Chart of the Day: Houses and Shares

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Bricks and mortar or terabytes and algorithms? Pick your poison, but be sure to pick your timing before throwing stones in glasshouses.

Here’s a chart from the St Louis Federal Reserve, via Cameron Murray’s blog comparing the broad measures of both the housing and share markets in the US.


Note that the vast majority of mutual funds do not use leverage to purchase shares (granted, almost every trader and institution does), whereas almost every homeowner has a sizeable mortgage. Leverage goes both ways with secondary assets.