How to hedge a global depression?

[Cardboard]

This message is for the investors who are still finding value in this market and already have a large portion of their net worth invested, but that are worried about a Europe debt implosion along with a significant slowdown in China and possibly a real estate crash there.

 

How do you hedge that risk in your portfolios currently?

 

I also want to ensure that people understand what I mean by depression. It means that business becomes really bad. That most companies have a hard time selling their goods. That they are losing money on an EBITDA basis and liquidating their inventories. The current E mostly disappears and we are not sure for how long. Permanent loss for a great deal of your companies since they turn bankrupt. It is not a temporary event, but one that could last a few years and have real lasting damage.

 

While I cannot predict that risk with any certainty, I don't believe that the probability is 0%. If both China and Europe come down hard, and we are seeing some real signs of that currently, we may experience such event. At the same time, history shows that investing in such instance of fear as we see now (at least in many stocks) is the way to go. In essence, the problem I have is that value is relative. It is based on some assumptions about the future. The way I see it, is that we will have some resolutions, but I don't know how, when and if it won't be combined with other shocks that are not anticipated currently.

 

Cardboard

[StubbleJumper]

If you believe that this is a meaningful risk, then the most straightforward way is to take a long position in cash.  Unfortunately the precise allocation to cash that is optimal is not easily divined, but in the 1930s those who were able to rebalance between de-valued equities and cash/treasuries did just fine.

 

Personally, I'm running about 5% cash at the moment, so a depression scenario would be a real kick in the teeth for me.

 

 

SJ

[bmichaud]

It's only a matter of time before those posting on this thread will be accused of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room by Moore, but for those interested....

 

http://pragcap.com/now-there-are-truly-no-safe-havens-in-european-bond-markets

 

 

Obviously it's very easy to say when the market is down (I wouldn't be surprised at all to see us back over 12,000 on the Dow with one simple utterance from Dr. Bernanke), but this is without a doubt a HIDEOUS environment. And the complete lack of attention investors are paying to the issues staring them in the face is truly staggering. The current situation is not dissimilar to the 12 to 18 months leading up to Lehman where the market almost entirely ignored all signs pointing to a credit crisis. The market is currently banking on governments coming to the rescue, which I find horrifically dangerous considering how many times Germany and the ECB have stated they will not print money, and the bond market's obvious rejection of all European debt. Like I said on the "What a Lovely Frickin Day....to be Reducing Risk" thread, a France downgrade is not going to be pretty, and as an article said yesterday, France is not at all trading like a AAA credit (the absurdity of it even being AAA is beyond the scope of this discussion).

 

Yes, yes, this is not speak a "real value investor" would utter, and as soon as the market is back over 12,000 all those taking action to reduce risk will be chided for not having a large enough.....

[Santayana]

I think SPY puts make a great hedge, but at current volatility levels I wouldn't initiate any new positions.  Unfortunately the best time to hedge is when things look like clear sailing, trying to hedge after you see the storm clouds is a difficult proposition.  Your best bet would probably be to reduce your long exposure and raise some cash, keeping in mind that you'll kick yourself if your holdings rally from here.

[Viking]

One answer in 2007 & 2008 was to buy FFH and ride their CDS holdings. My understanding is FFH today has a much more neutral position (hedges offset equity investments). Is there a company out there today highly leveraged to benefit should a depression happen?

[Grenville]

One answer in 2007 & 2008 was to buy FFH and ride their CDS holdings. My understanding is FFH today has a much more neutral position (hedges offset equity investments). Is there a company out there today highly leveraged to benefit should a depression happen?

 

The hedges do offset their equity positions, but their bond portfolio is high quality (govt, munis (CA), and Berk backed munis) and long term. On top of that you have the huge notional portfolio of deflationary CPI bets that will do well in a depression type environment.

[Guest Dazel]

 

Cardboard,

 

I am interested in this question....as we hedged 2008 with a large fairfax investment for their CDs and bond portfolio....fair fax was the 3rd best performing stock in north America in 2008! However, their equity now is too large now to be a proper hedge for us...I am going to start another thread on shorting....no commentary just shorting ideas which I have discussed with hester who appears too be a very intelligent short seller...I do not wish to take away from your thread only to add to it with ideas about shorting hedging..not macro issues.

