Let the wild rumpus begin | (Approaching the end of) the first US bubble extravaganza: housing, equities, bonds, and commodities

All 2-sigma equity bubbles in developed countries have broken back to trend. But before they did, a handful went on to become superbubbles of 3-sigma or greater: in the U.S. in 1929 and 2000 and in Japan in 1989. There were also superbubbles in housing in the U.S. in 2006 and Japan in 1989. All five of these superbubbles corrected all the way back to trend with much greater and longer pain than average.

Today in the U.S. we are in the fourth superbubble of the last hundred years.

Previous equity superbubbles had a series of distinct features that individually are rare and collectively are unique to these events. In each case, these shared characteristics have already occurred in this cycle. The checklist for a superbubble running through its phases is now complete and the wild rumpus can begin at any time.

But now, for the first time in the U.S. we have simultaneous bubbles across all major asset classes. To detail:

First, we are indeed participating in the broadest and most extreme global real estate bubble in history. Today houses in the U.S. are at the highest multiple of family income ever, after a record 20% gain last year, ahead even of the disastrous housing bubble of 2006. But although the U.S. housing market is selling at a high multiple of family income, it is less, sometimes far less, than many other countries, e.g., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and especially China. (In China, real estate has played an unusually important and unique role in the extended boom and thereby poses an equally unique risk to the economy and hence the rest of the world if its real estate market loses air exactly as it appears to be doing as we sit.)

Second, we have the most exuberant, ecstatic, even crazy investor behavior in the history of the U.S. stock market. The U.S. market today has, in my opinion, the greatest buy-in ever to the idea that stocks only go up, which is surely the real essence of a bubble. (Interestingly, where other developed countries lead in housing prices, they lag the U.S. in equity prices. Some, such as Japan, by so much that they are merely slightly overpriced today.)

Third, as if this were not enough, we also have the highest-priced bond markets in the U.S. and most other countries around the world, and the lowest rates, of course, that go with them, that human history has ever seen.

And fourth, as gravy (as if we needed any) we have broadly overpriced, or above trend, commodities including oil and most of the important metals. In addition, the UN’s index of global food prices is around its all-time high (see Exhibit 2). These high prices are important as they push inflation and stress real incomes. The combination, which we saw in 2008, of still-rising commodity prices with a deflating asset price bubble is the ultimate pincer attack on the economy and is all but guaranteed to lead to major economic pain.