> And the fact that it doesn't matter and won't impact demand for shares illustrates how increasingly and dangerously untethered the stock market is from reality.

Part of the reason for this demand is the fact that index tracking funds like QQQ will be forced to buy up massive volumes of shares. Not only that but other non index tracking funds that track large cap stocks will also have to buy. Vanguard large cap for example manages trillions of dollars. That in itself will have 100s of billions worth of buy orders.

Does this not follow from the basic 401k structure in this country? Most people will be defaulted into a fund like Vanguard and from what I can gather from my co-workers, none of them are particularly wild about taking their retirement money and playing the day trading casino to try to increase their performance.

It's better than what preceded it but we still manage retirement wealth poorly.