On a grand scale, it's hard to tell, as the market is so big. When you break it down, there is the stock market, then there's the derivative market, the bond market, the housing market, foreign markets, crypto markets, and on and on. You also have to look at previous crashes and see what sticks out from past lessons.
With the stock market, you can look at average P/E ratios over time for the Nasdaq and get somewhat of an estimate. To dig a little deeper, you can look at individual sectors index, such as the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index - NBI
Derivatives market - Deutsch Bank last year was facing a semi crisis mode due to having too big of an open derivatives position. What was it? Idk, I didn't dig too deep. Derivatives markets are still, well, derived from an underlying product. So in theory, if you find the product, you find the bubble. Something like soymeal futures last year, is a good example.
Bond market - falling due to increasing rates. 1981-82 was caused by interest rate hikes, to fight inflation, but they were like 15-17%. We're struggling to get the glorified 2% inflation. Granted this is all what's reported to us, who really knows.
Foreign markets - A lot of countries for the past couple years have been in the shitter, in terms of GDP - Russia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, etc. Then there are countries who have cooled off - UK, Germany, China, etc. However, the US and India just keep charging up the hill. Also, a lot of it is based on speculation. China a couple weeks ago announced that they had tied last years GDP growth, when analysts thought they were gonna miss. Regardless, this is still one piece to a massive puzzle. If you look at participation rate through out the world, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.ZS?page=2 it's been falling. This could be explained by an aging population of basically all WW2 countries - http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-larges.... As well all know fine and well here, this may not be a big problem YET due to automation. In other words, it's hard to truly tell where and which pillar could break, that could really push this beast downward.
Crypto markets - the fun new kid on the block. Super entertaining to watch people hodl and meme about it, but is still no where near the size needed to cause a correction.
A few other interesting things I've seen floating around:
The VIX is at an all time low. Someone commented somewhere that they believe this is due to too many people believing there's gonna be a crash soon. As such, they're holding more cash than usual.
Around $4.2 trillion is now tied up in index funds. As such, if there is a panic in the index fund market, it could cause a crash. Idk about the validity of this one though, market makers could easily prop it, and buy on the panic and sell when it's cooled off.
On a grand scale, it's hard to tell, as the market is so big. When you break it down, there is the stock market, then there's the derivative market, the bond market, the housing market, foreign markets, crypto markets, and on and on. You also have to look at previous crashes and see what sticks out from past lessons.
With the stock market, you can look at average P/E ratios over time for the Nasdaq and get somewhat of an estimate. To dig a little deeper, you can look at individual sectors index, such as the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index - NBI
Derivatives market - Deutsch Bank last year was facing a semi crisis mode due to having too big of an open derivatives position. What was it? Idk, I didn't dig too deep. Derivatives markets are still, well, derived from an underlying product. So in theory, if you find the product, you find the bubble. Something like soymeal futures last year, is a good example.
Bond market - falling due to increasing rates. 1981-82 was caused by interest rate hikes, to fight inflation, but they were like 15-17%. We're struggling to get the glorified 2% inflation. Granted this is all what's reported to us, who really knows.
Housing market - new housing starts, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST does seem to be a somewhat of a leading indicator. General housing index doesn't seem to show a general cool off -https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA.
Foreign markets - A lot of countries for the past couple years have been in the shitter, in terms of GDP - Russia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, etc. Then there are countries who have cooled off - UK, Germany, China, etc. However, the US and India just keep charging up the hill. Also, a lot of it is based on speculation. China a couple weeks ago announced that they had tied last years GDP growth, when analysts thought they were gonna miss. Regardless, this is still one piece to a massive puzzle. If you look at participation rate through out the world, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.ZS?page=2 it's been falling. This could be explained by an aging population of basically all WW2 countries - http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-larges.... As well all know fine and well here, this may not be a big problem YET due to automation. In other words, it's hard to truly tell where and which pillar could break, that could really push this beast downward.
Crypto markets - the fun new kid on the block. Super entertaining to watch people hodl and meme about it, but is still no where near the size needed to cause a correction.
A few other interesting things I've seen floating around:
The VIX is at an all time low. Someone commented somewhere that they believe this is due to too many people believing there's gonna be a crash soon. As such, they're holding more cash than usual.
Around $4.2 trillion is now tied up in index funds. As such, if there is a panic in the index fund market, it could cause a crash. Idk about the validity of this one though, market makers could easily prop it, and buy on the panic and sell when it's cooled off.