The kind of confidence based on nothing more than expectations of ever-increasing housing prices, with the associated willingness to continue increasing leverage, on the assumption that this is a sure way to wealth, would not be the right kind. Unfortunately, we have been rather too prone to that misplaced optimism on occasion.
Quite often, because 1) they hold superior information to that of retail investors, 2) they have similar risk management frameworks, and 3) they have a common goal to outperform their benchmarks, global asset managers are able to (and often do) get out of trades more quickly and nearly at the same time, leaving the small institutional investors and retail investors “holding the bag”, when the music stops.