Howard Marks is out with a new memo on equity prices. Howard Marks discusses the ‘great rotation’, equity price valuations and more. Marks concludes with the following statement:
A great rotation? Maybe . . . or maybe not. Nowadays pundits and the media are quick to come up with cute labels – usually just the right size for a headline or sound bite – to describe things that are taking place or that “everyone knows” are just around the corner. I don’t know whether it’s going to be great. Heck, I don’t even know if it’ll happen. But I like to enumerate the pros and cons and try to put them in perspective, as much as I like skewering excessive generalizations and pat pronouncements.
Of course, doing that isn?t enough. I feel I should come down on one side or the other. Thus I’m quite comfortable imagining a few years of equity performance that provide a pleasant surprise relative to what I think is the prevailing expectation of 6% or so per year.
And if I?m wrong – if there is no rotation from fixed income to stocks – I?m not that worried that I?ll end up with great regret over having failed to pile into T-bills yielding zero or the 10-year note guaranteeing 2.0%. When attitudes are moderate and allocations are low, like I feel is currently the case with equities, there?s little likelihood of investing being a big mistake. And when interest rates are among the lowest in history, it would take deflation, depression or calamity to make failing to invest in Treasurys and high grade bonds a serious omission.
Full document embedded in scribd:
H/T Zach Kouwe
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Howard Marks the Outlook for Equities March 13th 2013 memo
