On My Radar: Stock Market Valuations And Forward Returns by Stephen B. Blumenthal, CMG Capital Management
“Anyone in investments should know that when you add together a number of uncorrelating returns, something magical happens.”
– David Harding of Winton Capital Management
This week let’s take a look at current market valuations (high) and what they are telling us about probable 10-year forward returns (low). The stock market has had an outstanding five year run. With that, I believe, many individual investors have misguided expectations. The market is overvalued, over-believed and over-margined yet trend evidence remains positive and Don’t Fight the Fed an important theme. For now.
I share some concluding thoughts below (please note: the piece prints longer than normal due to the number of charts).
Included in this week’s On My Radar:
- Valuations
- Forward Returns
- Don’t Fight the Tape or the Fed
- Trade Signals – Zweig Bond Sell Signal Timely, Stock Trend Remains Positive
Valuations
One of my favorite valuation measures is median PE. It is based on actual reported earnings (not Wall Street’s oft over-inflated forward estimates). This first chart shows median PE to be 21.5 (price times earnings) on April 30, 2015. The 51 year average median PE is 16.8.
Note that in the upper left of the chart that the Median Fair Value (taking current earnings times 16.8) is a S&P 500 level of 1627.24. The market is at 2121 today and was at 2085.51 at April month end.
Overvalued is measured at a 1 standard deviation move above Fair Value or S&P 500 level 2128. We are a long way away from undervalued or S&P 500 level 1126.29.
The next chart looks at S&P 500 PE based on (normalized earnings). The current reading is 20.3.
The data in the box in the upper left of the charts shows the S&P 500 Gain/Annum when this PE measure is above 16.5 (shaded grey). It shows that PE has been above 16.5 about 30.7 percent of the time since 1927 and over that time period the return averaged -0.5% when PE of 16.5 or higher.
We are in a high valuation = low return zone. Stocks are richly priced.
This next chart is said to be Warren Buffett’s favorite valuation measure. It shows the stock market capitalization as a percentage of gross domestic income. Simply take the total number of shares outstanding times price and compare that to U.S. gross domestic income.
You can see that we are at a higher level than we were at the market peak in 2007. Only March 2000 was higher. The charts shows the market to be in “bubble territory”.
Recently, Buffett mentioned that given where inflation and interest rates are, the market is not too overvalued. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen took a different view this week and said that U.S. stocks are “quite high”.
The following is a clip from Bloomberg’s David Wilson in an email he sent me this week.
Yellen referred to share valuations as “quite high” on May 6 at a financial forum in Washington. “Now they’re not so high when you compare the returns on equities to the returns on safe assets like bonds, which are also very low, but there are potential dangers there,” she said.
Wilson continues, “Last week, the S&P 500 closed at a GAAP P/E of 21.3. The ratio was lower than an average of 22.5 at inflation rates of less than 1.5 percent, calculated on a year-over-year basis. Consumer prices slid 0.1 percent in March from a year ago.”
And Stan Stovall from S&P IQ concludes,
“When an inflation overlay is included, P/Es don’t look as expensive.” The New York-based strategist cited data showing the S&P 500 ratio was 18 percent higher than the average regardless of CPI.
If the above is true, then keep a close eye on interest rates. I think they’ve bottomed and will likely be higher two to three years from now. Don’t Fight the Fed and paying close attention to interest rate trends means everything here.
Here is a different valuation take: one that looks at Price to Sales. Conclusion: “Market Expensive”.
Lastly, I think the next summary is pretty cool. NDR put together a valuation dashboard. I see a lot of red.
Source: S&P Capital IQ Compustat, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ned Davis Research, Inc., Robert Shiller, Irrational Exuberance, S&P Dow Jones Indices
I mentioned that while PE is a poor foreteller of market peaks and troughs, it is good predictor of probable forward returns. Let’s look at that next.
Forward Returns – Highly Predictable
This next chart breaks median PE into five quintiles. I’ve previously shown a chart taking the data back to 1950; however, an astute advisor asked me what the returns looked like since 1984. Over this period of time, PEs tended to remain much higher than periods prior to 1984.
The idea here is to divide all data points of PE since 1984 into quintiles and then see what the 10-year return was if your starting point was at any point in a given quintile. Quintile 1 is best (lowest 20% of PEs) and Quintile 5 is the most expensive (highest 20% of PEs).
If an investor bought in when the market was inexpensively priced in Quintile 1, the annual return over the subsequent 10-year period averaged 15.91%.
Conversely, if you bought in at any time median PE was in Quintile 5, the annual return over the subsequent 10-year period averaged 2.94% (note this is before inflation).
The next chart takes a whole different look at probable forward returns. Interestingly, it looks at stocks as a percentage of total household equity ownership and tracks the subsequent 10-year return based on just how much equity individuals owned as a percentage of their total financial assets.
The idea here is that when investors have fully committed to the stock market, most of the money is in the game – having already bid up prices. When low, most of the money is out of the game creating buying power that ultimately comes back in to drive prices higher.
