vinod1

No. Earnings yield is not your return. In a crude and approximate way you can say the earnings yield is your real return. So total return is earnings yield + inflation, again in an approximate way.

If the argument is S&P 500 is going down "X" percent this year because of "Y" reasons, you are just pissing over everything Buffett, Munger and Graham taught.

Many pension funds, insurance companies, endowments have a 7% return target or need to fund their expenses. If treasuries are going to get 5%, high grade corporates and other investment grade bonds are going to be yielding 6% to 7%. Many of these institutional investors would be all over these bonds in that case. So I think treasury yield of 5% is sort of the upper limit and most likely would remain in the 3% to 4.5% range. Put an equity risk premium of 3.5% to 4%, a PE of 20 would look pretty attractive. S&P 500 earnings of $180 should be a conservative estimate. So a value of 3600 to 4000 should be quite reasonable.

Hussman is the worst. Not sure how he is managing money with a straight face telling investors that he is protecting their money while showing negative returns over 10 and 15 years!

In 2011/12 when S&P 500 reached 1000 or so there were worries that it got too expensive and many reduced allocation. Profit margins too high, PE too high, yada yada. I was sure profit margins would go back to their historical range of 6 or 7%. I wrote it down in my investment journal. I also noted that if profit margins again came back to 10% that I would change my mind as that would mean something else is going on. I am one of them. I got bailed out of that madness because bank stocks got cheap and I was able to invest my portfolio into BAC and other financials. Then profit margins came back up, I was already invested, so it did not hurt me as much as it would have. Now I see people falling for the same type of thinking. S&P 4000 must be expensive, etc.

Many people here would say you just need to hold good businesses over the long term. Very few companies exist more than 100 years. Less than 20% of the S&P 500 companies survived 60 years. I cannot think of a better business than the total stock market. Compared to it, Berkshire has the moat/riskiness of a lemonade stand. I do hold Berkshire. Just pointing out the riskiness compared tot he market which is virtually indestructible. Backed by the 7th fleet and nuclear arsenal. So what should one pay for such an extraordinarily resilient business? I do not see why a PE of 20 is too high.

Think of this another way. People invest in Berkshire at 1.3x BV licking their hands and most would argue fair value is about 1.5x BV or a bit more. These same people assume BRK would beat the market at most by 1% or 2%. Buffet and Munger likewise say the same. So one is willing to buy BRK at 1.5x BV for something that is going to return maybe just maybe return 1 or 2% more? What does that say about the market valuation?

I think treasury 10 year yield of 4%ish range is quite consistent with 20ish PE on the market. Historically stocks had a 6.5% risk premium. But the vast majority when this premium was earned was when no one can actually earn that much. Just not possible during this time. In 1880s or 1900s or 1920s or 40s you would have no way to assemble a portfolio of diversified stocks at low cost. You would have to take a train to a city to a brokerage house, then have your broker buy stocks that he is familiar with at large brokerage costs, bid spread costs, etc. Then store the stock certificates safely. There is limited financial information. Limited investor protections. All these end up costing investors in returns. One could have gone through investor trusts. They had what 5% loads and 1 to 1.5% annual fees. And they would have underperformed the market. Say they underperformed the market by 1%, then you lose about 2% in fees annually over the lifetime of the investment. An equity risk premium of 6.5% would end up being 3.5% for the investor. Now you can get diversified exposure at near zero cost. An equity risk premium that should be demanded by investors is probably in the 3 to 4% range. Vinod

Very different. Their argument is that stocks and bonds have the same level of risk. Hence stocks do not need any equity risk premium i.e. a equity risk premium of zero. What I am saying is historical risk premium of 6.5% is too high and going forward it should be lower. I will lay out my reasons - not actually mine, but these arguments are quite well documented by many for the last 20 years. Shiller, Philosophical Economics, etc.

2020 taught us the power of Fiscal and Monetary policy. When faced with a potential for another Great Depression like scenario a $3 trillion fiscal dose + $5 trillion monetary dose produced a robust economy all for a 20% inflation hit. Come another major risk to economy, all the players now have a playbook. Tail risks are now much lower than in the past. This has got to be extremely bullish for stocks over the next several decades. Now that I said it, the markets are going to tank. To all the bears: you are welcome. Vinod

