Dr. No on manias

Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through — these are the vices of the herd. 

~ Dr. No, from the Ian Fleming novel, Dr. No

Kevin Duffy on speculative manias and IQ

IQ is cyclical.  Mine always goes down during speculative manias.  After a 12-yr bull market, I'm now a moron, dangerously close to an idiot.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, February 22, 2021

Edward Chancellor on the corona bubble

The language commonly used to describe speculative manias is borrowed from epidemiology. A new technology sparks a “contagion”, investors are “infected” with greed and speculative “fever” breaks out. During the panic phase, the contagion becomes more “virulent”. After the South Sea Bubble collapsed 300 years ago, contemporary observers likened the market situation to a plague. In fact, by late 1720 the bubonic plague was spreading across Europe. Today, the world is faced with another epidemic. Our response to the coronavirus pandemic resembles the inverse of a speculative mania, with fear replacing greed, and errors of pessimism potentially replacing those of optimism.

~ Edward Chancellor, "The Corona Bubble," March 2020

(Appears in Marc Faber's Market Commentary, April 1, 2020.)

Peter Atwater on manic behavior: The Beatles, Beanie Babies and Tesla

Many will suggest that manias and panics routinely come and go, but history strongly cautions that they cluster. The Beanie Baby Bubble coincided with the peak of the dot.com bubble, and Beatlemania marked the mid-1960s market and mood peaks...

While Tesla may be followed by an even more extreme investor flash mob ahead, the recent clustering of manic behavior cautions not only that sentiment is topping, but that the current peak is extreme. Based on crowd behavior, 2020 could easily bookend the major 2011 low.

~ Peter Atwater, Financial Insyghts, "Tesla: A Flash Mob With Money," February 10, 2020

Bill Fleckenstein on the markets: "The craziest day ever?"

Well, it's not too often that I'm speechless looking at a market when thinking about what to say about a certain response to the news. However, watching the SPOOs gain 0.75% last night and the Nasdaq 100 tack on 1% while stocks in Shanghai were being bombed, despite the promise of a liquidity injection by the PBOC and the banning of short selling, was about as bizarre a financial scene as I've seen in my investment career, with the possible exception of some nutty stuff that happened in Tokyo in late 1989, although quite frankly that was so long ago, I don't remember all the small details.

~ Bill Fleckenstein, Fleck Notes, February 3, 2020

Ed Bugos on manias

Does any other animal on this planet suffer from the phenomenon humans know as mania? Do other species lather themselves up into a frenzy about tulips, beards, and what they often perceive as injustices, whether true or false? Obviously animals participate in feeding frenzies. But it seems to me that manias are uniquely a human trait, and one that is often our undoing.

~ Edmund Bugos, Facebook post, January 28, 2020