Irrational Exuberance: (Second Edition) [Hardcover]

CNBC, day trading, the Motley Fool, Silicon Investor--not since the 1920s has there been such an intense fascination with the U.S. stock market. For an increasing number of Americans, logging on to Yahoo! Finance is a habit more precious than that morning cup of joe (as thousands of SBUX and YHOO shareholders know too well). Yet while the market continues to go higher, many of us can't get Alan Greenspan's famous line out of our heads. In Irrational Exuberance, Yale economics professor Robert J. Shiller examines this public fascination with stocks and sees a combination of factors that have driven stocks higher, including the rise of the Internet, 401(k) plans, increased coverage by the popular media of financial news, overly optimistic cheerleading by analysts and other pundits, the decline of inflation, and the rise of the mutual fund industry. He writes: "Perceived long-term risk is down.... Emotions and heightened attention to the market create a desire to get into the game. Such is irrational exuberance today in the United States."

By history's yardstick, Shiller believes this market is grossly overvalued, and the factors that have conspired to create and amplify this event--the baby-boom effect, the public infatuation with the Internet, and media interest--will most certainly abate. He fears that too many individuals and institutions have come to view stocks as their only investment vehicle, and that investors should consider looking beyond stocks as a way to diversify and hedge against the inevitable downturn. This is a serious and well-researched book that should read like a Stephen King novel to anyone who has staked his or her future on the market's continued success. --Harry C. Edwards --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Irrational Exuberance is the second edition of Robert J. Shiller’s well-received book, published in 2000. It is an opportune update that goes to some pains to explain the realities of the market excesses that threaten to destabalise the economy and disrupt our lives. Shiller correctly warned readers of the 2000 stock market collapse and now directs his warning to the recent housing market bubble that is likely to burst in much the same way. If this happens, as seems likely, Shiller predicts that house prices might well decline for many years to come. There are a host of other warnings too, all focused around Alan Greenspan’s now famous phrase “irrational exuberance”, used during a Washington dinner speech in December 1996 to describe the frenzied behaviour of stock market investors.
Robert Shiller, a Yale economics professor, has revised this second edition of his book to attempt “to extend its argument that variations caused by changing attitudes, irrational beliefs, and foci of attention are an ‘important’ factor in our changing economic lives, and to examine the consequences for our own economy and our future.” This is a book directed at the U.S. market but its explicit message can easily be adopted internationally. Shiller warns that overconfidence can lead to instability, and that the stock market, and now the housing market, are significantly overvalued by any standard. He believes that any continued rise in these markets could lead not only to more significant declines, but also to a substantial increase in the rate of bankruptcies, a decline in consumer and business confidence, and possibly a worldwide recession. Although not inevitable, Shiller feels that the situation is a much more serious risk than is widely acknowledged.
Two introductory chapters (one new to this edition) analyse the fluctuations in both the stock market and the real estate market in historical context. This allows readers to get an overview of what appear to be remarkable variations. In 2000, Shiller’s book pointed out the structural factors that drive market bubbles. It was a timely warning as the stock markets of a great many countries dropped by almost 50 percent from their peak with little recovery. This new edition explains why the same thing could easily happen in the heady housing market. After stocks plummeted in 2000 many disillusioned investors moved their money into housing-a move that inflated real estate prices not only in America but around the world.
Irrational Exuberance is an unnerving study of the psychological factors causing volatility in financial markets-including real estate. “Structural Factors”, “Cultural Factors”, and “Psychological Factors” are the headings of the first three parts of Shiller’s book, with a fourth dealing with “Attempts to Rationalize Exuberance”. There are some frightening disclosures. One of these is that the stock market boom has coincided with an extraordinary growth in the mutual funds industry. In 1982 there were only 340 equity mutual funds in the United States. However, by 1998 there were as many as 3,513 mutual funds-more equity funds than stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By 2000 there were as many as 164.1 million mutual fund shareholder accounts-or about two accounts for every U.S. family. Shiller reminds us that mutual funds are a new name for an old idea- “investor trusts”. After the stock market crash of 1929, many of these so-called “trusts” became worthless and a betrayed public soured on these collective forms of investment. The Investment Company Act of 1940 then helped to restore some public confidence, and the industry was given new impetus by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974, which created Individual Retirement Accounts. But they needed a new name-“mutual funds”, which sounded similar to the more reassuring and scandal-free mutual savings banks and mutual insurance companies. Naïve investors have since been encouraged to participate in the market in these pooled “funds”, hoping that experts managing these funds will steer them away from pitfalls-sometimes a dangerous assumption. The decline of inflation too has been viewed as a sign of economic prosperity, boosting public confidence and stock market valuation; it’s a misinterpretation of values.
The fifth part of Shiller’s book is titled “A Call to Action”, and in it he reminds us that the first edition of his book cautioned that “real losses in the stock market could be comparable to the total destruction of all the schools in the country, of all the farms in the country, or possibly even all the homes in the country.” Since this first edition was published, the U.S. stock market has indeed lost over 6 trillion-an amount equal to about 60 percent of the value of householders’ real estate holdings. Therefore, if the stock market continues to decline, or the boom in real estate breaks, then “individuals, foundations, college endowments, and other beneficiaries of the market are going to find themselves poorer, in the aggregate, by trillions of dollars.” As an example Shiller cites the Ford Foundation which cut its endowment from 4.1 billion to 1.7 billion after the 1974 stock market crash. The University of Rochester similarly took an aggressive approach to stock market investment and lost half its endowment between 1973 and 1974. “The same or worse could happen today to foundations and universities that have invested too large a share of their portfolios in the stock market.”
Shiller concludes his daunting but credible treatise by offering a set of eight solutions for both investors and policy makers:

1. Portfolios should be diversified to reduce investment risk.
2. Savings rate should be increased.
3. Retirement plans should be put on a sounder footing.
4. The design of Social Security should be improved.
5. Monetary Policy should gently lean against bubbles.
6. Opinion leaders should offer stabilizing opinions.
7. Institutions should encourage constructive trading.
8. The public should be helped to hedge risk.

Each of these recommendations, aptly explained in the conclusion, should be studied, discussed and debated. Shiller is certain that both the U.S. stock market and the housing market are speculative bubbles that are certain to burst. It is only a matter of time. This book is a powerful antidote to the plethora of get-rich-quick investment recommendations and vehicles currently plaguing an unwary public. Buyer beware!
Christopher Ondaatje (Books in Canada)