WEEKEND INVESTOR --- Is This a Bubble? --- As stocks hit new records and small investors -- finally -- return to the market, some observers are getting worried; Here's what investors should do now
At first, it sure looks like a bubble.</br></br>Some hot stocks have more than doubled in price so far this year. The initial-public-offering market has been torrid. Small investors are buying stocks again.</br></br>The "bubble talk" flared up even more after Twitter started trading on Nov. 7, when the social-media company's shares surged 73%.</br></br>They still are up 69%.</br></br>Electric-car company Tesla Motors has rocketed 300% higher in 2013, and online retailing giant Amazon.com has jumped 47%. There are so many superlatives in the stock market that it is easy to forget the S&P 500 has set 36 records this year on the way to its 26% gain -- or that the federal debt-ceiling crisis threatened to disrupt the economy just a month ago.