saluti cumulate
i grafici sono subdoli e c'e' sempre l'interpretazione alternativa !!
John Mauldin (Part of recent letter)
The Ugly Muddle Through
Goldman Sachs published a report Thursday in which they suggest the most probable scenario for the next 12 months is GDP growth between -0.25% and 0.25%, or basically zero. Wayne Angell, mentioned above, expects the second half of '08 to be no better than the first half and for GDP growth to be 1%.
In the Bridgewater report mentioned above, they estimate that the net worth of US-based assets is down about 13% since January 2007, a total loss of almost $8 trillion. This is hitting pension plans, corporations, and consumers, making them think twice about planned investments and expenditures.
Earnings estimates are being cut with each passing month. The P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is currently at a sporty 23. Historically, in times of rising inflation, the stock market goes through "multiple compression." That means P/E ratios fall more than earnings. If multiples fell just 20%, back to 18, which is still above long-term trends, the market would see another 20% drop from here. Even with earnings growth, the market is going to have a challenge rising in the current environment.
Sidebar: A number of you have written questioning my source for the P/E ratio, as you read or hear different numbers from what I write. You can indeed find estimates of forward P/E ratios as low as 12 a year from now. That is a lot different than the 23 I cited above.
There are two basic types of earnings that are reported. One is "operating earnings," or what I call EBBS, or Earnings Before Bad Stuff. Then there is "reported earnings," which is what the corporations report on their tax forms. Not all that long ago, in the mid-'90s, operating earnings and reported earnings were generally in line with each other. Companies would deduct genuine one-time, unusual losses from their reported earnings to give us operating earnings. And such a system has a valid basis for existence. If something is truly one-time, maybe an investor should overlook it when evaluating the company's potential.
But then the media and analysts started using the operating earnings as the primary number, and companies began to game the system. More and more items were considered one-time. One of the more egregious examples was when Waste Management Systems declared that painting the garbage trucks was a one-time extraordinary expenditure and should be accounted as such. Today the difference between as-reported and operating earnings can be 20-40% or more! It seems there are many losses that management assures us are just one-time items.
Standard and Poor's has a web page where you can see a spreadsheet of historical data and projections for both types of earnings. That is the source of my data. It is at
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/xls/i...2f205e73e4& .
Analysts' estimates do tend to get brighter the further out one looks on the table. But if the growth scenarios mentioned above come about, and banks have to curtail all sorts of lending, the earnings projections are going to be way too high, as they have been for the last 12 months. That is going to mean more pain for the stock market.
...We have now had five consecutive months of downward revisions, which is typical of recessions.
Unemployment held steady at 5.5%, but that masks an underlying and growing problem. There has been a huge increase in the number of people working "part-time for economic reasons" and a large number of people who are discouraged and not looking for a job but would like one. These two categories are not counted as unemployed. If you add them into the equation, the unemployment or underemployment number goes to 10.3%! (per Greg Weldon)
As I warned above, this has not made for pleasant reading. But it is reality, and we need to deal with it.
And let me say that even given the above, I am a long-term (and even mid-term) optimist. We have to work through some serious problems, but we will. Valuations are going to be low once again, and it will be time to become bullish. And researching and writing my book on how the world will change in 20 years makes me very optimistic. No one in 20 years will think of today as the "good old days." The changes that are in front of us will be amazing. So, simply take a deep breath, be conservative today, and get ready for a really wild and fun ride.
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