Hallo snag - auch mal was vom horror:
Undervalued U.S. Equities
SP500 undervalued by 26%…
Undervalued U.S. Equities: According Greenspan’s Fed Model, the SP500 is the cheapest it’s been since 1986…
Dear TFN Reader,
Here’s the deal: the “yield” on the Standard & Poor 500 Index (the top 500 U.S.-listed companies, in terms of market value) is 6.53% compared to 4.65% for a 10-year U.S. Treasury note.
This is the widest gap since 1986 and tells us two things. The first is that the market is undervalued, and, second, that buybacks and buyouts will continue as long as companies can buy money at 4.65% to get earnings at 6.53%.
According to Bloomberg, “Companies in the S&P 500 were forecast to earn $92.76 per ‘share’ of the index as of March 30, providing an earnings yield of 6.53 percent. The 1.88 percentage-point advantage stocks yield over Treasuries is the biggest since at least 1986. The more stocks yield in profit compared with the interest on bonds, the cheaper shares become on a relative basis.”
Sir Alan Greenspan used this as his formula in 1997. It has been famously known ever since as the Fed model.
Undervalued U.S. Equities: Going up…
To reach fair value on the Fed model the S&P 500 would have to hit 1791.21. That’s a 26% increase for those of you playing the take-home game. In March 2000, the all-time high of the SP500 was 1,527.46, or a 7.5 percent difference from current levels.
If you want to apply another value metric, try the simple one -- the price to earnings ratio. Back in 2000 the P/E on the SP500 was 35.4. In 2002, after the tech implosion but before the bounce back bull of 2003, the SP500 P/E ratio was 26.5. Today the P/E ratio is just 17.1.
Alas, short-term we are headed lower…
Ten-year SP500 chart with triple moving average and P/E ratio.
Above is the 10-year SP500 chart with quarterly candlesticks. The black line at the bottom is the P/E ratio. As you can see, it is cheaper than it has been in a long time. It is also in a downtrend. Wags might say it is a falling knife. Low P/E ratios are good; they mean stocks are cheap compared to how much companies are earning. That said, they could get a lot cheaper.
The doji candlestick formation, that black cross at the top right of the chart, is a turnaround signal. The fact that it is happening within a few percentage points of the all-time high is validation that we are heading down.
Furthermore, my tridirectional indicator is showing an indecisive market, and the SP500 is well above its moving average. My bet is we will go down 5% before the next leg up.
In other words, buy the dips for long-term investments, and speculate in commodities, oil and alternative energy for short-term gains.
As the kids type, “L8r,”
Chris DeHaemer
Publisher, Taipan Trading Services