Monday, December 9, 2013

Hussman Weekly Market Comment: The Truth Does Not Change According To Our Ability To Stomach It





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Last week, the percentage of bearish investment advisors plunged to just 14.3%, the lowest level in 25+ years. The Shiller P/E (the S&P 500 Index divided by the 10-year average of inflation-adjusted earnings) is now 25.4, and while we use the Shiller only as a readily-available shorthand for other measures, it is certainly better correlated with our actual valuation measures than alternatives like the Fed Model are. Looking over the historical record, the only other instance that bearish sentiment was this low while the Shiller P/E was over 19 was the exact peak of the S&P 500 in January 1973, before the market lost half its value. Looking at the overvalued, overbought, overbullish features that regularly define market peaks, there are only four instances in history when the Shiller P/E was over 19, the market was at a 5-year high, and bearish sentiment was anywhere below 18.5%. These instances were 1972, 1987, 2007, and today. The 2000 peak doesn’t appear because bearish sentiment never moved below 20% that year.

Among the litany of other classic features of a speculative bull market peak, margin debt on the NYSE has surged to the highest level in history, and at nearly 2.5% of GDP, exceeds all but two months in 2000 and 2007. The amount being borrowed to buy stocks on margin is now 26% the size of all commercial and industrial loans in the entire U.S. banking sector. As low-quality, high-risk borrowers rush to take advantage of the present speculative appetite, issuance of leveraged loans (particularly the junkier “covenant-lite” forms) has now hit a record high, already eclipsing the previous record in 2007 at the height of pre-crisis yield-seeking. New equity issuance is also running at the fastest pace since any point except the 2000 bubble peak. At the same time, Bloomberg reports that investors are plowing more into stock mutual funds than at any point since the 2000 bubble peak. Keep in mind how this works - every buyer is matched with a seller in equilibrium, so the same amount of stock is being sold by institutions and other non-retail investors. One doesn’t need to think long to answer who is likely to be the “smart money” in this trade, as the history of surges in retail participation provides a rather firm answer to that question.