Skepticism in global equity markets is getting expensive.

From Japan to Brazil and the U.S. as well as places like Greece and Ukraine, an epic year in equities is defying naysayers and rewarding anyone who staked a claim on corporate ownership. Records are falling, with about a quarter of national equity benchmarks at or within 2 percent of an all-time high.

“You’ve heard people being bearish for eight years. They were wrong,” said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at St. Petersburg, Florida-based Raymond James Financial Inc., which oversees $500 billion. “The proof is in the returns.”

To put this year’s gains in perspective, the value of global equities is now 3 1/2 times that at the financial crisis bottom in March 2009. Aided by an 8 percent drop in the U.S. currency, the dollar-denominated capitalization of worldwide shares appreciated in 2017 by an amount -- $20 trillion -- that is comparable to the total value of all equities nine years ago.

And yet skeptics still abound, pointing to stretched valuations or policy uncertainty from Washington to Brussels. Those concerns are nothing new, but heeding to them is proving an especially costly mistake.

Clinging to such concerns means discounting a harmonized recovery in the global economy that’s virtually without precedent -- and set to pick up steam, according to the International Monetary Fund. At the same time, inflation remains tepid, enabling major central banks to maintain accommodative stances.

“When policy is easy and growth is strong, this is an environment more conducive for people paying up for valuations,” said Andrew Sheets, chief cross-asset strategist at Morgan Stanley. “The markets are up in line with what the earnings have done, and stronger earnings helped drive a higher level of enthusiasm and a higher level of risk taking.”

The numbers are impressive: more than 85 percent of the 95 benchmark indexes tracked by Bloomberg worldwide are up this year, on course for the broadest gain since the bull market started. Emerging markets have surged 31 percent, developed nations are up 16 percent.

Big companies are becoming huge, from Apple Inc. to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Technology megacaps occupy all top six spots in the ranks of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization for the first time ever. 

Up 39 percent this year, the $1 trillion those firms added in value equals the combined worth of the world’s six-biggest companies at the bear market bottom in 2009. Apple, priced at $810 billion, is good for the total value of the 400 smallest companies in the S&P 500.

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