In short, the current data is telling us to expect returns over the next ten years of just 2.25%. Note the high correlation coefficient since 1952 (the dotted black line is the actual rolling 10-year returns). The top red arrow shows what actually happened to investors who bought at the market peak in 2000. The second red arrow shows the top in 2007 (note it has not yet been ten years so the dotted line stops). The yellow circle shows where we were at year end.
Here too the story says to expect low returns.
Finally, Jeremy Grantham and his team at GMO take a more dire view when forecasting the next seven years.
Don’t Fight the Tape or the Fed
In my view, so much hinges on the Fed and the overall market trend. I post this next chart from time to time in Trade Signals. It has been steadily deteriorating and while not yet at a -2 reading, it is just one step away.
“It’s all ‘bout that Fed ‘bout that Fed”…
Trade Signals – Zweig Bond Sell Signal Timely, Stock Trend Remains Positive
I mentioned the following in Wednesday’s post:
The bond market has been under pressure with the yield on the 10-year Treasury going from 2.05% (April 30, 2015) to 2.28% (today May 13, 2015). The Zweig Bond Model signaled “SELL” on May 4 when the 10-year was yielding 2.13%.
Our CMG Managed High Yield Bond Program signal remains neutral and we remain positioned long High Yield exposure. The signal has weakened.
The equity market trend remains positive as measured by Big Mo, 13/34-Week EMA and Volume Demand. Investor sentiment is neutral (neither excessively optimistic nor pessimistic). I continue to tilt bullish though the cyclical trend is aged and expensive.
Click here for the charts.
Concluding thoughts
We are in an environment that favors a focus on absolute returns instead of relative returns. The problem is that the markets are doing their best to throw us a head fake and like 2000 and 2008, investors are biting on the move. Memories tend to be short lived. While sometimes that may be helpful in life, it is not helpful in investing. Don’t bite on the head fake!
The reality is that valuation metrics are very poor at predicting a market peak. Don’t Fight the Fed remains in place and there are better ways to more accurately risk manage the market turning points. I’m a big fan of NDR’s Big Mo (for momentum), yet nothing is perfect. Fortunately, there are ways to inexpensively hedge that doesn’t require perfect.
What we can do is fairly accurately predict forward 5- and 10-year returns. Here too, not perfectly but we can get pretty darn close. With the market richly priced, forward returns just don’t look good enough. Worth the risk? I think it’s better to have a game plan in place that enables you to capitalize on the next major market correction – which in my opinion could be in the -40% to -60% range.
Recessions tend to happen once or twice in a decade. The Fed and the global central banks are in play but the Fed is nearing a change in plan. Play defense until a better opportunity presents. There are a number of things that can drive the market higher than we might imagine – a rush of foreign capital into U.S. assets driven from negative interest rates and a loss of confidence in government and bank safety in Europe. I think it’s a probable maybe. How’s that for confidence? It could happen.
Below I post the most recent Trade Signals charts. The process has helped me better manage risk. Right now the equity market trend remains positive, investor sentiment is neutral and the Zweig Bond signal says to shorten bond maturities.
Personal note
I was in Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday and Wednesday to speak at the Mach 1 Client Event hosted by David Lee and Kyle Alexander. David is a retired air force pilot and served in Iraq. I’ve watched their advisory business grow from $5 million in AUM to $20m to $65m in three short years. These two men are locked in.
What I believe they are doing really well is captured in the quote I shared above. They build portfolios by combining together a number of uncorrelating strategies in a way whereas Harding says, “something magical happens”. It is unique, requires skill and they communicate it in a way that their clients get it.
Like many advisors, David and Kyle outsource their money management to third party money managers so that they can focus on their high income activities. Execution of money management is time-consuming and requires focus and discipline.
I connected through Charlotte en route to Philadelphia As I boarded the Airbus 380, a very large plane, I turned left to find seat1H (a welcomed upgrade). Ahead of me were rows of what I’ll call pods – TVs and chairs that recline to a bed. I normally fly US Airways but with the merger, I see that American has much better planes. The flight attendant seemed to pick up on my naïve excitement and said, “Well, aren’t you a big boy now.” With five boys in the house, I can’t tell you how many times one of the boys sarcastically said the same to his brother. I smiled and was happy to be heading home.
It is Shakespeare’s Henry Von deck this weekend. My middle son, Kyle, is in the play. Really looking forward to that show. The scouting report is giving it two thumbs up.
A quick reminder: I’ll be presenting on the state of the high yield bond market this coming Wednesday at 12:00 pm ET. The webinar will run approximately 40 minutes and I’ll discuss what I believe is “An Opportunity of a Lifetime – Just Not Quite Yet” and how to position for the trade.
You can sign up here: CMG Managed High Yield Bond Program Webinar.
Wishing you well…
Have a great weekend!
With kind regards,
Steve
Stephen B. Blumenthal
Chairman & CEO
CMG Capital Management Group, Inc.
