P/E Ratio: Deflators and the LONG Term

Doug Kass via The Street (hat tip Abnormal Returns):

There exists numerous price/earning multiple deflators and non traditional headwinds to growth. These factors don't necessarily prevent an extended bull market, but they will most certainly deflate price/earnings multiples and put a cap on the market's upside potential:

• rising taxes
• fiscal imbalances in federal, state and local governments;
• the absence of drivers to replace the prior cycle's strength in residential and nonresidential construction
• the long tail of the last credit cycle (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.)
• inept and partisan politics

Lets take this concept and look at how it fits in over the LONG term (i.e. based on history, do we seem extended). The chart below shows the CAPE (Professor Shiller's Cyclically Adjusted Price / Earnings Ratio), as well as the twenty year average of the same going back 100 years to 1910 (actually, the 20 year average data goes all the way back to 1890).



Note that in previous cycles we have seen the CAPE move well below 10 at the low, whereas this cycle "only" hit a low of 13 in March '09. Interestingly enough, that 13 CAPE ratio is higher than each of the three 20 year average lows, seen at each low point throughout the last century.

Source: Irrational Exuberance