@ workathome. you inspired me to go back and see what Mr. Graham had to say about signs of the end of bull market. He states in the Intelligent Investor:
"Somewhere in the middle of the bull market the first common-stock flotations make their appearance. These are priced not unattractively, and some large profits are made by the buyers of the early issues. As the market rise continues, this brand of financing grows more frequent; the quality of the companies becomes steadily poorer; the prices asked and obtained verge on the exorbitant. One fairly dependable sign of the approaching end of the bull swing is the fact that new common stocks of small and nondescript companies are offered at prices somewhat higher than the current level for many medium sized companies with a long market history."
He also states:
"Nearly all the bull had a number of well defined characteristics in common, such as 1) historically high price level 2) High price / earnings ratios 3) low dividend yields as against bond yields 4) much speculation on margin 5) many offering of new common stock issues of poor quality"
He seems to emphasize number of IPOS and IPOs of lesser quality companies.
A quick google search revealed this:
http://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter/I ... istics.pdf
If anyone knows how to get better data, it might be an interesting gauge of market temperature. Historical and current margin levels info would also be interesting.
