Quote from saliva:
Fair enough, but what do you mean by supply/demand forces that are absent from the equity markets? It ain't my intention to play a word-game with ya but for the sake of an argument, isn't the earning power of the companies that make up the index directly tied to the consumers' supply/demand, which the speculators gauge every month (eg. consumer sentiment, same-store sales, blah, blah)?
Understand. You are conned by the "industry". =)
Those are imagined "evaluation" of these companies, not supply/demand. Just like opinion (or a__hole), everyone has one.
Only a handful of people in this world has some use of the valuations should they be interested in acquiring a company for some specific purpose.
There is no delivery on ES of physical goods for use in real world. There is also no delivery on stocks to be consumed on a regular basis. Think about that.
There used to be real demand for stocks, when, at the time, they provide dividends consistently that beat the UST.
