| Series | First | Latest | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nonfinancial corporate equity / M2 | 1.16 | 3.10 | 0.60 | 3.49 |
Latest chart point (2026-01-01) predates the newest source observation (2026-06-01); one input series may be lagging.
(NCBEILQ027S in $m / 1,000) / M2SL in $bnMarket value of domestic nonfinancial corporations' equity (NCBEILQ027S, millions of dollars) divided by the M2 money supply (M2SL, billions of dollars). Both series are quarterly. This is not total stock-market capitalisation: NCBEILQ027S covers nonfinancial corporations only and excludes financials and foreign listings, so it understates the full market. A true total-cap/M2 chart needs a different market-value series and is tracked separately.
As of Q1 2026, the latest reading is 3.10 ratio. That is up 12.5% over the past year and above its long-run median of 1.34 ratio.
When the ratio climbs, the market value of nonfinancial corporate equity is expanding faster than the broad money supply that could in principle support it, a pattern historically associated with extended valuation regimes such as the late 1990s dot-com peak. When it falls, either equity valuations are compressing or M2 is growing faster than equity values, conditions that have often coincided with accumulation phases.
M2 is the Federal Reserve's broad money measure, covering cash, checking, savings and small time deposits. Scaling nonfinancial corporate equity by M2 asks whether the supply of dollars is keeping pace with the market's quoted worth, so a rising ratio means valuations are climbing faster than the money stock, not just faster than last quarter's prices.
NCBEILQ027S covers only domestic nonfinancial corporations, so it excludes financials, foreign listings and the full market capitalisation captured by a price index such as VTI. The figure is also a level, not a return: it ignores dividends and buybacks. M2 is a domestic measure while a large share of US corporate revenue is earned abroad. Treat the ratio as context for valuation regimes, not investment advice.
The ratio peaked near 3.5 in early 2000 at the height of the dot-com bubble and bottomed around 0.6 in 1982, when high interest rates crushed equity multiples while money supply kept growing. The 2000 high remains the all-time reading: more than two decades later the ratio, though substantially above its 1982 trough, has not reclaimed that peak. Each prior extreme eventually reverted toward the long-run median through a combination of equity drawdowns and money-supply growth.
NCBEILQ027S comes from the Federal Reserve's Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States (the Flow of Funds), the standard source for aggregate corporate balance-sheet values. Analysts who build valuation frameworks off the Flow of Funds use this ratio as the money-supply-normalized version of corporate equity value, complementing the GDP-normalized Buffett indicator that uses a flow rather than a stock as its denominator.
The 2000 peak near 3.5 is the reference point strategists cite when asking whether nonfinancial corporate equity is as extended today as it was at the dot-com top. The fact that the ratio has not reclaimed that level in the two decades since, despite a multi-trillion-dollar expansion of the money supply, is itself a use: it calibrates how much monetary expansion alone can lift the ratio without real multiple expansion.
Because this ratio excludes financials and foreign listings, it isolates the nonfinancial corporate slice in a way the VTI-based ratio cannot. Strategists comparing the valuation trajectory of productive corporate America against the full market use the spread between this ratio and the total-equity-to-M2 ratio as a measure of how much of broad-market stretching is coming from financials and foreign names.
As of Q1 2026, the latest reading is 3.10 ratio. That is up 12.5% over the past year and above its long-run median of 1.34 ratio.
This benchmark is built on quarterly data. The page is refreshed when the source publishes new observations; the freshness block below the chart shows the exact data-through date and when PIER20 last fetched the file.
The chart is built from Nonfinancial corporate equity / M2, sourced from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).
Across the quarterly series, which begins in 1959, the ratio peaked at roughly 3.5 in the first quarter of 2000 during the dot-com bubble and bottomed near 0.6 in mid-1982. The 2000 peak remains the all-time high; the ratio today sits below it.
M2 is the denominator of the ratio, not a plotted series. The single line on the chart is the result of dividing nonfinancial corporate equity (NCBEILQ027S) by M2 (M2SL). PIER20 does publish charts that plot M2 as its own line for comparison, such as Total US stock market vs M2 money supply and Bitcoin vs M2 money supply.
This chart uses the Federal Reserve's market value of nonfinancial corporate equity (NCBEILQ027S), which excludes financials and foreign listings and so understates the full market. Total US stock market vs M2 uses a broad price index (VTI) that captures the entire US equity market's level. The two move broadly together but answer different questions: this one tracks a market-value-to-money ratio, the other a price-index-to-money ratio.
CPI measures consumer prices; M2 measures the money stock itself. Assets vs CPI shows purchasing-power preservation; assets vs M2 shows whether asset growth is outpacing monetary expansion. PIER20 publishes both perspectives across the liquidity cluster.
One tested idea, through the evidence stack. No migration of any kind.