Despite efforts by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and the Bank of England to decrease global liquidity, it is increasing instead and driving investors into riskier assets. Joseph Adinolfi reports for MarketWatch: Gains for global equities have left many on Wall Street perplexed as stocks — especially high-risk growth names with little or no profits — have rebounded from last year’s punishing selloff, resisting both the pull of more attractive bond yields, and the threat of higher interest rates. But some Wall Street analysts say they’ve found an explanation that has little to … [Read more...]

The recent rally in tech shares has given hope to investors who have made money in them for the last decade, but Ruchir Sharma suggests in the Financial Times that the rally is just an echo. He writes: The recent surge in tech stocks has true believers buzzing that the downturn of late last year is over and the boom of the past decade is back. But the opposite case is more likely. This surge had all the hallmarks of an echo bubble — a brief rebound of the kind that has punctuated the long decline of every major bubble in the past century. Over the past decade, driven by record-low interest … [Read more...]