... or, if you prefer, 40 billion reasons!
At The Motley Fool, we think it's always a good time to buy shares. And on Thursday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke gave us another great reason to be bullish.
In fact, not just one reason, but 40 billion reasons.
To nobody's surprise, the Fed has responded to US employment and housing market woes by launching a third bout of quantitative easing, QE3, which involves purchasing an extra $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month until the end of time (or until job numbers improve "substantially", whichever comes first).
It has also pledged to maintain its current stimulus programme, Operation Twist, until the end of the year, and hold interest rates at zero until at least the middle of 2015.
You can say this about the Yanks, they don't mess about. Germany, please note.
Q-weeeeeeeeeee!
The announcement sparked instant market euphoria. The Dow instantly rose 1.6% on the news the FTSE 100 was up 1.5% in the first 20 minutes of trading on Friday.
Resources stocks are inevitable beneficiaries. At time of writing, Fresnillo (LSE: FRES), Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) and Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ) are all up nearly 9%, while Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) and BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT) are up 5%.
Banking stocks RBS (LSE: RBS) and Barclays (LSE: BARC) are also flying, while solid defensive blue chips such as Diageo (LSE: DGE) and GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) have fallen.
Risk on, as they say.
Calm down, dears
I don't expect this latest liquidity surge to sluice through stock markets with the same force as QE1 and QE2, which hit emerging-market shares and commodity prices like a tidal wave.
Virtual money printing simply isn't the novelty it was, and markets have learned it isn't a panacea. It will take a lot more time, effort and -- worryingly -- political will to pull the world out of its malaise.
Once markets have stopped celebrating this latest splurge, they will quickly return to fretting about the eurozone crisis, US fiscal cliff and Chinese hard landing.
That said, QE3 should help to buoy asset prices, month after month after month. Especially if the Chinese join in the fun (the Bank of England almost certainly will).
Let's all drink to dividends!
Inflation isn't all good news for stock markets. It pushes up company costs and erodes profit margins, unless they have the pricing power to pass their bills onto customers.
But shares are better placed to withstand the shock than cash or fixed-interest investments such as bonds. First, you get the capital growth, which should bob along nicely on a virtual sea of money printing.
Then you get the yield. Dividends are a good hedge against inflation, because a good company should increase their payout, year after year. If you're lucky, those dividend hikes will outpace inflation. Drinks giant Diageo, for example, recently upped its dividend payout by an inflation-busting 8%.
If inflation does come charging back in, a balanced portfolio of blue-chips should help you stay one step ahead.
FTSE fun
If you also think it's a good time to buy shares, you might like a FTSE 100 oil giant such as BP (LSE: BP) or Royal Dutch Shell (LSE: RDSB). Or maybe a supermarket such as Sainsbury's (LSE: SBRY) or Tesco (LSE: TSCO). Or a major property company such as Land Securities Group (LSE: LAND).
Or insurers Legal and General (LSE: LGEN) and Prudential (LSE: PRU). Or global consumer goods companies such as Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RB) and Unilever (LSE: ULVR).
You can still expect markets to remain turbulent. Quantitative easing may have saved the world once, but it's unlikely to repeat the trick again, not without serious back-up.
But provided you're in this for the long term, you will be glad you were bullish as well.
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> Harvey Jones holds BHP Billiton, RBS, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Prudential. He doesn't own any other shares mentioned in this piece. The Motley Fool owns shares in Tesco.
