Market Currents
Ever-optimistic Jeremy Siegel says stocks' future is bright and the possibility of a double-dip...
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Saturday, July 17, 2010, 7:37 PM ETEver-optimistic Jeremy Siegel says stocks' future is bright and the possibility of a double-dip recession "minimal." With today's historically modest P/E ratios, Siegel puts a 96.6% probability of positive returns over the next five years, going up to 100% for 10- and 20-year periods.
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I don't agree with you but the response made me laugh anyways.
Remember that while we have a lot of problems as a country, companies largely have stronger balance sheets than 2 years ago and the world is bouncing back. And in a lot of ways the future is in our hands - we need to take back control of our government - all agree to sacrifice - throw some of the bums in jail that were responsible for this fiasco - and move on to a better day!!
try it.
E
But maybe he said something like "Is the probability 96.6%?", and the M8B said "My sources say yes".
Either way, he's full of crap.
Excepting very few stocks like Utilities, Altria, Phillip Morris, etc. But very, very few.
Far, far better than treasuries, and virtually zero risk.
It works exceptionally well for stocks with significant dividends because, even if the shares are put to you below the put strike prices, one can garner outsize yields while one waits for the price to recover. In particular, I avoid using this strategy on non-dividend payers because I don't want to wind up owning shares at an unrealized loss and with no dividend to collect for an indefinite period.
Would agree with that. It does not work to sell puts on stocks you would not want to own anyway. But if you want to own the stock, but just at much lower prices, then it works great. For example, we sold puts on BP ($20), HAL($15), and RIG ($40) about 3-4 weeks ago at the height of the panic and sell-off when put premiums were very high. We would be willing to buy all of them at the strike prices. But there will probably be no need too. They have all appreciated well over 50% in the last 3 weeks and we have closed 1/2 of them to book profits. The others are now virtually free and we can either close them or just let them play out or expire worthless and keep 100% of the put premiums. But one does have to wait until there is downside pressure, or the put premiums may well not be high enough to warrant selling the puts.
Altria for one has a top notch management, and is extremely careful to comply with reporting requirements and regulations due to their experience with the tobacco settlement and stringent Fed. oversight.
Not every company is run with mark to fantasy accounting rules like the banks, insurance companies or tech.
And probably in the modern 1930s.
A thinking person might say that Jeremy is 96.6% full of, uh, effluent.
Folks, you can all sit around debating debt levels and monetary policies until the cows come home, but the reality is that world needs (demand) are virtually ever increasing, when examined on anything but the shortest of timelines. People need to eat. They need housing. They need clothing. They need to travel for work and recreation. They want material goods. They want entertainment. Etc.
All these requirements and wishes that need to be fulfilled create opportunity, and that engenders suppliers that want to meet those needs, and that generates employment, which creates even more demand. The notion that all demand is going to cease and go into a state of perpetual decline, with nobody needing or wanting anything, and, ergo, no ongoing requirements for manufacturers and suppliers to fulfill, borders on lunacy. On second thought, it is lunacy.
In the end, all these needs will be fulfilled, regardless of monetary policies. Only the nominal prices, measured in fiat-currency terms, remain to be determined.
Being one, I know we --the Boomers-- have lived in the "Me" generation and think that the entire world revolves around us and must, assuredly, be going to an end on our watch. I mean, how could it go on without us? This is just egocentric nonsense and reflects an absurd view of our own position in the universe and influence on the direction of life on the planet. (Frankly, this is also illustrated in the absurdity of global warming arguments, that man can or will destroy the planet. In fact, we're just gnats in the grand scheme of things, but wholly immersed in our own hubris. That's another thread, no doubt.)
I can't tell anybody, or myself, which direction the markets will go next week or next month, but I can say, without much hesitation, that demand for virtually everything will resume upward trends, as always. It's as inevitable as the world spinning on its axis and the sun coming up day after day. If demand for almost anything is temporarily depressed today, that can only mean that in the future it will be higher, not only higher than now, but higher than its previous highs.
So, find quality undervalued securities, representing companies, products and services that mankind requires and wants, and plan to make money on the upswing. There are numerous ways to balance portfolios to mitigate temporary volatility and still produce attractive current income and price-gain potential down the road.
More importantly, even than one's investment strategy choices, abandon this self-flagellating, defeatist, cynical view of life that can only imagine a bad outcome. It's ridiculous, historically vacuous, it's self-defeating, and it promotes neither individual or societal success.
P.S. Sorry for the philosophical pontificating, as I like to remain focused on investments on SA, but, the constant drone of negativity, no matter what's reported, good or bad, just becomes very tiresome, in addition to being flat-out wrong, as will become apparent in time.
The world probably needs an optimist as yourself.
Precisely as you stated, the world's ever increasing population has needs, and needs translate into demands. I'm just a retired engineer who had worked for 40 years and no economic scholar.
However, those needs if not checked would translate into greed, and you know what had happened in the events leading to September 2008, and to now this date, we are still in a crisis mode.
