“Today is a very different situation—I don’t think we’ve got a broad bubble,” Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist at the firm, said in a recent interview on Bloomberg Television. “Given the level of real rates, where they are, it’s still likely to be broadly supportive for equities versus bonds.”
Another rationale employed to dismiss certain valuation metrics is the earnings cycle. Corporate America is just emerging from a recession, with profits forecast to stage a strong comeback. The strong outlook for profits is why many investors are giving similarly stretched valuations the benefit of the doubt. Trading at 32 times reported earnings, the S&P 500 looks quite expensive, but with income forecast to jump 24% to $173 a share this year, the multiple drops to about 23.
The valuation case becomes more favorable should business leaders continue to blow past expectations. For instance, if this year’s earnings come in at 16% above analyst estimates, as they did for the previous quarter, that’d imply a price-earnings ratio of less than 20. While that exceeds the five-year average of 18, Ed Yardeni is not troubled by what he calls “the New Abnormal.”
“Valuation multiples are likely to remain elevated around current elevated levels because fiscal and monetary policies continue to flood the financial markets with so much free money,” said the founder of Yardeni Research Inc. He predicts the S&P 500 will finish the year at 4,300, about an 8% gain from current levels.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the risks to underlying assumptions. While rock-bottom rates underpin many of the arguments, this year has shown that the Fed still is willing to let longer-term interest rates run higher. And betting on huge upside earnings surprises is risky too—it’s rare to see a 16% beat historically. Before last year, earnings had exceeded estimates by an average 3% a quarter since 2015.
“This happens in every bubble,” said Bill Callahan, an investment strategist at Schroders. “It’s: ‘Don’t think about the traditional value metrics, we have a new one.’ It’s: ‘Imagine if everyone did XYZ, how big this company could be.’”
Returns Of 2%
Valuations are never useful market-timing tools because expensive stocks can get more expensive, as was the case during the Internet bubble. Yet viewed through a long-term lens, valuations do matter. That is, the more over-valued the market is, the lower the future returns. According to a study by Bank of America strategists led by Savita Subramanian, things like price-earnings ratios could explain 80% of the S&P 500’s returns during the subsequent 10 years. The current valuation framework implies an increase of just 2% a year over the next decade, their model shows.
To Scott Knapp, chief market strategist of CUNA Mutual Group, abandoning standard valuation measures because the environment has changed places investors in “pretty sketchy territory.” Talk of watershed moments rendering traditional metric irrelevant is a signal, he says.
“That’s usually an indication we’re trying to justify something,” he said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.