隆重推荐一篇好文章，值得仔细阅读。(ZT)

费莫 · 发表于 2008-10-28 10:43

Volatility through the roof as fear wrestles greed

THE X FACTOR: Don Stammer | October 29, 2008
INVESTMENT markets are dominated by the conflict between fear and greed.
Markets surge when greed dominates and collapse when fear is ascendant. Most investors, this correspondent included, have bruises from the never-ending tussle between these two emotions.
At times of fear, investors' overriding concern is of losing money; and many quit quality assets. At times of greed, many investors believe that the spectacular returns of the good times will continue for ever -- or, at least, they will find buyers to take them out of expensive and dodgy investments before prices plunge.
Ashley Ormond of investment research firm Investing 101 (www.investing101. com.au) has calculated a measure of what he terms the Fear and Greed Index for shares as reflected in the All Ordinaries Index (and its predecessors) of the Australian market since 1875.
The trend rate of change in average share prices -- which is calculated as a 10-year moving average -- has varied only slightly during the 133 years covered in the study. Over the very long run, average share prices have risen by 7 per cent a year -- and, as well, they have paid good dividends! This long-term trend in share prices is shaped by influences such as productivity, capital investment, inflation and population growth.
If the share market were always to value shares in terms of their long-term economic fundamentals, the average value of a diversified holding of shares would track along the long-term trendline.
But that's not the way in which the share market works.

Body: Average share prices repeatedly swing as periods of fear, when average share prices are below their long-term trend, give way to periods of greed, when average share prices move above their trend.

The times when our share market was most dominated by fear were the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s -- and also the 1970s, when oil shocks, stagflation and the inept Australian governments of that decade took a heavy toll on business and investments.

On these three occasions, the Fear and Greed Index fell to between minus 2.5 points and minus 4.3 points. (Each point on the index is a standard deviation -- a statistical measure of how much the series of numbers at that time diverged from its long-term trend).

In mid-October this year, the Fear and Greed Index stood at the relatively modest level of minus 1.5 index points.

Measured against the long sweep of history, the unusual feature of today's market is not how far it has fallen but how volatile it has been. The recent level of volatility is exceeded only by that of 1987.

The high points for the greed phase of the Fear and Greed Index -- when moods in the share market were optimistic or euphoric -- came before the crash of 1987 (with the Fear and Greed Index at positive 4.7 points) and the recession of the early 1980s (when the index reached positive 2.6 points).

At last November's peak in share prices, the greed phase of the index of fear and gloom topped out at the relatively modest level of positive 1.9 points.

Some people will say that "this time it is different" -- that history cannot help us to understand what is happening to the share market today or what will occur in the future.

But the Fear and Greed Index is derived from the long run of experience that includes two depressions, a serious gold rush, the dotcom era, the beginning and the end of the Cold War, the terrorist attacks of 2001, four oil shocks and China's progress from an inward-looking agrarian economy to an economic powerhouse. We would be precious indeed to believe that we, alone, have lived in difficult times.

The history of the Fear and Greed Index throws helpful light on today's share market. The All Ordinaries Index was around 4000 points when the chart was prepared.

The share market is now in a zone that it occupies infrequently.

History says that in due course the market will rebound to its long-term trend (which currently stands at around 5160 points and compounding at about 7 per cent a year) and, most probably, then rise above the trendline for a time.

Perhaps the Fear phase of the cycle has not yet played itself out.

Were the Fear and Greed Index to fall to minus 2 points -- a level that history records as a very high level of fear -- the share market would bottom at 3615 points on the All Ordinaries Index.

Were widespread fear to reduce the Fear and Greed Index to a level on a par with the extreme experiences of the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s (around a negative 3 points), history suggests that the All Ordinaries Index would not bottom until around 3025 points.

Fortunately, this outcome is now highly improbable, given the massive recent interventions by governments and central banks to remove the risk of a repeat of the banking collapses that created the economic and investment horrors of the 1890s and 1930s.

白水 · 发表于 2008-10-28 11:07

wall street-"greed is good, greed is right, greed works"

[ 本帖最后由白水于 2008-10-28 12:13 编辑 ]

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