What is the Stock Market Bubble?

Explanation

The prices of securities traded on the stock market get affected by various reasons, such as the introduction of a liberal governmental regulation or expansionary measures undertaken by the central bank of the country, such as the reduction in the policy rate by the federal reserve. Such measures encourage people to take out money from fixed income instruments and invest the same in the riskier equity market to expect higher returns. Therefore, it is expected that the companies would perform better due to such policy changes, and therefore their shares will rise.

Such expectations may not always be aligned with the actual economic activity that is taking place in the real economy because, at times, these measures are not able to boost the economy as much as possible. However, such market information is not always complete, and therefore the financial marketsFinancial MarketsThe term “financial market” refers to the marketplace where activities such as the creation and trading of various financial assets such as bonds, stocks, commodities, currencies, and derivatives take place. It provides a platform for sellers and buyers to interact and trade at a price determined by market forces.read more are not completely efficient. This implies that the prices do not convey all the publicly or privately available information.

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How Does it Work?

Following are the steps of the eruption and inflation of the stock market bubble:

The above image shows the steps in the bubble formation process; let’s understand it through the example of the dotcom bubbleDotcom BubbleThe Dotcom Bubble was an economic bubble that affected the prices of stocks related to the technology industry during the late 1990s and early 2000s in the United States. The event was triggered by the hype over the new Internet industry, media attention, and investors’ speculation of profits by dot-com companies.read more of 1999:

#1 – Disruptive Innovation

Internet technology was a completely new technology that would revamp how the world functioned. Therefore, it looked highly promising, and therefore a lot of companies entered this domain during the period 1990-to 1997 to profit from this prospective new industry.

#2 – Boom

Several companies saw an initial level of success, and the investors started flowing in the money in hopes of higher returns. This attracted even more companies into this sector who might not have had the capabilities to give a strong performance but were dragged by the booming sector. Further, the tax reformsTax ReformsTax reform refers to the changes and amendments made in the nation’s tax structure or system to fix the loopholes and make it more efficient. It even ensures that there are fewer chances of tax evasion and avoidance by the taxpayers.read more and cheaper credit availability encouraged these companies to enter this new market. This was the era when Netscape and Yahoo! released their IPOsIPOsAn initial public offering (IPO) occurs when a private company makes its shares available to the general public for the first time. IPO is a means of raising capital for companies by allowing them to trade their shares on the stock exchange.read more.

#3 – Irrational Exuberance

At this stage, the investors lose perspective of performance and keep pouring in money without realizing that the companies are not doing their bit. Therefore the promising returns might not occur at all. This led to a greater divide between performance and return expectations and inflated the stock prices. This was when NASDAQ quadrupled, and the P/E ratios soared beyond any limit.

#4 – Profit Booking

  • When the Fed started realizing they were heading towards a bubble, it started increasing interest rates, and the funding became volatile.Further, many duplicate companies had emerged, and there were talks of mergers among them. Failed mergersMergersMerger refers to a strategic process whereby two or more companies mutually form a new single legal venture. For example, in 2015, ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co and Kraft Foods Group Inc merged their business to become Kraft Heinz Company, a leading global food and beverage firm.read more led to NASDAQ declining gradually.Japan, the technology giant, went into another recession.Investors started realizing that their expectations might not be aligned with the performance; they started selling and booking profits or accepting lower levels of losses so that they may not have to sell their investment at thrift’s price in times to come; this ensured a correction in the marketCorrection In The MarketMarket Correction is usually referred to as a fall of 10% or more from its latest high. It happens due to various reasons such as declining macro-economic factors, intense pessimism across the economy, securities specific factors, over-inflation in the markets, and so on.read more where the stock prices started falling.

#5 – Panic

Example of the Stock Market Bubble

  • One of the most popular bubbles in the history of the twentieth century is the crash of Wall Street in 1929, following which the great depression occurred. This was when the NYSE stocks crashed, leading to erosion of wealth for scores of investors; this crash followed the crash of the London Stock Exchange and led to the starting of the Great DepressionGreat DepressionThe Great Depression refers to the long-standing financial crisis in the history of the modern world. It began in the United States on October 29, 1929, with the Wall Street Crash and lasted till 1939.read more.WWI had just ended, and there was over-optimism in the population, which was migrating to urban areas to find high-paying work in the industrial expansion. There was very high speculation, leading to a divide between the actual product and the speculations about the same, ignoring the fact that steel production, construction activity, and auto sales were all slowing down while unemployment was rising.Bankers gave easy credit that fundamentals couldn’t back. The Dow Jones industrial average was still climbing greater heights. These were signals that the bubble had inflated way too much and would burst anytime, which led to investors entering a selling spree, which led to the stocks losing value constantly, and finally to a crash in October 1929.

