Where Are the Bubbles In Today’s Markets?

We seem to live in an era of financial bubbles. In the last 15 years, the world has experienced, among other episodes, a massive run-up in technology stocks (think Nortel), a huge increase in the value of U.S. residential real estate, and two epic spikes in the price of crude oil. In every case, devastating crashes followed these remarkable booms. What, exactly, are bubbles? There isn’t one definition, but generally speaking they are instances where the price of an asset rises...