Volume: That's been bugging me. Notice that trading volume now is actually higher than it was during the bubble.
stockcharts.com[w,a]daclyyay[d19980429,20030429][pb50!b200][vc60][iUb14!La12,26,9]&pref=G
I can think of two possible reasons. One is that the stock market is currently much more dominated by institutions than previously and they trade, trade, trade, bull market or bear, whereas individuals creep away to lick their wounds during bear markets. The other is that people, professional and otherwise, were turned into trading machines by the '90s bubble and are still at it.
I keep looking for a significant drop in trading volume as a sign of a bottom, but it may be that no longer holds.
But, greenspan knows printing money causes inflation.
Stagflation? Yeah. Not impossible.
If you believe these numbers (they are from the US giv't, which has an interest in the matter), we never entered a recession:
economy.com
You need to register for this, but it's free. This is the tabular GDP data.
Tabular consumer installment credit:
economy.com
If you click on "chart" for "Total Consumer Credit - Seasonally Adjusted ", you get something that looks suspiciously like the NASDAQ in the '90s:
economy.com
Interest rates: This is interesting.
stockcharts.com
Total Bankruptcies in tabular form. The chart also looks like the NAZ.
economy.com
Personal income:
economy.com
Jan '90 to Jan '00 income ratio: 9103/4766 = 1.91
Jan '90 to Jan '00 debt ratio: 1428.27/781.46 = 1.83
1st Qtr GDP was up- -by 2% year-over-year. Not great, but better than negative.
Not enough to justify a bull market, though. Of course, the market tries to look forward and thinks it sees better times ahead.
ERTS shows 59.45 right now. Close enough. P/E of 25. |
