Evidence of fueling of the 2000 new economy bubble by foreign capital inflow: implications for the future of the US economy and its stock market

Previous analyses of a large ensemble of stock markets have demonstrated that a log-periodic power law (LPPL) behavior of the prices constitutes a qualifying signature of speculative bubbles that often land with a crash. We detect such a LPPL signature in the foreign capital inflow during the bubble on the US markets culminating in March 2000. We detect a weak synchronization and lag with the NASDAQ LPPL pattern. We propose to rationalize these observations by the existence of positive feedback loops between market-appreciation/increased-spending/increased-deficit-of-balance-of-payment/larger-foreign-surplus/increased-foreign-capital-inflows and so on. Our analysis suggests that foreign capital inflow has been following rather than causing the bubble.