their power to prop up the markets with continued equity and bond purchasing to delay the inevitable as long as possible - which will make the pop that much louder when it does come to pass.
Free markets are based on price discovery. Central bank purchasing destroys price discovery by artificially creating demand. Its simply a matter of basic logic. Either central banks end their purchasing and demand falls to its organic level, or they continue to accelerate their purchases and increase the artificial disparity. In addition, as the share of markets owned by central banks increases the liquidity of markets decreases, meaning that when there is a crash those running for the exit will find the door much smaller.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
This also ignores the fact that QE purchasing has continued to accelerate at an unsustainable rate in many of the world's largest economies, such as Japan.
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/central-bank-balance-shee...
In addition, central banks are (and have been) purchasing stocks directly to prop up the markets. The Bank of Japan spends over $800 billion yen a month buying stocks and ETFs, resulting in the central bank owning a massive 75% of ETFs in the entire market.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Bank-of-Japan-s-ETF...
If you don't understand the problems with central banks owning three quarters of the market and what that means in the future (near and far) then you don't understand markets. Nobody knows when the "extend and pretend" strategy employed by central banks around the world for the last decade will fall apart, but everyone informed understand that it won't last forever. The longer we keep our heads in the sand the worse the problem will ultimately be.