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The Price of Risk: With Equity Risk Premiums, Caveat Emptor!

Musings on Markets

If you have been reading my posts, you know that I have an obsession with equity risk premiums, which I believe lie at the center of almost every substantive debate in markets and investing. That said, I don't blame you, if are confused not only about how I estimate this premium, but what it measures.

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Data Update 4 for 2024: Danger and Opportunity - Bringing Risk into the Equation!

Musings on Markets

In my last data updates for this year, I looked first at how equity markets rebounded in 2023 , driven by a stronger-than-expected economy and inflation coming down, and then at how interest rates mirrored this rebound. Globally, health care has the highest percentage of money-losing companies and utilities have the lowest.

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Data Update 2 for 2022: US Stocks kept winning in 2021, but…

Musings on Markets

When you augment this price change with the dividends on the index during 2021, the total return on the S&P 500 for 2021 was 28.47%. With equities, the cash flows take the form of dividends and buybacks, and in addition to estimating them using future growth rates, you have to assume that they continue in perpetuity.

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Reaping the Whirlwind: A September 2022 Inflation Update!

Musings on Markets

In a third post on July 1, 2022 , I pointed to inflation as a key culprit in the retreat of risk capital, i.e., capital invested in the riskiest segments of every market, and presented evidence of the impact on risk premiums (bond default spreads and equity risk premiums) in markets. from what it was on January 1.

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Data Update 2 for 2023: A Rocky Year for Equities!

Musings on Markets

The first is the dividends you receive, while you hold stocks, a cash flow stream that provides a measure of stability to investors who seek it. After a year of being pummeled by markets, what are investors pricing stocks to make in 2023 and beyond? Actual Returns Your returns on equities come in one of two forms.

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Data Update 1 for 2022: It is Moneyball Time!

Musings on Markets

Most of the variables that I report are micro variables, relating to company choices on investing, financing and dividend policies, or to data that may be needed to value these companies. I extend my equity risk premium approach to cover other countries, using sovereign default spreads as my starting point, at this link.

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Data Update 2 for 2024: A Stock Comeback - Winning the Expectations Game!

Musings on Markets

Heading into 2023, US equities looked like they were heading into a sea of troubles, with inflation out of control and a recession on the horizon. In that post, I noted that if inflation subsided quickly, and the economy stayed out of a recession, stocks had upside, and that is the scenario that played out in 2023.