A few years ago a pair of research advisors to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco demonstrated this link. They found that demographics (specifically, the ratio between retirement age workers to peak earning and investing age ones) is responsible for 61% of the changes in the price-to-earnings ratio of the stock market over time. Additionally, they found that when their model’s forecast p/e was off by a significant amount the real p/e consistently reverted to their forecast p/e.
According to this theory, for valuations to remain elevated the stock market needs the generations that follow the baby boomers to maintain the same population growth that the baby boom represented. We already know that this just isn’t going to happen. The generation following the baby boomers, Generation X, represents a significant deceleration in population growth. For this reason, this model forecasts a contraction of the price-to-earnings ratio over the next decade, from about 18 last year to roughly 8 in 2025.
DYI
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