Mutual funds such as Fidelity that own Uber shares have not changed their own
internal valuations of its stock, as they disclosed in new filings this week.
Not exact matches
I've long noted that the analysis
of market action can help to overcome some
of this frustration, as
stocks have often provided good returns despite rich
valuations so long as market
internals were strong, and the environment was not yet characterized by a syndrome
of overvalued, overbought, overbullish, and rising yield conditions.
The decisive factors for the
stock market are liquidity (i.e., money supply growth rates, which have collapsed),
valuations (extremely high
valuations will eventually be corrected, often violently) and market
internals & technical divergences (which are a reflection
of liquidity and risk appetites).
As usual, I don't place too much emphasis on this sort
of forecast, but to the extent that I make any comments at all about the outlook for 2006, the bottom line is this: 1) we can't rule out modest potential for
stock appreciation, which would require the maintenance or expansion
of already high price / peak earnings multiples; 2) we also should recognize an uncomfortably large potential for market losses, particularly given that the current bull market has now outlived the median and average bull, yet at higher
valuations than most bulls have achieved, a flat yield curve with rising interest rate pressures, an extended period
of internal divergence as measured by breadth and other market action, and complacency at best and excessive bullishness at worst, as measured by various sentiment indicators; 3) there is a moderate but still not compelling risk
of an oncoming recession, which would become more
of a factor if we observe a substantial widening
of credit spreads and weakness in the ISM Purchasing Managers Index in the months ahead, and; 4) there remains substantial potential for U.S. dollar weakness coupled with «unexpectedly» persistent inflation pressures, particularly if we do observe economic weakness.
Again, if our measures
of market
internals were to improve, we would allow for the possibility that reliable measures
of market
valuations could surpass their 2000 extreme, and we would not place a «cap» on how high
stock prices could move.
Given rich global
stock market
valuations, slumping quality
of internal market action, and rising global interest rates, this is not an appropriate time to accept significant market risk.
Presently, deteriorating
stock market
internals suggest fresh skittishness among investors, which coupled with still - rich
valuations (on the basis
of normalized earnings) often results in particularly negative outcomes for
stocks.
As
of last week, the Market Climate for
stocks was characterized by unfavorable
valuations (we estimate a 10 - year S&P 500 return
of about 4.8 % annually), overbought conditions, and mixed market
internals.