VIXM - 'Dumb Money' Is Super Confident In Stock Market Right Now: Should We Be Concerned? | Benzinga
The “Dumb Money Confidence” index rose to its third-highest reading in 25 years on Friday, just as the VIX volatility index, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge” traded at its lowest levels since 2019.
Coincidence or correlation?
It’s a well-known maxim of Warren Buffett: “When everybody else gets greedy, get scared. And when everybody else gets scared, get greedy,” and illustrates perfectly what the two indexes are telling us: that the bandwagon effect has taken hold.
The bandwagon effect, follow-the-crowd — whatever you want to call it — is a trading bias that indulges a group-think mentality. This would be fine if you follow a crowd getting in on the meat of an asset price rise.
Following The Crowd Too Late
But ...