S&P 500 Earnings are $160 in 2019. Nominal GDP is up 20% over the last 3 years - about 14% inflation and around 4%ish real GDP growth. So earnings are about $190 per share in 2022 if earnings kept up just with GDP and inflation in 2022. Now add around 4% in net buybacks and you are close to $200 per share. Does not seem to be too far out of line. Or take a look at the top 50 companies by market cap and identify which ones are "peak earnings" or overstated earnings or high PE. Except Tesla, hard to find anything obvious. I actually went through the exercise of looking at the top 50 companies, then looking at each industry as a profit share of the S&P 500, adjusting them up and down to come up with a rough estimate. My arguable conservative estimate comes to $180 in 2022. Now, this is the only recession that I know of where everyone and their pet is predicting. Whereas in the past, recessions have been more of a surprise. Companies started making adjustments long before the actual recession even starts. Maybe, just maybe, we have a recession and it may produce only a small earnings dip or might not actually produce any earnings dip. Heck, earnings might even increase slightly in the midst of a recession. Consumers are still pretty flush with cash, companies have locked in low rates, banks in strong financial position. Unless we get some really spectacular corporate failures, or a major geopolitical blowup somewhere I just do not see any issues. In 2001/2 we had 9/11 and Worldcom/Enron/Adelphia scandals. 2008/9 we had GFC. Unless we have something similar I do not see any impending doom.

Agree but unlike nominal bonds, there is going to be a limit on how high real yields can go. In 2000's when TIPS were brand new and there is not much experience they went up to 4.5%. They were like $20 or $50 billion in TIPS for the first couple of years and liquidity is not there at all. The whole academic world was awash in research on this strange behavior and what it means. Tons of papers where published about this phenomenon. I dont think we would evergo back to a TIPS rate of 4% and I expect an upper limit of 3% at most with 2.5% being more likely top. So the downside from here is limited. A ladder of TIPS to me is the ultimate in safe securities outside of i-Bonds with 1% or more of real yields.

If I-bonds are a good choice, TIPS are even better in a non-taxable account.

I am with you on this. I just opened 529 accounts for kids just for this reason. Buying TIPS fund in this account. I have invested in I-Bonds way back in 2000 when real rate was 3% and 3.6% and you can invest $30k per year per person. TIPS went to 4.5% real but was thumb sucking and did not invest. Now TIPS are roughly at 1.75% real yield if look at total TIPS market. I doubt if they can get more than 2.5% in the future and of course then it would be a terrific opportunity. Vinod

Mistaking Absence of Evidence for Evidence of Absence “There is no evidence that masks work”, I kept hearing repeated to me by the usual idiots calling themselves “evidence based” scientists. The point is that there is no evidence that locking the door tonight will prevent me from being burglarized. But everything that may block transmission could help. Unlike school, real life is not about certainties. When in doubt, use what protection you can. Some invoked the flawed rationalization that masks induce false confidence: in fact there is a strong argument that masks makes one more alert to the risks and more conservative in behavior. https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7 Taleb article, The Masks Masquerade

My kids went to good public schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but If I had to do it over again, I think I would have put them in a Montessori type school in the younger grades. Kindergarten for sure. Forcing young kids into desks for hours on end had got to be the most unnatural thing we do to them. Sex education of any type at 5 years old is insane as well. Let kids be kids. By the time high school comes around any good school private or good public will do. My kids used to come home from school and tell me how their teachers or administrators were trying to brainwash them. Simply being raised right by you should be enough of an immunity to that type of nonsense. Nailed it. Agree 100% with everything you said. I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted out of education for my children. I ended up realizing that my goal as a parent should be to give them an education and family life such that they would end up at the top 5 percentile of income and top 5 percentile of happiness. They may end up doing whatever they want but at least I want to give them a chance at this. I think you can do that with either public or private school. Vinod

In our children's school we are able to opt out of this stuff. Been opting out since 1st grade. Speak up, talk to the Principal. Worst case say your religion prohibits your child from participating in that class. If this is your main concern, it should be easy enough to opt out. Vinod

Low interest rates are contingent on low inflation. IF one believes inflation is going to be a low and further interest rates are also going to be low, say for the next 50 years. Who knows, but if you assume both of these, why should stock market as a whole not trade at very high multiples? Really the key is low inflation and low interest rates for a long time. But if this turns out to be true, then why shouldn't stocks be worth a lot more? To put some hypothetical numbers: Inflation of 1% Interest rates of close to 0% 10 Year Treasury yield of 0.5% GDP growth of 1% If we know for sure this is how the next 100 years are going to look like, what multiple would make sense for the S&P 500? I would think a PE of 40 times normalized earnings is going to be pretty reasonable. A 2.5% earnings yield with say 20% retention that is a 2% payout, add in a 1% GDP growth and 1% inflation, that is a 4% nominal return or 3% real return. The overall bond market is going to return something like 1.5% nominal (1% more than 10 year Treasury) or 0.5% real. That is an equity premium of 2.5%. It would not make sense for equity holders to be getting 5%-6% real returns while bond holders make only 0% to 0.5% real returns. We should not expect bond holders to stupidly allocate money that way. The real fly in the ointment is inflation. People got used to low inflation for a long time and expecting it to continue. I am agnostic on this. Who knows if and when inflation rises? So I would not pay up for 40x as it leaves little margin of safety, but I can understand why many would be willing to pay if there is a very high probability of low inflation. Vinod

