Bubble Exit Rule: "You Only Get Out If You Panic Before Everyone Else Does"

The stock market reached all-time highs last week based upon the machinations of central bankers and the perceptions of speculators that these bankers will always have their back. Yellen, Kuroda, and Draghi are growing increasingly desperate as everything they have done in the last five years has failed to revive their moribund economies. The average person in the U.S., Japan and Europe is far worse off today than they were in 2009 at the height of the worldwide recession. The .1% have vastly increased their riches through the ZIRP and QE policies of central bankers. The rise in stock markets is nothing but a confidence game built upon the false belief that there will always be a greater fool to buy overvalued assets acquired by borrowing from the central bankers at 0%. John Hussman understands the nature of markets:

We’re mindful that the financial markets move not based on what is true, but by what is perceived.

At present, the entire global financial system has been turned into a massive speculative carry trade. A carry trade involves buying some risky asset – regardless of price or valuation – so long as the current yield on that asset exceeds the short-term risk-free interest rate. Valuations don’t matter to carry-trade speculators, because the central feature of those trades is the expectation that the securities can be sold to some greater fool when the “spread” (the difference between the yield on the speculative asset and the risk-free interest rate) narrows.

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