ABSTRACT
The beginning of the twenty-first century has been marked by falling markets on a global scale, a slump in productivity and historically low interest rates. Despite examples of selective countervailing trends, the generic investment picture is depressed. The need to be aware of the operation of bubbles is crucial in the deceptive investment environment. The trend for investors to adopt investment strategies that lie outside their immediate knowledge of markets is gradually increasing. How the political and regulatory architecture responds to the series of structural changes occurring throughout the world will determine the shape and positive and negative consequences of investment bubbles. The potential to take advantage of speculative depression leads to a recovery in kind: the literature relating to the historical readings of investment bubbles demonstrates how fears of crashes relax with the passing of time.