 

dazel

[Green King]

Unfortunately the precise allocation to cash that is optimal is not easily divined, but in the 1930s those who were able to rebalance between de-valued equities and cash/treasuries did just fine.

 

 

 

SJ

 

what do you mean ? can you explain in more detail ? or link or guide me to a better description ?

[StubbleJumper]

Unfortunately the precise allocation to cash that is optimal is not easily divined, but in the 1930s those who were able to rebalance between de-valued equities and cash/treasuries did just fine.

 

 

 

SJ

 

what do you mean ? can you explain in more detail ? or link or guide me to a better description ?

 

 

What I mean is that a hypothetical reprise of the Great Depression would be very bad for those who maintain 100% asset allocation to stocks.  Here are the S&P index numbers that I've quickly stolen from Shiller's website:

 

 

1929 24.86

1930 21.71

1931 15.98

1932 8.3

1933 7.09

1934 10.54

1935 9.26

1936 13.76

1937 17.59

1938 11.31

1939 12.5

1940 12.3

1941 10.55

1942 8.93

1943 10.09

1944 11.85

1945 13.49

1946 18.02

1947 15.21

1948 14.83

1949 15.36

1950 16.88

 

 

Ignoring dividends, somebody who was 100% equities in 1929 would have been underwater for more than 20 years.  If you go to the trouble of taking dividends into account, the picture is much better, but you'd still be underwater substantially for around a decade if you started in 1929 with 100% equities.  On the other hand, if you had a 50:50 asset allocation and periodically rebalanced as equity markets crashed to maintain your 50:50 allocation, you would have been selling your treasuries in 1931, 1932 and 1933 and buying equities at rock-bottom prices.  When markets eventually did partially recover, your portfolio would be largely intact (particularly after accounting for disinflation during the period).

 

The big question is how much cash/treasuries should one optimally hold to hedge against a repeat of the Great Depression?  I'm currently at about 5% cash, so obviously I'm not putting on much of a hedge.

 

 

SJ

[Valuebo]

So market valuation in 1929 = 2011? I very much doubt that.

 

Maybe if we were in the year 2000 now but not today.

[StubbleJumper]

So market valuation in 1929 = 2011? I very much doubt that.

 

Maybe if we were in the year 2000 now but not today.

 

 

I'd say you are correct that valuations in 1929 and 2011 are not comparable, which is why I'm running about 5% cash.

 

However, the point was simply to illustrate how asset allocation can be used to hedge against a depression scenario (if you believe that such a scenario is plausible).  An investor that even had a 70:30 allocation in 1929 would have been very happy that he had the 30 in treasuries!  Somebody with a 50:50 allocation who rebalanced annually would have been largely intact by 1936.

 

Of course, if you believe that such an event will occur again, the cash/fixed income element needs to be virtually risk-free (ie, maybe Canadian or US bonds, but perhaps not European  ::))

 

Cheers,

 

SJ

[SharperDingaan]

Know what you’re trying to hedge & why. Measure ‘wealth’ by sustainable cash flow.   

 

Most retail would systematically withdraw investment funds, reduce debt to low levels, & maintain debt service at current rates. The hedge is against loss (on those funds withdrawn) & caps the major cash outflows (interest rates can now double if you hold only 50% of the previous debt level).

 

Most retail would also invest for positive CF, & sell covered calls - patience, call premium & dividends as a hedge against loss. Pops to periodically take out the position & associated margin. Patience to repurchase on dips at 5-10% lower.

 

Notable, is that this is pretty close to the Taleb approach – but for different reasons.

 

SD

 

[original mungerville]

1929=2011 valuation - ya, pretty close; the high this year was probably the 5th highest overvaluation of the century. The others being:

 

#1: 2000

#2 or #3: 2004 to 2007

#3 or #2: 1929

#4: sometime in the 1960s around when Buffet closed his partnership

#5: 2011 high

 

[original mungerville]

I have to agree with Seth Klarman:

- stocks never got really cheap in 2008/2009;

- they stayed uncharacteristically high (ie due to the temporary massive monetary and fiscal stimulus) for that to be the market bottom (they touched IV, and only temporarily crossed it as per Grantham);

- as per Klarman, the timing is uncertain but the day of reckoning will come where we deal with the debt (fiscal stimulus is tapped out, Europe is going into recession, monetary stimulus is tapped out - the only way to push monetary action further is through a debasement of the currencies)

[twacowfca]

So market valuation in 1929 = 2011? I very much doubt that.

