The S&P 500 hit an all-time high yesterday but this is no bubble, say fund managers. Ed Hyland, a global investment specialist at JPMorgan Chase Private Bank told Bloomberg that we’re “certainly not in the bubble place they were in the 2000 period or in a place that concerns us.” The last five years have seen the S&P 500 up 195%. In the five years preceding the dot-com bubble that burst in March 2000 the index was up 236%.
Bloomberg also published part of an email from Howard Ward of New York-based Gamco Investors. Ward asserted that the “market is being rational, responding to improving domestic economic news, extraordinarily low interest rates, easy monetary policy and limited inflation.” Gamco manages nearly $50 billion. There are a whole bunch of people, in fact, who believe the Dow is really headed for 30,000 this time. Some people, like Ron Baron–Chairman of Baron Capital–said as much last year.
