August 1, 2016
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
We observe an extremely aged and overvalued bull market here;
where the S&P 500 Index, despite the exuberance of “record highs,” is just 2% above its May 2015 peak;
where the broad NYSE Composite remains below its June 2014 level;
where international markets, despite a recent short-covering panic on post-Brexit monetary enthusiasm, remain in a larger pattern of retreat;
where valuation measures most reliably correlated with actual subsequent outcomes in market cycles across history now imply S&P 500 nominal total returns averaging less than 1.5% annually over the coming 12-year period;
where a retreat to even the richest valuations observed by the completion of any market cycle in the past century (even cycles where interest rates were depressed) would imply a market loss of at least 40% over the completion of the current cycle;
where market internals remain mixed despite positive whipsaws in various trend-following components; where, as a minor technical point, any serious reading of Hamilton and Rhea would still classify stocks in an ongoing Dow Theory bear market that began more than a year ago;
where the S&P 500 has pushed to the most extreme “overvalued, overbought, overbullish” syndrome we identify, in an environment where cyclical momentum has rolled over. Whether one is bullish or bearish, if one recognizes that current extremes are impermanent, one will ultimately suffer less.
“Sell everything”
At present, the greatest risk of ignoring impermanence is the belief that market risk has been removed from any consideration, and that even the most obscenely overvalued markets should never be sold. We can see that belief reflected in current price/volume data, as the post-Brexit plunge in interest rates mesmerized investors and prompted a low-volume “sellers strike.” As a security moves from one level of overvaluation to an even more extreme level of overvaluation, looking over one’s shoulder at positive past returns can reinforce the notion that the advance will never end. But extreme valuations imply dismal future returns, and that’s largely forgotten amid the eager lip-smacking of investors for ever lower or even more negative interest rates.
Understand that at a 10-year Treasury yield of 1.45%, investors stand to earn a cumulative total return of about 15% on those bonds between today and their maturity a decade from now. If one invests at current prices, nothing will make that long-term return better. Driving interest rates to negative levels in the interim won’t change the arithmetic. It would only front-load the returns, leaving only losses available to investors for the remaining portion of the decade. Put differently, the most that investors can expect to gain in 10-year Treasury bonds over any horizon, without subsequently giving it back over the coming decade, is about 15%;unless they actually sell at rich valuations and poor long-term yields.DYI Comments: DYI's model portfolio remains firm in its defensive stance:
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