Causes of the Stock Market Bubble

The following are the causes of the stock market bubble.

#1 – Wild Speculation

This is one of the most important reasons that lead to stock market bubbles because this is why the gorge between the financial and real economy widens. When the market participants are not ready to accept the challenges that the real economy is facing and are still buying the stocks of companies that are underperforming in an expectation that they will gain when these companies do well, it leads to inflation in stock prices creates a bubble.

#2 – Cheap Credit

When the loans are available at very low-interest rates, the central banks are still on a rate-cutting spree. It is bound to cause a boom in the non-performing assetsNon-performing AssetsNon-Performing Assets (NPA) refers to the classification of loans and advances on a lender’s records (usually banks) that have not received interest or principal payments and are considered “past due.” In the majority of cases, debt has been classified as non-performing assets (NPAs) when loan payments have been outstanding for more than 90 days.read more in the times to come because the cheap credit is borrowed by even those who don’t intend to pay it back. Therefore, such borrowers are forced to sell assets, which leads to a reduction in production capacity, thereby signaling a weaker economy, so stock prices start falling.

#3 – Panic

When the investors start realizing that the financial economy is about to crash, the panic selling begins, and people start booking profits or limiting losses, leading to falling in-stock pricing. This initiates the crash in the economy, and a time comes when some stocks can’t find buyers at even the lowest low of prices.

#4 – Political Risks

When the geopolitical risks increase, and people start feeling unsafe in the country, the stock market initiates dipping, and if necessary measures are not taken timely, the crash becomes inevitable.

Consequences of Stock Market Bubble

  • Crash of Market: As explained above, there comes a time when the bubble inflates beyond the threshold, and even a tiny pin poke can burst it, leading to a crash in the market when wealth is eroded completely, stocks lose all their value, and the economy goes into recessions.Recession: As the market crashes, it becomes explicit that the economy has not been doing well for a while, and therefore, recession sets in, people get laid off, and austerity measures set in. It becomes impending for the fiscal and monetary policymakers to boost the economy and set the industry back on track.Widespread Discontent: When the economy doesn’t do well, people’s savings get eaten up, and the future starts looking bleak, people lose hope and motivation leading to instability in the economy.

How to Spot Stock Market Bubble?

Yield curve analysisYield Curve AnalysisA yield curve is a plot of bond yields of a particular issuer on the vertical axis (Y-axis) against various tenors/maturities on the horizontal axis (X-axis). The slope of the yield curve provides an estimate of expected interest rate fluctuations in the future and the level of economic activity. read more is a popular tool for analyzing the economic situation. For example, if the short-term debt instrumentsDebt InstrumentsDebt instruments provide finance for the company’s growth, investments, and future planning and agree to repay the same within the stipulated time. Long-term instruments include debentures, bonds, GDRs from foreign investors. Short-term instruments include working capital loans, short-term loans.read more have a higher yield than the long-term ones, we can say that the economy might be entering into a recession. On the other hand, if such is the case and the stock market is still showing constant increases, then there is a strong chance that the stock market is experiencing a bubble.

The above-explained yield curve is called an inverted yield curveInverted Yield CurveThe inverted Yield curve is a rare graph that depicts future financial disasters by demonstrating how long-term debt instruments will yield lower returns than short-term debt instruments. The great financial crisis of 2007 is a good example of it. read more, and it implies that the investors are ready to forgo higher interest rates in the future because they want to keep their investments safe. They have no faith that the economy will do well in the future. Therefore the interest rates received on fixed deposits are higher in present times, and they will fall because the demand will be higher for such instruments, so the cost of these will be higher. As interest rates and prices are inversely related, the interest rates in the future will be lower.

Conclusion

We can say that the market participants need to be aware of the sector’s performance before increasing their investments in any sector. Suppose the divide between the financial and real economy is not taken care of promptly. In that case, a bubble is inevitable, and so is a crash because once the bubble is too large, no monetary or fiscal measures can stop it from bursting.

This article has guided what Stock Market Bubble and its definition is. Here we discuss how to spot the stock market bubble and an example, chart, and causes. You can learn more about it from the following articles –

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