The stages of bubbles - They may follow a pattern that form a narrative

There is the view that bubbles are crazy price extremes that move to high levels without any basis in facts. In reality, bubbles go through stages of development that play-out through time. There is no one bubble stage but four as described by Jean-Paul Rodrigue. Bubbles start as some stealth view about a market that leads to a take-off and then moves to an awareness phase. As awareness grows, there is a movement to mania only to fall during the blow-off phase.

Do these four stages match reality of bubbles?  The Rodrigue model is a narrative, a story of what happens during a bubble. The model does not tell us anything about causes or factors that lead to bubbles. It is not a predictive model but just a description, yet descriptions can be very useful for our understanding.