This is the correct take on it. That kind of analysis has predicted eighteen of the last three bubbles.

The problem is that while, say, stocks are frothy, eventually inflation catches up to the froth - so even when the crash happens, you end up better off than if you sat the frothy market out on the sidelines.

It doesn't help to be right in the direction of the market, when you're wrong in the timing of it.

Agreed. As much as I wished I had sold some positions last February when it was clear something big was building in Asia, I am confident that I wouldn't have had the guts to buy back in after the crash and would have missed out on the rebound gains.

In the end, I'm probably better off having held and continuing to buy every couple of weeks throughout than trying to time the market swings from COVID.

> As much as I wished I had sold some positions last February when it was clear something big was building in Asia

I did this.

> I am confident that I wouldn't have had the guts to buy back in after the crash and would have missed out on the rebound gains.

I did this too.

> In the end, I'm probably better off having held and continuing to buy every couple of weeks throughout than trying to time the market swings from COVID.

I wish I'd done this.

Would you mind sharing some of your experience? I'm super interested.

What's possibly different with this alleged bubble is the influx of retail into the market and day trading in general. The wallstreetbets sub has grown at least 3x during this episode, and I know personally of several people who were previously uninterested in stocks now looking to trade.

Sure, but then the argument for it being a bubble is “it is different this time.” It could be, I don’t know! But plenty of interest in retail investing has not resulted in a bust before.

Exactly, the market is definitely overenthusiastic which we can call a bubble. So we keep on hearing all those claiming it is a bubble in the sense that it will imminently "pop" because people will always want to say "I predicted the bubble will pop". So they will wake up every few months (when the market peaks yet again) and shout "bubble, bubble" so that just in case it happens now they can be the foresighted ones.

The amount of times we've heard "bubble" over past few years, even while/if true, in of itself keeps people from taking it seriously.