What is the point of an equity market? Ask strategist Russell Napier and he will compare it to a large hole in the ground at Nendrum on Mahee Island in County Down. For many years, a sign was posted next to it saying “Pit of Uncertain Use”. It exists, people pay a lot of attention to it, but its original purpose is lost. That about sums it up, he says.

Anyone landing from Mars in the past 10 days would think that harsh. They would be sure that the stock market has a very certain purpose: to allow large and established companies to get larger still by merging with each other. This makes sense as an interpretation. This week a dozen takeover deals, each worth more than $100m, were announced in 24 hours; several had values well into the billions, bringing the total to more than $120bn: think Sainsbury’s and Asda; T-Mobile and Sprint; Marathon Petroleum and Andeavor.

These mergers are not bad in themselves (although, more often than not, deals of this scale at this point in a global cycle end badly). Shareholders have made money and consumers may well find the consolidation feeds through to lower prices. That is nice — as the chief executive of Sainsbury’s made clear when he was filmed singing “We’re the Money” while waiting to be interviewed on his deal. But the scale of this shifting around of shares has to leave investors with the nagging feeling that, despite the frantically high levels of activity, we are not getting anywhere.