Over the last couple days I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with David Merkel of The Aleph Blog over differences in our S&P 500 expected returns modes. (Mine was much higher than his). Upon comparing models, I discovered I’d made a huge mistake. I’d essentially included only corporate debt in my calculation, excluding a huge swath of government liabilities from the total figure.
After adjusting my numbers to correct for this, and updating the model, I get a 3.74% expected return for the next 10 years. This is consistent with David’s 3.61% estimate. The small difference that remains is likely down to some minor differences in the time periods we used to estimate our models, as well as the type of S&P 500 return we use in the calculation (I believe David uses the price return and then adjusts for dividends, whereas I simply regress the S&P 500 total return against the “allocation” data).

Previously I’d been referring to my results as “A World of Meh.” I think I’m now comfortable revising that down to “A World of Bleh.” (“Meh” is kind of like an indifferent shrug, while with a “bleh” you are maybe throwing up in your mouth a bit)
I’ll give David the last word here, since I think his take on all this is a nice summary of the quandary investors face these days:
Not knowing what inflation or deflation will be like, it would be difficult to tell whether the bond or stock would be riskier, even if I expected 3.39% from each on average. Given the large debts of our world, I lean to deflation, favoring the bond in this case.
Still, it’s a tough call because with forecast returns being so low, many entities will perversely go for the stocks because it gives them some chance of hitting their overly high return targets. If this is the case, there could be some more room to run for now, but with nasty falls after that. The stock market is a weighing machine ultimately, and it is impossible to change the total returns of the economy. Even if an entity takes more risk, the economy as a whole’s risk profile doesn’t change in the long run.
In the short run it can be different if strongly capitalized entities are taking less risk and and weakly capitalized entities are taking more risk — that’s usually bearish. Vice-versa is usually bullish.
Anyway, give this some thought. Maybe things have to be crazier to put in the top. At least in this situation, bonds and stocks are telling the same story, unlike 1987 or 2000, where bonds were more attractive. Now, alternatives are few.