Searching for a market top? Keep an eye out for mega-deals

The peak of virtually every market bubble has been heralded by some ludicrous, overblown, corporate mega-deal. John Stepek looks at what to watch out for this time.

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The RBS takeover of ABN Amro completed in the same month that global stocks peaked in 2007
(Image credit: 2009 AFP)

I've been thinking a lot about booms and busts recently as you do.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.