The stock market crash 20 years on...

inevitably leads to comparisons with market conditions now. It seems that most commentators think that conditions aren't (yet) as speculative as they were back then. Here's John Spalvins, former CEO of Adsteam:

There's no comparison between today and 20 years ago," says Spalvins.

"The economy is in great shape." Spalvins says that in the late 80s he was concerned about a share market crash a year before it happened.

"Interest rates are low.

"We have a resources boom ahead of us.

"People don't understand the meaning of the emergence of China and India. They think commodity prices will return to their long-term levels.

"But there is a new ball game in which commodity prices will operate at very high levels because of the ever-increasing demand from China and India."

In the Weekend Australian - link.

More commentary from Anna French:

With the 20-year anniversary of the 1987 share market crash fast approaching, a few investors are skittish about the parallels between then and now - particularly the length of the current boom and the huge share price gains in the lead-up.

During the tech boom it was described as "irrational exuberance" by Robert J. Shiller, who wrote a book of the same name.

Most say "it's different this time" because the resources companies driving the boom actually make money, but investors can still learn lessons from previous wealth-destroying episodes.

Michael West also gets in on the action:

Then, the Asian power funding US deficits was Japan, not China, although US deficits are now in the trillions, not billions.

Interest rates are lower now. They were 11 per cent then, not 7per cent. The price of bullion was lower too, ironically indicating less inflation in the pipeline than the gold price would now suggest.

Price-earnings ratios were 20 times then. Now we talk about EBITDA ratios - they make stocks feel cheaper. But on a like-for-like basis the resource stocks now trade on higher multiples, as do the banks, and the industrials are slightly lower. Then there are the growth stocks and the financial engineers whose PERs are well into the 20s.

Equity yields were lower then. They doubled after The Crash from 2.5 per cent. Now corporate balance sheets are cleaner, and with the exception of the financial engineers, gearing is lower.

Just as the Bonds and Skases were doing then, the Macquaries and Babcocks are doing now, refinancing and revaluing assets, ripping out fees, booking profits barely related to cash flows and wowing all with their brilliance.