Investors have blown it big time since the financial crisis, said Richard Bernstein, chief executive of Richard Bernstein Advisors.

Despite the consensus view that we’re in a low-return environment, the S&P 500 has returned more than 15 percent per year over the last five years, while bonds returned about 2 percent and hedge funds 4 percent, he said.

The compounded difference between stocks and bonds over that period is 97 percent.

“Investors still do not fully appreciate the magnitude of opportunity cost they have paid to alleviate their fears that 2008 would repeat,” Bernstein said in a year-end report.

Bernstein, a widely followed strategist, remains bullish for the new year based on improving global profits, significant liquidity “and investor’s general hesitancy to embrace equities.” And a corporate tax cut will be like “giving a shot of adrenalin to a healthy patient,” he said.

“It is ironic that [investors] fear traditional equities, but they do not fear cryptocurrencies,” which are now in a full-on bubble, he said.

True bubbles have five characteristics: liquidity, increased leverage, democratization of the market, increased new issues and increased turnover. All are present now, Bernstein said, with the start of futures trading on cryptocurrencies adding leverage to the equation.

“It is our guess that the crypto-bubble will continue until the Fed and other central banks remove too much liquidity from the economy” and the yield curve inverts, he said.

But Bernstein said he doesn’t see an inverted yield curve anytime soon, “so the bubble seems likely to inflate more.”

Investors, in fact, are worrying too much about the flattening yield curve, he said.

“Contrary to popular belief, a flattening yield curve has historically still been an optimistic sign for equity returns,” Bernstein said.