You see, it gets to a point when the sum total of human greed exceeds the earth's affordable footprint, black swans, disasters, wars, famines, climate changes would occur. Case in point: Before the Second World War, the Japanese population underwent gigantic expansion before that nation sought to engage in military conquests to fulfill and juxtapose the exploding populations demands.
Likewise, the recent BP Disaster in the Gulf is to me (personally) is a dire warning of us pushing your so-called 'need' to the edge of the cliff - a Black Swan.
In sum, the needs of human is infinite, and the earth's resources are finite. Greed is really a form of Insanity in my opinion, and has no known cure, as yet. Greed also knows no known human boundary, and is race blind, culture blind, gender blind, and age blind.
TK
Many are consumed with their own misplaced pessimism, and much of it has been and is being fostered by erroneous theories, nihilist thinking and a socialist-minded media more than happy to destroy human spirit and freedom.
The greatest danger, now, is that those adopting defeatist thinking want to impose it on everybody, as national policy.
The bubble-esque property market, overvalued banks and tech companies are another. Wages are declining, energy costs are increasing, savings are increasing slowly, and boomers are pulling funds out of the market. So all these profitable companies will earn less with deflation, at a lower multiple.
So S&P 800 instead of 1400. Ignore it at your peril - this is empirical and realistic, not just pessimism for pessimisms' sake.
If they were all Enrons, the S&P would be zero. No-one is predicting that.
If anything USA needs to become realistic rather than the pathetic dog and pony show which it has become. Yet then again no one was ever re-elected for realism ; yet Yahoo will never be 200 again, Real Estate is still overvalued, and true unemployment is 20-25%
Lying to yourself is the worst lie of all. Might feel good for the moment, but also ensures more bleak days ahead.
But he might have been right in some other time and place.
Like Africa of the past 100 years.
However, I'm confused about your comment on our effect on the planet.
When you say we can't destroy the planet: Do you mean that we can't make the planet disappear? or We can't destroy the planet's ability to support life as we know it?
If you believe the former, I can agree. If you believe the latter, I believe you're wrong.
With regard to investing, it's likely true that in a decade, things will be better. But, what things and how to invest in them?
I also believe that the current market is "not for retail investors" at this time. I think many of us understand why, so I won't repeat what's been said over and over.
The argument for declining aggregate demand is based upon demographic analysis combined with age-related buying patterns:
for example, a 55 year old and his wife do not buy diapers for their own children. There are peaks and troughs for most products based upon age (potato chips!) which include housing and other high capital outlay activities. The average age of the US is increasing which means consumption patterns will change.
The echo-boom generation is smaller than the baby-boom generation in the US and therefore will have less aggregate buying on the various categories of consumption when compared to their parents. The population will still grow but the overall consumption mix per capita is likely to be reduced.
Some people get their back up when they read Harry Dent but if you set aside the conclusions and simply examine the data he presents it makes an incredibly compelling case.
As an aside the demographics still favor the US relative to most other Western countries but the real growth will come from India in the future. China paraxodically because of its one-child policy will not be as strong going forward until the next generation moves beyond its borders looking for wives (I am not kidding) which will have a positive spill off in the neighboring economies.
This does not provide you with any short-term trading strategies rather it just gives you long-term strategic insight.
Yet, there are loud voices, now, that wish developed nations to emulate the "simple life," devoid of further advancement (we're all supposed to know it's harmful). It's all merely Luddite worship.
Localized demographics only matter if one is talking about analyzing the outlook for a business with only localized interests and non-exportable products, like local homebuilders, perhaps. The world of commerce is truly global in scale in almost any kind of endeavor at the major corporate level. Their investment follows demand, wherever it may be, e.g., China, India, South America, etc.
Overall world demand is like entropy; it only expands.
I can't wait for just a that demand to reassert itself and find, also, that the world has massive amounts of new currency floating around. Then, suddenly, people will be talking about inflation, like it should have been obvious all along. And, all the current mantra of deflation will be seen for the empty worry that it is.
And the gain for the 5 and 10 year spans means a gain exceeding that of dollar depreciation? Or just the stock price based on today's dollars "value" ?
Growing demand? From who? Retiring baby-boomers? Elderly Japan? Pensioned Europe? Africans who can't master governance? Arabs who refuse to abandon aspirations of living in the 14th century? Russia - which may be losing 700K people a year in net deaths over births?
Can this demand be met by factories in the 3rd world that are equally as efficient as those in advanced nations?
Is manufacturing employment declining worldwide to meet demand because fewer people are needed to produce the same amount of goods?
Does 'green' technology reduce overall good paying jobs such as coal mining/some rail transport?
Would electric cars greatly reduce employment? ( oil, gasoline, drilling, muffler and brake repair shops, etc.)
Did stocks with more cash on hand than the share price plunge in the Great March Crash? What does that tell you about asset deflation of equities?
If it is a bear market rally, as I believe it to be, the implications are vast. Here is my latest article that discusses various issues related to this:
seekingalpha.com/artic...