Amid fragile markets, how to predict when the bubble will burst?The news and stories that move markets, could well be a leading indicator of when markets fail
by Richard Harris
Economist Paul Samuelson famously quipped that stock markets accurately predicted nine of the last five recessions. The same could be said of financial economists.
So-called leading indicators like market sentiment swing with the daily news.
Optimism is the default option but bull markets die hard. Still, most seasoned financial economists now recognise that stock markets are becoming more fragile.
And so does the crowd. The frequency of online searches for “stock market bubble” has surged since July.
This quantification of the wisdom of the crowd is the essence of “narrative finance”: news stories and developing narratives move markets and these can be a plausible forecasting indicator of when markets become critical.
The financial system absorbs shocks by adjusting prices using information from news signals passed through narratives. This price adjustment results in a new state of dynamic equilibrium between buyers and sellers – akin to the concept in cell microbiology.
Source: SCMP
https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opin ... pe=section
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