Posts tagged ‘market’
Why it’s NOT Different This Time
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
– Edmund Burke – British Statesman and Philosopher (1729-1797)
I wasn’t a history major in college, but I’ve learned two things by studying history books: 1) The unchanging psyche of human nature leads history consistently to repeats itself; and 2) There is never a shortage of goofballs willing to make zany predictions.
Robert Zuccaro is no exception to lesson number two, as evidenced by his 2001 book, Why it’s Different this Time…Dow 30,000 by 2008! Sticking one’s neck out is never too difficult when you have a multi-decade trend behind your back – I guess Dow “14,000” just didn’t sound sexy enough back then. Unfortunately the herd reacting to these bold, extreme predictions eventually realize (usually post-mortem) that they are quickly approaching a tail-end of a cycle. The cab driver, hair dresser, and mechanic realized the dangers of following the “New Economy” cheerleaders in 1999 when everyone was piling into dot-com stocks (see Bubblicious technology table ).
Dow 1,000 Here We Come!
- Source: Yahoo! Finance
Today, the Zuccaros of the world have been washed to the curb, and new “Armageddon” extremists have sprouted up to the surface, like perma-bear Peter Schiff and his call for Dow 2,000 or his $5,000 per ounce gold estimate. More recently, Robert Prechter has one-upped Schiff by forecasting Dow 1,000 with the assistance of the not-so ironclad Elliott Wave Theory philosophy (see Technical Analysis: Astrology or Lob Wedge). If you’re in the Prechter camp, either crawl back into your bunker or start digging that dream cave you always wanted.
Source: Elliott Wave International
“Hey, Look Here at My Crazy Forecast!”
Publicity doesn’t necessarily rain praise on those parroting the consensus view (although the warmth of job security is appreciated), but rather the extreme outliers love to bask in the glow of media attention. The extremists consistently repeat “why it’s different this time.” What is different is the set of circumstances, but what history shows us over and over again is the emotions of fear and greed feeding the bubbles of excess are exactly the same. Whether you’re talking about the Tulip-Mania of the 1630s, the Nifty Fifty stocks of 1973-1974, the technology Four Horsemen of the mid-1990s, or the Icelandic Banks of 2008, what we learn from the lessons of history is that human nature will never change and fear and greed will continue creating and bursting future bubbles.
People playing the game long enough understand, “It’s NOT different this time.” Not only have we endured repeated wars, recessions, banking crises, currency crises, but we have also survived every exotic animal disease known to man, including Mad Cow, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, West Nile, etc.
Robert Zuccaro and Robert Prechter may get an “A” for their attention grabbing forecasts, but thus far the grade earned on accuracy is closer to an “F.” More specifically, Zuccaro’s prediction never came close to 30,000 by the end of 2008 (only off by about 21,000 points), and guess what, Bob Prechter has a long way to go before reaching his Dow 1,000 target. So here is my proposition: Why don’t we just split the difference between Zuccaro’s 2008 and Prechter’s 2016 forecasts and take the average? If it turns out they are equally bad forecasters, then Dow 15,500 by 2012 should be no problem ([30,000 + 1,000] ÷ 2)!
Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this market (double-dip or sustained recovery), what I do know is there will continue to be wacky outlandish forecasters rationalizing why a trend will go on for infinity and why “this time is different.” In reality these attention mongers will always be around ensuring this time (or next time) will never be different…just the same fear and greed as always.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct position in any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Measuring the Market with Valuation Dipstick
Investor opinions about the stock market’s value are all over the map.
Doomsayers think the market is valued at crazy levels, and believe that “buy-and-hold” investing is dead. Bears remind investors that stocks have led to nothing good except for a lost decade of performance (read article on Lost Decade). Many speculators on the other hand believe they have the ability to “time the markets” to take advantage of volatility in any market (see also Market Timing article). In trader land, overconfidence is never in short-supply. Certainly, if you are a trader at Goldman Sachs (GS) or UBS and you are trading with privileged client data, then taking advantage of volatility can be an extremely lucrative endeavor. However most day-traders, and average investors, are not honored with the same information. Rather, the public gets overwhelmed by online brokerage firms and their plethora of software bells and whistles – inadequate protection when investing among a den of wolves. Equipping speculators with day trading tools is a little like giving a 7-year old a squirt gun and shipping them off to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban – the odds are not in the kid’s favor.
With so much uncertainty out in the marketplace, how do we know if the overall market is cheap or expensive? According to Scott Grannis, former Chief Economist at Western Asset Management and author of the Calafia Beach Pundit blog, the dipstick components necessary to measure the value of the market are corporate profits relative to the level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the value (market cap) of the S&P 500 index. Grannis is a believer in the tenet that stock prices follow earnings, and as you can see from his charts below, earnings have grown much faster than stock prices over the last 10 years:
20 Year Chart
50 Year Chart
As you can see there is an extremely tight correlation on the 50-year chart until the last decade. What does the recent diverging trend mean? Here’s what Grannis has to say:
“Note that profits doubled from 1998 to 2009, yet the S&P 500 index today is still lower than it was at the end of 1998…equities continue to be extremely undervalued. Another way of looking at this is that the market is discounting current profits using an 8% 10-yr Treasury yield, or a 50% drop in corporate profits from here. Simply put, according to this model the market is priced to some very awful assumptions.”
How will this valuation gap be alleviated? Grannis correctly identifies two scenarios to achieve this end: 1) Rising treasury yields; and 2) Rising equity prices. His base case would be a move on the 10-year yield to 5.5%, and a move upwards in the S&P 500 index +50%.
Judging by Grannis’s dipstick measurement, there’s plenty of oil in the system to prevent the market engine from overheating just quite yet.
Read the Complete Scott Grannis Article
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
*DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct positions in GS, UBS, or any security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Mountains of Cash Starting to Trickle Back
The month of July was an interesting month because investors opened their 401k and investment statements for the first time in a long while to notice an unfamiliar trend… account values were actually up. Like a child that has burnt their hand on a stove, the wounds and memories are still too fresh – more time must pass before investors decide to get back into the market in full force.
As you can see from the charts below, as investors globally panicked throughout 2008 and early 2009, money earning next to nothing in CDs and Money Market accounts was stuffed under the mattress in droves. The fear factor of last fall has caused current liquid assets to stand near 10 year highs at a level near 120% of the S&P 500 total market capitalization (Thomson Reuters) and at more extreme levels last fall if you just look at Money Market assets (bottom chart) . Now that the Armageddon scenario has been temporarily put to rest, we’re starting to see some of that cash to trickle back into the market. The silver lining is that there is still plenty of dry powder left to drive the market higher – not overnight, but once sustained confidence returns. If the earnings outlook continues to improve, come the beginning of October when 3rd quarter statements arrive in the mail, the pain of not being in the market will overwhelm the fear of burning another hand on the stove like in 2008.
It is funny how the sentiment pendulum can swing from the grips of despair a year ago. There is still headroom for the market to climb higher before the pendulum swings too far in the bullish direction – if you don’t believe me just look on the horizon at the mountain of cash.
Source: SentimenTrader.com (Fall 2008)
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
Investing Caffeine 
