Think you made money in stocks over the last two years? Think again!

Your gains, such as they are or might’ve been, never were and aren’t.

Need proof? No problem. Check out the top pane on the visual below from Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson, who’s happy to disabuse you of the notion that you came out like a bandit across two years of nominally stellar returns for US shares.

“The gains in stocks (and other assets) have been somewhat illusory in real terms,” Wilson wrote Monday.

I know what you’re thinking. Actually I have no idea what you’re thinking, but I’m thinking that’s a bit of a red herring. If you think US equities’ “real” performance measured in gold is discouraging, try measuring it in Bitcoin and running the chart back to the latter’s inception in and around 2012.

It’s not clear to me what Wilson’s trying to prove here, but that chart’s a favorite among bears determined that gains aren’t gains. The chart annotation alludes to Wilson’s explanation for stocks’ uninspiring gold-denominated performance: Fiscal dominance, which Mike blames, or at least cites, for a lot. Fiscal stimulus, he said Monday, has driven “a significant portion of growth in the economy,” and it was funded through the Fed’s RRP facility and short-end issuance.

If any of this troubles you, don’t worry. Because Donald Trump’s going to — wait for it — make real returns great again. Or make stock returns real again. Find me a red hat, some white thread and a needle: “MSRRA.”

“[S]ince the outcome of the election, [the equities-to-gold] ratio has climbed higher from support levels follow[ing] a broadening in stock/sector performance, signs markets are starting to contemplate a change in direction from fiscal dominance and crowding out to a backdrop that could lead to broader and more positive real returns,” Wilson said, adding that “policy matters, and the market appears to be more excited about deregulation and potential fiscal consolidation than concerned about risks from immigration enforcement and tariffs, at least for now.”

Yes, “at least for now.” Wilson conceded that it might be a mistake to read too much — or anything at all — into the lurch higher in gold-denominated stocks in and around the election. It’s difficult, he said, “to prove” that markets were saying something about the end of the Biden-era “crowding out” effect, and it’s anyway “too early to be conclusive in [that] sense.”