Everything bubble

The "everything bubble" refers to the impact on the values of asset prices, including equities, real estate, bonds, many commodities, and cryptocurrencies, due to quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan. The policy itself and the techniques of direct and indirect methods of quantitative easing used to execute it are sometimes referred to as the central bank put. The term "everything bubble" first came in use during the Federal Reserve chairmanship of Janet Yellen, but it is most associated with the quantitative easing during the COVID-19 pandemic by Jerome Powell. The everything bubble notably occurred despite the COVID-19 recession, the China–United States trade war, and political turmoil – leading to a realization that the bubble was a central bank creation, with concerns on the independence and integrity of market pricing, and on the Fed's impact on wealth inequality. In 2022, financial historian Edward Chancellor said "central banks' unsustainable policies have created an 'everything bubble', leaving the global economy with an inflation 'hangover'". Rising inflation did ultimately force the Fed to tighten financial conditions during 2022 (i.e. raising interest rates and employing quantitative tightening), and in June 2022, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the Fed had "pricked the Everything Bubble". In the same month, financial journalist Rana Foroohar told The New York Times, "Welcome to the End of the 'Everything Bubble'". An article in The Guardian in October 2022 said that "In recent months, it has become clear that the “everything bubble” is over, pricked by the tightening of policy by central banks in response to higher inflation". An article in The Economist in July 2023 noted that the everything bubble popped in 2022 but that asset prices were once again resilient.