 

Maybe if we were in the year 2000 now but not today.

 

 

Actually, using PE 10, 2011 is very much like 1929.  2000 was the peak of the mother of all US bubbles with a PE 10 multiple of about double the 1929 PE 10 multiple. 

[original mungerville]

- If it was 2000 it would be worse than 1929. My point is the 2011 high is only somewhat better than 1929 - still in the same vicinity though.

- No idea what you mean by PE 10?

[moore_capital54]

It's only a matter of time before those posting on this thread will be accused of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room by Moore, but for those interested....

 

http://pragcap.com/now-there-are-truly-no-safe-havens-in-european-bond-markets

 

 

Obviously it's very easy to say when the market is down (I wouldn't be surprised at all to see us back over 12,000 on the Dow with one simple utterance from Dr. Bernanke), but this is without a doubt a HIDEOUS environment. And the complete lack of attention investors are paying to the issues staring them in the face is truly staggering. The current situation is not dissimilar to the 12 to 18 months leading up to Lehman where the market almost entirely ignored all signs pointing to a credit crisis. The market is currently banking on governments coming to the rescue, which I find horrifically dangerous considering how many times Germany and the ECB have stated they will not print money, and the bond market's obvious rejection of all European debt. Like I said on the "What a Lovely Frickin Day....to be Reducing Risk" thread, a France downgrade is not going to be pretty, and as an article said yesterday, France is not at all trading like a AAA credit (the absurdity of it even being AAA is beyond the scope of this discussion).

 

Yes, yes, this is not speak a "real value investor" would utter, and as soon as the market is back over 12,000 all those taking action to reduce risk will be chided for not having a large enough.....

 

The problem with your posts is that you keep circling back to your macro predictions, but in the end you don't really make any predictions you just demonstrate that instead of seeking value in any environment, which is what you are really supposed to be doing, if you think France is next to go down, why aren't you deploying capital in that manner? Why don't you short the CAC 40 at a 8X Traling Multiple after its down 23% this year?

 

It is no secret that you are very intelligent, but it is also no secret that you have not been investing for long, and to you this environment is "unprecedented" as you called it. It's not really about growing "b***s" its about growing some grey hair.

 

You enjoy the banter about Macro because it serves as an emotional outlet, most probably due to the frustration from not fully understanding what you should be doing in this environment.

 

Now, there are dozens and even hundreds of outlets on the internet where many intelligent investors like yourself spend countless hours debating the macro and various conjecture about p/e ratios not being low enough and what your returns would have been in 1929...

 

But if you visit the Kahn Brothers homepage: http://www.kahnbrothers.com/

 

And read a little bit about how they describe value investing, and this guy was essentially taught the art by Ben Graham, you will see he wouldn't spend two seconds thinking the way you are. What you are doing is not a new form of value investing, it is a different method all together.

 

You and Munger (Board Member) may have better returns than myself over the next decade because you two were right about this macro situation and I kept buying equities I felt were super cheap. But my results will mimic those of the ones I set out to mimic, such as Buffett who are actually practicing the art of value investing. Maybe you young whippersnappers have recognized something we have all missed, but my experience and intuition tell me that is not the case. Moreoever, I am following the path I set out to follow, you have introduced new dimensions into a pretty straight forward investment strategy where the single most important factors are  focus, and retaining that focus with  an important dose of contrarianism when the rest of the world is exhibiting major fear.

 

You guys are doing something different, when you are interested in buying shares you utilize the value investing principles as you perceive them. But when you get nervous about macro you try timing the market and hate everything. Personally, I think the months/years will prove that you were wasting a lot of precious time being intellectually emotional. You are no different than the people I speak to that think we are heading into a civil war and we better stock up on guns and canned food (my cab driver).

 

We have a short book, right now its probably 8% of AUM, so its almost insignificant, we are short PSN CN which is trading at a ridiculous valuation because investors think they are going to be the only fracking liquid supplier forever, in a business with no barriers to entry.

 

Dan Loeb, who is up 1.5% YTD and sees a lot of the same things you see is short many things as well, while still being long some interesting securities, but he goes to work every day and seeks value, and spends not more than a few paragraphs every 90 days simply communicating the environment as he sees it to his limited partners. But day in day out, hes looking for value and has found it per his portfolio.

