Hussman on Misallocating Resources, Market Valuations, Earnings Estimates, and Public Policy
Once again John Hussman has written an excellent weekly column. This week, in Misallocating Resources, Hussman talks about stock market valuations, PE ratios, bailouts, and other things.
Let’s start with a look at stock market valuations.
Market Valuations and Earnings Estimates
From Hussman…
On a valuation basis, the S&P 500 remains about 40% above historical norms on the basis of normalized earnings. The disparity between our valuation assessment and the putative undervaluation being touted by Wall Street analysts is so great that a few remarks are in order. First, virtually every assessment that “stocks are cheap” here is based on the ratio of the S&P 500 to year-ahead operating earnings estimates, and often comes with a comparison of the resulting “earnings yield” with the depressed 10-year Treasury yield. What’s fascinating about this is that this is the same basis on which analysts deemed stocks to be about 40% undervalued just prior to the 2007 top, following which the market plunged by more than half. There’s a great deal of analysis regarding forward operating earnings that I published in 2007, but probably the most comprehensive piece was Long Term Evidence on the Fed Model and Forward Operating P/E Ratios from August 20, 2007.
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