Quarterly Investor Memos

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

Stock Price Performance in Review We begin our Q3 2024 memo with a look back over the last ten years. The chart below plots both the standard S&P 500 index, which is value-weighted, and the equal weighted S&P 500 index over the last decade. The major difference between the two indexes is that large companies in

The performance of the market was remarkable in the second quarter. Driven by the Magnificent 7 tech stocks, for which the total return was 16.5%, the total return for the S&P 500 was 4.3%. What was remarkable was not the gain per se, the returns were healthy but by no means unprecedented, but the valuation

The S&P 500 ended the year 2023 at 4,769. During December, several leading financial firms were asked for their forecasts for the year-end 2024. The results are shown below. The most optimistic forecasts were by Fundstrat (a well-known bullish firm), Oppenheimer, and Yardeni. Considering the strong returns during 2023, four major firms, including Morgan Stanley

A market crash is nothing more than a low risk premium meeting risk aversion. —– John P. Hussman, Ph.D., November 8, 2021, When Bubble Meets Trouble  Risk Premiums and Stock Prices           In our third quarter memo, we stressed the importance of the equity risk premium (ERP) for understanding the level of stock prices and their relation to expected future

Discount rate variation (equivalently expected returns, risk premiums) is now at the center of asset pricing questions, from bubbles to the nature of the crash.—– John Cochrane, Presidential address to the American Finance Association.As John Cochrane notes, it is hard to understand stock price movements and related risks without taking account of variation in discount