Hussman on Misallocating Resources, Market Valuations, Earnings Estimates, and Public Policy
by ilene - July 12th, 2010 9:00 pm
Hussman on Misallocating Resources, Market Valuations, Earnings Estimates, and Public Policy
Courtesy of Mish
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.
Optimism is Insane
I happened to mention similar thoughts last week in a Tech Ticker with Joe Weisenthal: Mish: Say No to Stocks, Because Optimism Is "Insane"
The optimism I mentioned was in relation to earnings estimates, not trader sentiment measures such as bull vs. bear measures.
Continuing with Hussman …
When you hear analysts say that the historical average P/E ratio is about 15, you have to recognize that this is the normal P/E based on trailing 12-month earnings after subtracting all writeoffs and other charges. Forward operating earnings are invariably much higher, and it turns out that the comparable historical norm, as I discuss in that 2007 piece, is only about 12. If you exclude the late 1990′s bubble valuations, you get a historical norm closer to 11.5. The 1982 and 1974 market lows occurred at about 6 times estimated forward operating earnings.
A final observation is crucial. Current forward operating earnings estimates assume profit margins for the S&P 500 companies that are nearly 50% above their long-term historical norms. While