Book Review: Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004

1982 to 2000 saw one of the biggest bull rallies in the history of the United States stock market and the book Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004 follows the up’s and down’s of that journey.

While the Bombay Stock Exchange is the oldest continuously traded exchange in Asia, the markets have never really appealed to a large majority of common folk who would rather invest their hard earned savings in Bank Deposits, Gold or Real Estate.

Before 1982, the situation in the United States was somewhat similar with a lower percentage of folks investing in markets.

With falling interest rates and a rising stock market which was coupled with a boom in Electronic Media, investors overcame fears of the past as they rushed in to take advantage of the ability to make money with click of a few buttons.

India seems to be placed very similar to where US stood at that point of time when it comes to the catalysts required to goad investors from safer assets like Bonds and Banks into Riskier investments such as Equity.

“Knowledge of history is an investor’s best defence against Error” and as India finally is seeing a marked change in sentiment with investors choosing equity, the lessons there could turn out to be important as our markets mature over time.

Markets moving ever repeating cycles of bull and bear. Currently it seems that we are on a never ending bull market. But history says that this can and is never true for the longer a bull market, greater the possibility of a gut wrenching bear market.

Most Investors experience in Bear market these days are limited to 2008 when the only casualty was the financial market. A real bear market is when there is wide spread job losses and loss of confidence.

There were way too many quotable quotes in this book. You can check out this tweet thread for some of those which really hit hard.

When will large majority of people start investing in markets? This is how it happened in US pic.twitter.com/MQr6rI1CFy

— Prashanth (@Prashanth_Krish) July 15, 2017

Preparation is half the Battle – the question being, are you prepared enough?

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