Investment advisers and celebrity analysts
have encouraged the public's interest in the securities markets.
While the majority of professionals are conscientious about the
messages they deliver, a few either wittingly or unwittingly have
encouraged investors to develop unreasonable expectations for
their stock market portfolios.
For example, during the bull market of the
1990s, many individual and professional investors came to expect
ever higher stock prices and soaring averages, despite the fact
that, in retrospect, company fundamentals,
the country's
economic outlook, and past experience indicated that it wouldn't
be sustainable.
Jeremy Siegel, The Wharton School 