Kevin Marks

This phenemona has a name. It's called the MBA index.

It truly is one of the greatest contra-indicators I have ever had the pleasure of observing first hand. It's a wonder to behold.

> When expensively educated, fashionable young graduates start showing up in your field, you're in a bubble.

- Kevin Marks, http://epeus.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/key-indicator-for-bubble.html, derived from Liar's Poker, by Michael Lewis.

> This year, some 37% of Harvard Business School's graduate found work on Wall Street, up from 30% a year ago and 26% for the Class of 2004. The trend suggests that Wall Street is becoming bloated and the American economy is ripe for a slowdown.

Mr. Soifer, who retired from Brown Brothers in 2000 and now runs his own consulting firm, appears to be on to something. He advised his friends and colleagues to sell back in 2000, when 30% of the HBS graduating class took jobs on Wall Street. Before that, the last long-term sell he sent was in 1987.

Source: http://www.nysun.com/business/equities-swing-with-harvard-mbas/43220/

> Mr. Soifer notes that the Harvard M.B.A. indicator has historically been more prolific as a source of “sell’ signals, showing strong results in 1987, 2000-02, and 2005-08, than “buy” signals. In fact, the last time it reached the 10 percent “buy” level was in the early 1980s, when the Dow Jones industrial average traded below 1,000.

The all-time low was reached in 1937, when only three graduates — about 1 percent — braved the market and…