The market continues to shoot upwards. Now retail investors are jumping in, and it’s the strongest inflow of the “average man’s” investment money. As someone related back in the late 1920s, when the shoe-shine boy gave him a stock tip, he knew it was time to liquidate and get out.
Most stock investors think they can get out “in time”, and that’s how they get caught swimming naked when the tide goes back out. Tread careful.
Unlike stock indexes, measures of economic zeal like home-builder sentiment and small-business optimism have cooled a bit. And while there’s apprehension in the markets, it pays to watch what investors do and not just what they say. In reporting second-quarter results, Charles Schwab (SCHW) CEO Walter Bettinger said clients had opened more than 350,000 brokerage accounts from April to June. That brought new accounts in 2017 to 719,000—34% above the total a year earlier, and the strongest first-half showing in 17 years.
Source: Weird Science: Wall Street Repeals Law of Gravity – Barron’s
