The P/E for automobile manufacturers is normally very low. Ford, GM and Toyota currently trade at 7 times earnings. Tesla’s P/E of 114 is unique in the auto industry. Elon Musk’s promises of future growth from humanoid robots and robotaxis have sustained Tesla’s high price but investors should be cautious as stock prices built on
By Rob Arnott, Bradford Cornell, Forrest Henslee, Thomas Verghese March 2025 Key Points Big market delusions (BMD) develop when investors anticipate that most early entrants in an exciting new market/technology will generate outsized returns. The recent electric vehicle (EV) craze demonstrates BMDs’ three-stage cycle of Frenetic expansion, eye-popping valuations, and painful consolidation.Despite all the EV hype, a portfolio of
Six years ago, our Senior Advisor, Prof. Cornell, delivered a thought-provoking keynote at the Claremont Colleges on the Conceptual Foundations of Finance. Its insights remain highly relevant, especially in today’s volatile stock market. We invite you to watch and explore ideas that continue to challenge and inspire financial thinking.
The perception of risk has a major impact on the level of market prices and helps to explain the increase in prices over the last 15 years. Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most basic concepts of investing—risk. There’s overwhelming evidence that when it comes to a large part of their net worth,
Stock Price Performance in Review The year 2023 ended on a high note. During the year, the S&P 500 Index rose 24.2% to close the year at 4,769.83. The total return on the index, including dividends, was 26.3%. However, as of December 2023, analysts predicted a more sedate 2024. Exhibit 1 shows the average forecast for
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By Rob Arnott, Bradford Cornell, Forrest Henslee, Thomas Verghese March 2025 Key Points Big market delusions (BMD) develop when investors anticipate that most early entrants in an exciting new market/technology will generate outsized returns. The recent electric vehicle (EV) craze demonstrates BMDs’ three-stage cycle of Frenetic expansion, eye-popping valuations, and painful consolidation.Despite all the EV hype, a portfolio of traditional automakers would have outperformed one composed of EV specialists from late 2020 through 2024, and a simple S&P 500 portfolio would have left them both in the dust.Investors who adopted a fundamental approach to the EV market, by sizing their bets based on sales rather than market cap, for example, could have avoided the worst of the shakeout.“Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.” - George SorosRoll back the odometer to 2021 and
