Musings on Markets

JANUARY 19, 2022

In a post at the start of 2021 , I argued that while stocks entered the year at elevated levels, especially on historic metrics (such as PE ratios), they were priced to deliver reasonable returns, relative to very low risk free rates (with the treasury bond rate at 0.93% at the start of 2021).

Risk Premium 80

Risk Premium Risk-free Rate Start-ups Equity 80

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 27, 2022

The treasury curve became steeper, but only at the shortest end of the spectrum, with the slope rising for the 2-year, relative to the 3-month, but not at all, when comparing the 10-year to the 2-year rate.

Risk-free Rate 84

Risk-free Rate Treasury Price to Book Start-ups 84

Musings on Markets

MARCH 19, 2022

The overriding message in all of this data is that Russia/Ukraine war has unleashed fears in the bond market, and once unleashed that fear has pushed up worries about default and default risk premia across the board.

Start-ups 100

Start-ups Risk Premium Equity Market Capitalization 100

Musings on Markets

MARCH 25, 2021

The first has been the steep rise in treasury rates in the last twelve weeks, as investors reassess expected economic growth over the rest of the year and worry about inflation. The Stocks Story As treasury rates have risen in 2021, equity markets have been surprisingly resilient, with stocks up during the first three months.

Equity 52

Equity Risk-free Rate Treasury Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

Consider, for instance, an investor who picks stocks based upon price to book ratios, who finds a stock trading at a price to book ratio of 1.5. In the same dataset where I compute historical equity risk premiums, I report historical returns on corporate bonds in two ratings classes (Moody’s Aaa and Baa ratings).

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Market Capitalization Equity Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JULY 17, 2023

In my third post at the start of 2023, I looked at US treasuries, the long-touted haven of safety for investors. In 2022, they were in the eye on the storm, with the ten-year US treasury bond depreciating in price by more than 19% during the year, the worst year for US treasury returns in a century.

Marketability 95

Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 95

Musings on Markets

MAY 24, 2021

Interest rates : To understand the link between expected inflation and interest rates, consider the Fisher equation, where a nominal riskfree interest rate (which is what treasury bond rates) can be broken down into expected inflation and expected real interest rate components.

Treasury 55

Treasury Start-ups Risk Premium Price to Book 55