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The Johansen-Ledoit-Sornette (JLS) model of rational expectation bubbles with finite-time singular crash hazard rates has been developed to describe the dynamics of financial bubbles and crashes. It has been applied successfully to a large variety of financial bubbles in many different markets. Having been developed for more than one decade, the JLS model has been studied, analyzed, used and criticized by several researchers. Much of this discussion is helpful for advancing the research. However, several serious misconceptions seem to be present within this collective conversation both on theoretical and empirical aspects. Several of these problems appear to stem from the fast evolution of the literature on the JLS model and related works. In the hope of removing possible misunderstanding and of catalyzing useful future developments, we summarize these common questions and criticisms concerning the JLS model and offer a synthesis of the existing state-of-the-art and best-practice advices., Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures

This is the third installment of the Financial Bubble Experiment. Here we provide the digital fingerprint of an electronic document in which we identify 27 bubbles in 27 different global assets; for 25 of these assets, we present windows of dates of the most likely ending time of each bubble. We will provide that document of the original analysis on 2 May 2011., Comment: 27 assets and final analysis posted; see complete report at http://www.er.ethz.ch/fco/index

This is the second installment of the Financial Bubble Experiment. Here we provide the digital fingerprint of an electronic document in which we identify 7 bubbles in 7 different global assets; for 4 of these assets, we present windows of dates of the most likely ending time of each bubble. We will provide that document of the original analysis on 1 November 2010., Comment: Uploaded new version with names of 7 assets and link to original assets document, where checksum can be verified

On 2 November 2009, the Financial Bubble Experiment was launched within the Financial Crisis Observatory (FCO) at ETH Zurich (\url{http://www.er.ethz.ch/fco/}). In that initial report, we diagnosed and announced three bubbles on three different assets. In this latest release of 23 December 2009 in this ongoing experiment, we add a diagnostic of a new bubble developing on a fourth asset., 20100514: Added final analysis and summary, including names of assets.

The financial crisis of 2008, which started with an initially well-defined epicenter focused on mortgage backed securities (MBS), has been cascading into a global economic recession, whose increasing severity and uncertain duration has led and is continuing to lead to massive losses and damage for billions of people. Heavy central bank interventions and government spending programs have been launched worldwide and especially in the USA and Europe, with the hope to unfreeze credit and boltster consumption. Here, we present evidence and articulate a general framework that allows one to diagnose the fundamental cause of the unfolding financial and economic crisis: the accumulation of several bubbles and their interplay and mutual reinforcement has led to an illusion of a "perpetual money machine" allowing financial institutions to extract wealth from an unsustainable artificial process. Taking stock of this diagnostic, we conclude that many of the interventions to address the so-called liquidity crisis and to encourage more consumption are ill-advised and even dangerous, given that precautionary reserves were not accumulated in the "good times" but that huge liabilities were. The most "interesting" present times constitute unique opportunities but also great challenges, for which we offer a few recommendations., 51 pages, 25 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of APFA7 (Applications of Physics in Financial Analysis), Conference series entitled Applications of Physics in Financial Analysis focuses on the analysis of large-scale Economic data, organized by Misako Takayasu and Tsutomu Watanabe http://www.thic-apfa7.com/en/htm/index.html