Southampton

The town of Southampton, with its 55,000 year-round residents and vaunted reputation as a summertime playground for wealthy New Yorkers, now has its very own counterterrorism squad. And unsurprisingly, it’s making the out-of-towners nervous.

At least that’s what Joe Nocera, a former New York Times columnist who now writes for Bloomberg View, suggested in a recent column. Apparently, the image of police carrying automatic weapons roaming around the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival is just too gauche for Nocera’s wealthy friends to stomach.

Real-estate prices in the Hamptons – the preferred North American summer retreat for wealthy finance types – have long been viewed as a barometer of the general mood on Wall Street. And with US stocks continuing their ascent to fresh record highs, despite Brainard’s admission that "asset valuations do look a bit stretched" and signs that the rally is being propelled by a concentration of megacap stocks, luxury real-estate agents out east are clearly praying for a blockbuster season after last year's disaster.