could you explain what you mean by just noise?
I mean that the exact percentage returns of the index in any given year are basically random. They center around a positive 9% or so, but the deviations are huge in any given year. Don't count on any single year's return, because it could be just about any random number from the hat.
but dont you expect there to be lesser growth over the next short while?
No. Why do you?
The whole idea of "the business cycle" is mostly bogus. There is no characteristic frequency with which the economy naturally oscillates. It goes up and it goes down in response to geopolitical events, certainly, but those events don't regularly alternate between positive and negative impacts on a set time frame. Some bull markets last 10 months and some last 10 years, and you won't know which one it is until long after it's over.
If anything, the only observable trend I've seen in the stock market seems to have a period measured in decades. The 1930s and 40s were bad. Then the 50s and 60s were good. The 70s were bad, and then the 80s and 90s were good. By this sort of long term cycle, we're only halfway through our current period of expansion and should probably expect ten+ more years of green numbers before the next major downturn.
Remember that the stock market has averaged 9% returns through all kinds of crazy shit, including pandemics and global wars. An idiot president and a trade spat with China are just speed bumps, not the kind of thing that legitimately changes the course of the global economy. Factories are still churning out cheap plastic crap, consumers are still blowing their entire paychecks at Applebee's every weekend, resources are still abundant and our quality of life is still rising. I see no reason why the next "short while" should realistically be expected to be worse than the recent past.
You have to let go of the idea that stock market prices
are the economy. The economy does it's own thing, and then a bunch of noisy rich people argue over how to price their expectations of future profits. If you're forecasting the short term stock market, you're just guessing about how they will argue and not about whether or not they are right.