Generally speaking, the change in the expected rate of growth of stock market dividends per share at certain points in the future is directly proportionate to the change in the rate of growth of today's stock prices.
But the stock market is a noisy place. Stock prices are often influenced by investor reactions to short-term events that result in the change of the growth rate of stock prices deviating from the level that the expected change in the growth rate of their underlying dividends per share would place them, which we recognize as noise.
Noise is always present in the stock market to some extent. Most often, it is the result of the thousands upon millions of interactions between the buyers and sellers of shares that occur every day that accounts for much of the typical level of noise we observe in the stock market, which most often results in the small deviations we observe between the change in the growth rate of stock prices with the expected future change in the growth rate of the market's dividends per share.
From time to time however, the emergence of large amounts of noise in the stock market can cause substantial deviations of stock prices from the fundamental signal being sent by the expected future levels of dividends per share. We call these "noise events".
When a noise event develops, it can either be an opportunity or a calamity for investors depending upon which direction the noise is breaking and whether investors are considering buying, selling or holding stock, because large noise events are always temporary in duration. They may last days, or months, but they always end and the stock market will resume following the fundamental signal sent by the market's underlying dividends per share, which best captures the expectations of investors for the future.
With all that in mind, here's where the market stands today:
The question of whether that represents an opportunity for you, or a calamity, still remains - that's really only something that you can answer!