The Dow Jones and FTSE 100 reached record levels on Friday. The Dow Jones is just shy of 20,000 - see FT video below. At the start of each year, pundits offer up their predictions for the year ahead. The consensus view seems to be that the US and UK markets are probably overvalued and that by the start of 2018, the Dow and FTSE will be at +/- 5%. from their current levels. However, we have no idea what 2017 is going to bring! Two things will have a major bearing on stock markets in 2017 - politics (Trump, Russia, euro, the French election, Turkey etc) and central bank decisions regarding interest rates. It might be a bumpy year for markets.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.