RESOURCES

While predicting the direction of the economy looks hard here, analysts are clearly optimistic about corporate earnings, foreseeing strong profit growth for the foreseeable future. Investors are willing to place rich multiples on these rosy projections, driving the market to extremely high levels when using historical metrics (trailing EPS, book value, size of the economy, replacement cost, etc). This market has been driven on easy money and speculation, but there are signs the speculative fervor is starting to cool. “Buying the dip” has been a profitable strategy since 2009, so this slight decline could be ephemeral. This strategy does not always work, however - sometimes the supposed dip is just the first part of a major plunge. It is impossible to confidently predict when that will happen, but the conditions are in place. Investors are wise to be cautious.

There are many ways people are now trying to get rich quick, armed with floods of money from the world’s central banks. When the focus of wealth creation is speculation and not work or creation and the timeframe is weeks or months and not decades, times are likely to be challenging ahead. On the other hand, there is still incredible new technology being developed, and creative new approaches being tried.

While political and economic trends matter, they are always changing. The price paid for an investment today discounts all earnings from that investment into perpetuity. Price paid is the most important factor for determining investment return. Last quarter, I shared a chart from Advisor Perspectives showing the S&P 500 at very high levels according to four long-term valuation methods. This chart bears repeating as the fourth quarter saw a significant expansion of valuations. What I find striking is that the rapid bear market last March still left stocks at among the richest valuations over the last twelve decades. The spike up off that (not) low level over the last several months has few historical corollaries.

After the fastest bear market (stocks falling at least 20%) and a quick reversal from a humming economy to a steep recession in the first quarter, the economy has been rebounding nicely and the stock market has been on a tear.