The first bubble I ever saw was the dot-com bubble of 1999. I was born in the early seventies, and I made it to my mid-twenties before ever hearing about an asset price bubble. Commercial real estate went nuts in the eighties, but nobody ever called it a bubble. They didn’t even call it a crash when it crashed.
Bubbles aren’t new – they’ve been around since Dutch tulips – but it’s only recently that they’ve worked their way into the average investor’s lexicon. If you asked the man on the street, he would probably tell you there are five different bubbles going on right now. There is some truth to that, but also some untruth to that.
The true part is that a lot of things are currently overvalued. I would say stocks are overvalued. Most people would agree. I would also say bonds are overvalued. Some people would agree. I would say corporate credit is overvalued, real estate in certain parts of the country is overvalued, and maybe a few other things.
But these are not bubbles.
So, what is the difference between something being overvalued and something being in a bubble?
Since you asked…
This post was published at Mauldin Economics on APRIL 20, 2017.
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