Not that there would be an alternative. Just that stocks no longer look so great. They are about the future. And that one is – lets say – uncertain.
A couple of days ago (mid October 2020) I compared Market cap with product produced (things made or subscribers) and recent revenue and employee numbers.
Tesla had a market cap of one million dollar per car made. So the stock market thinks that Elon Musks car company will make a million dollars in profits in the future for every car they manage to make. The same number for other auto makers is between 3 and 8 thousand. Only Toyota (18K) Daimler (23K) and BMW (31K) are different. Still a 30 to 1 ratio between BMW and Tesla.
Apple is expected to generate around $9000US of profits for every iPhone they sold in 2019. So if you did buy an iPhone, and if we assume a simple and generous 50% profit margin, then you have to buy Apple stuff for $18,000 for this to make sense.
Oversimplifying things even more Amazon is expected to make $10633 from each prime subscriber they have. Which ignores AWS and non prime clients or other activities like Whole Foods. Still: Profit margin on amazon.com are in the low percentages. Thinking 2% would mean that prime people need to order stuff worth half a million with the online merchant. Even if you think that only 1/3 of profits from prime member everybody would need to get 2243 Instant Pots. Each. Good times.
But hey: “There is no alternative to stocks”