Tuesday 21 July 2009

When is the market over-valued?

The stock market moves in a cycle - from extreme optimism to extreme pessimism. How can you tell when stocks are under or over-valued vis-a-vis bonds or cash? Taking advantage of perceived over or under-valuation of securities in different asset classes can yield spectacular results.

Equity risk premium:

> 3.5%, market is undervalued
< 0.6%, market is overvalued.
0.6% to 3.5%, market is fairly valued.

Equity risk premium is the compensation investors require for holding stocks.

When the economic outlook is bad, or in the aftermath of a catastrophe, the equity risk premium will be high because fear grips investors and they can only be enticed to hold "risky" stocks if the promised returns are good.

Conversely, in good times everyone become over-confident of the continued good performance of stocks and will demand very little compensation to hold them.

Equity risk premium
= earnings yield (1/market PE) - the risk free rate.

Market PE ratios were obtained from Thomson Financial Datastream.
One-year deposit rates were taken as risk-free rates.

Ref: Show Me the Money by Teh Hooi Ling

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