 

My advice is that if you are so bearish take a position, because once you get used to being 70% cash, you will never be comfortable deploying it unless you get market confirmation, and if you are waiting for market confirmation you might as well find a different career, because your returns will forever trail your benchmarks.

 

We were up 8% going into June 30, Down 17% as of Sep 30, Up 3% as of Oct 30, and now down 16% as of yesterday. The volatility has absolutely sucked, and I won't tell you that it hasn't taken a toll. I am much more engaged than I generally am and watch the portfolio hourly as opposed to daily. But my returns are similar to Ackmans, similar to Pabrai's, similar to Einhorns. We are all smart investors , its not as though we all dumbed down, we are doing what we need to be doing. We have continued to buy the securities we like, and I have no doubt that the ones I have bought will outperform even in an environment where the indices trend sideways.

 

From what I understand you are investing in a totally different manner, most probably what 50% cash? I can't imagine doing that, I am way too greedy, and see enough value now using the same yardsticks I have used for two decades, why would I wait for things to decline more?

 

Also, the large cap name you mentioned to me is basically cash to me because it has barely declined in this environment, and so it shows me nothing as to your skills of recognizing value in an environment where indices have declined by 30% in 90 days, and in europe 40% in 90 days.

 

Surely there is one investment cheap enough out there to warrant your analysis of even capital? At this stage of the cycle there should be 10...

 

Cheers!

[moore_capital54]

FYI here is the Kahn Brothers recent 13F (November 9th)

 

http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1039565/000103956511000009/qtr13f3rd11.txt

 

As you can see they have nearly $500mm invested in equities, out of total capital under management of $675mm, I assume the rest is in fixed income.

 

But if Mr. Kahn who is 106 an has been investing since 1929, saw something so unprecedented, would he be 70% weighted in equities?

 

Very nice to see he owns BAC , C, and BP, some of our favorites.

 

 

Price is what you pay, value is what you get, and macro is a game for traders not investors. ;D

[Santayana]

Right on cue, here's Moore to belittle anyone who has a different risk tolerance that he does. 

[Cardboard]

Well Moore, as a fiduciary for your clients money, I am a little disappointed by your answer. Your defense seems to be that if things go to hell that anyway you did as well as Einhorn, Buffett and others. It may work for your situation and I can appreciate that you are following your mandate, but if you have a chance to do something then it would also be to your advantage.

 

Basically, I am in the same situation as you are currently except that I don't manage OPM. I am fully invested and I have a small short position which may not make much of a difference if things go really nasty. I see value out there and trust me I have bought it. However, I do stress test my companies and wonder what would happen if different events occur. I can tell you for certain that some will not survive a depression.

 

So what I have been searching for is an hedge with asymmetric payout. To date I have not found that instrument. The other thing that I am moving towards is income. My portfolio has allowed me to live comfortably by being able to sell winners once in a while. This year has been tough and disappointing with many deals not occuring. So being forced to sell your cheap stocks to live is unfortunate. I would imagine that it would be similar for you if you face redemptions.

 

In essence, I don't care about volatility. However, I do care very much about permanent losses due to companies going bankrupt or facing events that will dramatically lower their value for real. A really bad economy can do that, but I have no way to predict it.

 

So here are the solutions that I have been thinking of:

1- Increase income: dividend paying companies, corporate bonds with something special

2- Increase the quality: eliminate cyclical and companies having a fair bit of leverage

3- Shorting: have to be very selective. A problem is that you are speculating as to when to cover. No bell will ring, no value will be more right than another unless you are lucky and it hits your target before rebounding.

4- Some asymmetric hedge?

5- Reduce my expectations: I have always invested mostly in smaller cos since my goal was to find companies with very high upside or very large deviation from intrinsic value. If you are wrong on 1 or 2, it is fine since the rest will more than make up, but if you lose 10 because of a calamity, you are back to square one.

 

In essence, I would appreciate if you could share how you approach risk in your portfolio. That is what my original post was about. A BP would have a much better chance to survive IMO than say BAC which would survive, but not likely its current shareholders.

 

Cardboard 

[Valuebo]

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated. When looking at PE10 it definitely seems like the market was fiercely overvalued even this year compared to the past.

 

The rest posted below is just for fun and irrelevant for my investment decisions. Although Moore could believe otherwise as I am one of the younger posters (22) here. ;) I'm 100% invested with a big chunck in US financials.

