Wednesday, October 20, 2010

5 Could-Be Bubbles Waiting To Burst

One of the oldest sayings of Wall Street (and one that happens to be true!) is that "there is always a bull market somewhere." In other words, no matter how bad one segment of the market may be performing, there is almost always some unrelated asset that is doing well at the same time. Taking that to its logical extreme, if there is always a bull market somewhere, there are almost always a few potential bubbles emerging. So which markets look like they have heated up to the melting point? (For more, check out The Myth About Market Bubbles.)

1. Bonds
To a lot of people, the current yield on government bonds just makes no sense. These people see the federal budget deficit, the huge debt burden and the risk of a stagflation-type environment of low growth and high inflation, and cannot understand how investors could be piling into bonds. Moreover, there is a strong sense that these artificially low rates are just a prelude to a withering bout of inflation that will smack fixed-income instruments hard.

For better or worse, there are other dynamics at work in the bond market. For starters, banks can make a solid "carry trade" on government bonds - banks take their ultra-low cost deposits and invest them in higher-yielding government securities. 



Click below for the full piece:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/5-Could-Be-Bubbles-Waiting-To-Burst-CRM-VMW-CTXS-LOGM1020.aspx

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