Making money: what the experts think

Bull market record

The S&P 500 index in New York hit another record intraday-high on Tuesday, “powered by economic growth and better-than-expected corporate earnings”, said Quartz. “Barring a significant fall” on Wednesday, the market was on course to notch up “the longest-running bull market in US history”. The upward trend that began in March 2009 has lasted nine years, five months, 13 days and counting – topping the bull run of 19902000. But because it has been largely underpinned by ultra-low interest rates and “unorthodox” stimulus programmes, traders have often eyed it nervously, said the Financial Times. As Barry Gill at UBS Asset Management notes: “It has been the most hated bull market of all time – no one has ever wanted to believe in it.”

Further to run?

The question, as ever, is how long can it last? Art Hogan, of the investment bank B. Riley, reckons that it will only be time to “think about the end of the cycle” when there is evidence of a recession in corporate earnings or of leading economic indicators slowing down, said James Dean in The Times. Other analysts maintain that there are already red lights aplenty. Even if you think Robert Shiller’s “Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings Ratio” – currently at a higher level than before the 1929 Great Crash – is a misleading guide, just consider this “rather more striking statistic”, said Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. “At the turn of the century, the value of listed stocks worldwide was about the same as global GDP. Today it is three times as big.” That “stretches credulity”.

Hodl and rekt

One bubble that looks to have already burst is cryptocurrencies, said the FT. Bitcoin has plunged from a high of $19,000 per unit in December to a range of $6,000-$8,000. It’s true that “most cryptocurrency advocates still exude optimism”, but the prevailing argot tells a different story, said Lily Katz on Bloomberg. The word “hodl” – a “mantra meant to reassure nervous investors that they should ride out price drops” (coined in 2013 when a frenzied bitcoin trader misspelt “hold”) is now less popular on Google than “rekt” (code for “wrecked”) – the expression used when “crypto enthusiasts lose large sums of money”.