 

Anyway, I looked up earnings per year for the S&P500 (see link below) and got the following results based on earnings from 2001-2010:

PE10 at year high: 20.65

PE10 at yesterday's closing price: 17.5

 

Overvalued? Of course! But if you ask me it is far off from the excesses in 1929 with a PE10 of 30. If I am not mistaken the PE10 of 30 is at year end in 1929? Ad interim stock prices were much higher. Still, 2000 was worse purely based on valuation.

 

Furthermore, when adjusting PE10 with 2011 earnings (and thus removing earnings from 2001 which were only 38.85) you get a slightly different picture. I set 2011 earnings on 80. :

PE10 at year high: 19.44

PE10 at yesterday's closing price: 16.48

 

I'd say 16.48 is already a big difference from 20.65 which we had in the first half of this year. Of course recessions causing lower earnings (in 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2009) are part of the game so you can't simply adjust all the bad years. Just mentioned this because next year's PE10 will already look better!  8)

 

 

http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/spearn.htm

 

- No idea what you mean by PE 10?

 

Shiller's PE10.

[moore_capital54]

Well Moore, as a fiduciary for your clients money, I am a little disappointed by your answer. Your defense seems to be that if things go to hell that anyway you did as well as Einhorn, Buffett and others. It may work for your situation and I can appreciate that you are following your mandate, but if you have a chance to do something then it would also be to your advantage.

 

Basically, I am in the same situation as you are currently except that I don't manage OPM. I am fully invested and I have a small short position which may not make much of a difference if things go really nasty. I see value out there and trust me I have bought it. However, I do stress test my companies and wonder what would happen if different events occur. I can tell you for certain that some will not survive a depression.

 

So what I have been searching for is an hedge with asymmetric payout. To date I have not found that instrument. The other thing that I am moving towards is income. My portfolio has allowed me to live comfortably by being able to sell winners once in a while. This year has been tough and disappointing with many deals not occuring. So being forced to sell your cheap stocks to live is unfortunate. I would imagine that it would be similar for you if you face redemptions.

 

In essence, I don't care about volatility. However, I do care very much about permanent losses due to companies going bankrupt or facing events that will dramatically lower their value for real. A really bad economy can do that, but I have no way to predict it.

 

So here are the solutions that I have been thinking of:

1- Increase income: dividend paying companies, corporate bonds with something special

2- Increase the quality: eliminate cyclical and companies having a fair bit of leverage

3- Shorting: have to be very selective. A problem is that you are speculating as to when to cover. No bell will ring, no value will be more right than another unless you are lucky and it hits your target before rebounding.

4- Some asymmetric hedge?

5- Reduce my expectations: I have always invested mostly in smaller cos since my goal was to find companies with very high upside or very large deviation from intrinsic value. If you are wrong on 1 or 2, it is fine since the rest will more than make up, but if you lose 10 because of a calamity, you are back to square one.

 

In essence, I would appreciate if you could share how you approach risk in your portfolio. That is what my original post was about. A BP would have a much better chance to survive IMO than say BAC which would survive, but not likely its current shareholders.

 

Cardboard

 

Cardboard, the way I have always approached risk mitigation is through capital allocation. If you looked at my portfolio it would be very similar to Mr. Kahns, whos 13F I recently uploaded or Pabrai's. It is a concentrated portfolio of not more than 20 names, and each name, as you mentioned has different risk profiles.

 

I can look through my holdings and say just as you just did that some may or may not survive a depression, but that is conjecture. How do I know if a depression is truly coming, and if it is how do I know what the ultimate reality will be in such depression. To say BP survives and BAC doesn't is conjecture, how do you know that? How do you know oil doesn't drop to 40$ on a depression but banks get flooded with deposits, in which case BAC survives and BP goes to hell.

 

All I am trying to accomplish with my posts, is to provide a consistent tone from an investor that is following the principles of graham & dodd. In a few years some of you will look back and realize that while many emotions were thrown around, there were a core group of investors on this board that maintained their confidence and kept following the principles we are all supposedly adhering to.

 

Regarding your "disappointment", I think you need to realize that investors allocate risk capital to hedge fund, and our job is to see through the forest and look for returns while focusing, as you say on prevention of permanent losses of capital. I do not feel that any of my positions will deliver such losses. The difference is that you may change your mind due to the moods of Mr. Market while I retain conviction.

