Brace yourself for US optimism

Caroline Ritchie.

Do you feel lucky? Households in the US are, according to Bloomberg, when it comes to mentally massaging their stocks.

Market sentiment, from the American family perspective, has not been this high since the Dot-Com boom.

As the biggest market in the world lurches ever upward on false bravura, Mum and Dad are loving it.

In fact, "The share of households anticipating higher equity prices a year from now surged to 44.7 per cent in December from 30.9 per cent a month earlier, the biggest advance since November 1998." A giant heave on the oar of capitalist optimism, if you like.

Now, if you read that piece of so-called news on your screen recently, you probably went one of two ways.

The first: to think that you also should get on board this river of irrationality and be far more confident about shares for no apparent reason.

This is what that survey is based on, remember, the opinion of Mum and Dad and their ability to read the future. (I'd like to point out that the ability of market professionals to read the future is absolutely no better).

Perhaps you've cashed up a little and have been sitting on the bench, picking at your sneakers, fretting about missing out?

In that case this kind of report is going to push all your stock-investing dopamine reactors.

You will have the following types of thoughts, however silly, because your brain draws you to believe you must fit in. "Safety in numbers", "Better late than never", and the incredibly dangerous "Everyone else is".

I could tell you to fight your central nervous system here, but there is no point, you are best to simply let those perilous feelings wash over you.

Think of it as equity-therapy. Free yourself from that awful confirmational bias! Go for a walk, make tea, get some affirmations. Maybe a guru! Just steer clear of your online trading account and going to any barbecues populated by sharebrokers.

The second reaction, for those of us with industry-induced grey hairs and a lifetime dose of sharemarket sarcasm topped with sprinkles of cynic, is going to be "OMG, not again".

And the reason is that by the time vaulting exuberance has reached "households of America" it has usually been too late to stop the freight train, which is out of control by the way, and things have ended up in a ditch. It is a lag effect, a slingshot.

It is the shoeshine boy all over again. However long it is between here - all time highs - and there - diving into the cash culvert to avoid the inevitable fallout when the bust hits - is anyone's guess.

Time has a strange way of moving when it comes to stocks - it can elongate and lounge around in long bull market runs, then compresses like lightning when the heaving selling starts.

Time has been benevolent to shareholders in 2016, handing out more yet gains to the largesse, keeping us dangling on her financial loveline. 2017 might look the same. Or drastically different.

The households, essentially, are like one of those Magic 8-Balls.

A sign of everything or nothing, depending on your level of belief. But who knows?

Nobody, actually, for the record. What does this country gal intend on doing about it? Absolutely nought, I'm off to the beach.

- Caroline Ritchie is a former AFA, sharebroker & portfolio manager. She runs Investment Stuff, a sharemarket based investment coaching service. Visit her at www.investmentstuff.co.nz This column is not personalised financial advice.