Risk turns risky

The way to understand the bubbles and collapses of the past 15 years is to learn the right lesson. That lesson is not that overvaluation can be ignored indefinitely – we know different from the collapses that have regularly followed extreme valuations. The lesson is not that easy monetary policy reliably supports stock prices – persistent and aggressive easing did nothing to keep stocks from losing more than half their value in 2000-2002 and 2007-2009. The lesson to draw from recent market cycles, is this: Valuations are the main driver of long-term returns, but the main driver of market returns over shorter horizons is the attitude of investors toward risk, and the most reliable way to measure this is through the uniformity or divergence of market internals. When market internals are uniformly favorable, overvaluation has little effect, and monetary easing can encourage further risk-seeking speculation. Conversely, when deterioration in market internals signals a shift toward risk-aversion among investors, monetary easing has little effect, and overvaluation can suddenly matter with a vengeance. Read full report at (VIEW LINK)