A thing that's not discussed here is that when you move into high net worth (and a lot of these active managers manage high net worth) out-performance is not the be all and end all. Performance is important, that's for sure. But the fit between the client and the IM in terms of temperament and risk taking is important as well. What the money goes into is important. I don't know for how long has underperformed but I don't think that Gates is about to fire him and go all index. I agree completely with you. There is a lot of value that an advisor/IM can bring to a client. Very few people would be just able to hold on to anything for any sustained period of time. Just being able to stick to indexing without constantly tweaking or jumping in and out, is something I think the majority of the people cannot do. Vinod

I think you mean Hussman Strategic Growth & Capital Depreciation fund.

Longleaf, Sequoia, and Dodge and Cox, I understand and can sympathize. But Fairholme is an absolute head scratcher. It is like he has completely lost his mind.

I use to have a very simple screen to eliminate fund managers: did the fund manager have a positive performance in 1999? The really good fund managers who identified the most undervalued stocks at the beginning of 1999 have lost money. You can retroactively see which stocks are deeply undervalued at beginning of 1999. So if the manager had a positive return in 1999, then he is no good at picking stocks. A similar approach now would be helpful, this time those that picked the right stocks for the right reasons 10-15 years ago. Vinod

Given the two constraints (1) all you money and (2) rest of your life, hands down index funds would be the only choice. Any other choice is going to be vastly inferior from a risk/reward perspective. When looking at 30+ years, markets are likely to go through many changes as economy evolves. The managers you are going to select now are all going to have terrific current long term records. As they go through tough times you would be faced with a decision whether to stick with them or change. To evaluate active fund managers you need be as good at picking stocks as them to make that decision. So picking active managers means being active to some extent and it cannot be a pick and forget. I have been tracking 20 mutual fund managers since 2001. It is partly to know my ability to identify superior managers and partly to invest in them as a portion of my portfolio is restricted to mutual funds. My intent is to jump into the underperforming managers from this select set of to get some additional alpha. On the whole it has been a small net positive and that too with benefit from a bit of luck. So many funds have changed their managers, that the stock picking approach changed significantly. Clipper fund manager in 2001 used to be Jim Gipson, who is absolutely first rate stock picker but he retired. Same with T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation. If I had just stuck with my initial subset of those 20, it would have been a significant underperformance. Vinod

LOL, that women “dancing” in front of the police car. FWIW, if I were to guess the demographic that is mit likely to skirt mask rules based on my limited observations, it would be a young black male in his twenties. I dont even think its politics or race. Young people will do what they want, and be rebellious. Immature middle aged(30-45 years old) will do what they want. This is a YUGE portion of the population. My greater point is that trying to place politics around much of this, is a sure fire way to....not get anywhere remotely useful in terms of solving the root of the problem. Is Cuomo responsible for the block parties in Astoria? Of course he isn't. He is somewhat respibsle for Cuomo chips though. If anyone read the article..."when asked for comment, an official Cuomo spokesperson commented that: Cuomo senior adviser Rich Azzopardi said Friday that buying $1 chips complies with the food-requirement rule. “It’s consistent with the guidance — but you have to be seated,” Azzopardi said. Sooo. WTF is the point of even having the "no bars" policy then? Is it really just politics? So you can say "you did something"??? EDIT: Disney now updates rules after guests take advantage of "eating and drinking" while walking to skirt mask rules....Fucking Trump Teens and even some percentage of adults are always likely to make some reckless choices. No doubt. Some percent of teens are likely to take drugs, even if both parents are well meaning and do all the right things. But now imagine, if the parents say, drugs are no big deal, they might be fun to use once in a while, etc. I would think those teens are much more likely to take drugs. Same applies here. Trump has influence on a big enough segment of the population that his example would be emulated. Even if say 5% or 10% of population end up wearing masks because of him it would be helpful. So no, I disagree with your backhanded support to Trump that none of that would make any impact. Vinod

Is there any rational person who doesn’t think Trump’s handling of Covid-19 has been deplorable? There is indeed such a group. The only group that I find more deplorable than pedophiles. Trump supporters.