 

It has only been 3-4 months of this BS. Last year at this time markets were truly roaring, and that is the name of this game. Its all very reflexive. Today there is an overwhelmingly amount of negative data, and tomorrow there could be just the opposite.

 

Take a look at my post history, you will see that I get very active when the market is down, because I find myself able to contribute more given the incremental increase in non-sense on the board. In October when things were roaring I had nothing to contribute and most of the posters that delivered this nonsense were gone as well.

 

I am just trying to provide balance, I don't need anyone to think I am right or wrong, and I definitely don't need anymore AUM. This is not an attempt at self marketing, just an attempt to provide in real time, my thoughts and actions in a market that most feel is "unprecedented". Almost every time I dug into the person behind the computer screen I found that the nervous posters were either new to the game, or had very little invested in the market. And that corroborates with what I have seen my whole life.

 

You guys think Buffett sits there and contemplates whether the world is going to end every day.. nope not a chance, he spends his time looking for opportunities.

 

And for a value investing board, some of you come off as real sissies, as I see an obvious increase in threads relating to Shorts, and Hedging Strategies when stocks are at 52 week lows, instead of seeing threads relating to incredible bargains, of which there are SO MANY right now.

[original mungerville]

OK, well PE10 meaning the PE based on the last 10 years' average earnings is a good start. The next thing to figure out is if average corporate earnings relative to GDP over the last 10 years has been at the high end of the historical range. If you don't like that, take average corporate profit margins over the last ten years. Anyway, take those two 10 year averages and see if they are higher or lower relative to say the rest of the century and relative to the post WWII period. (See Buffet Fortune articles from 1999 and 2000 for a start. For more detail refer to GMO circa 2000-2005. Once you do this, you will agree that PE10 is a good start, Buffet an improvement, Grantham from GMO an even better analysis.)

 

Once you do that, go back and adjust your PE10 based on the 2011 high. You PE10 for 2011 will be adjusted upwards as you normalize earnings downwards. Once you do that, now compare it to 1929 and you will see we are in the same vicinity: not as high but in the top 5 or so for the century.

[moore_capital54]

Cardboard here is a freebie we have been working on. I am currently vetoing the idea for this trade but its my partners idea and qualifies as a "hedge" as I believe you are looking for, and as far as hedges are concerned its damn good.

 

The crux of the thesis revolves around M&A Arbitrage. As you know there is a list of companies that are in between M&A Activity , those companies will trade at or near their buyout price. Generally in a very good market, the buyouts will come to fruition smoothly or better yet a second suitor will emerge and a bidding war will ensue.

 

Well, in depressions or even bad recessions, such as the one we witnessed in 2008-2009, 1 out of 3 of these deals breaks. As financing is not there or a multitide of reasons. The risk reward is very asymmetric.

 

You find a group of companies that are trading at a very small spread to their announced buyout (we have already done this) and you short them. IF you are wrong you only lose the spread which is generally 1-2%, but if you are right they will drop like stones, most likely 50-60% as they did in 2008-2009.

 

The risk reward is asymmetric, and it is a damn good hedge.

 

I have not put the trade on because I don't think we are entering a depression, but there is a freebie for you guys!

 

I decided to provide our list as I am in a good mood today :) Enjoy!

mahedgelist.xlsx

[Valuebo]

OK, well PE10 meaning the PE based on the last 10 years' average earnings is a good start. The next thing to figure out is if average corporate earnings relative to GDP over the last 10 years has been at the high end of the historical range. If you don't like that, take average corporate profit margins over the last ten years. Anyway, take those two 10 year averages and see if they are higher or lower relative to say the rest of the century and relative to the post WWII period. (See Buffet Fortune articles from 1999 and 2000 for a start. For more detail refer to GMO circa 2000-2005. Once you do this, you will agree that PE10 is a good start, Buffet an improvement, Grantham from GMO an even better analysis.)

 

Once you do that, go back and adjust your PE10 based on the 2011 high. You PE10 for 2011 will be adjusted upwards as you normalize earnings downwards. Once you do that, now compare it to 1929 and you will see we are in the same vicinity: not as high but in the top 5 or so for the century.

 

Good argument. Thanks for the post omv, I'm going to look into this further.