14.8.10

P/E_ratio






Price-Earnings ratios as a predictor of twenty-year returns based upon the plot by Robert Shiller (Figure 10.1,[1] source). The horizontal axis shows the real price-earnings ratio of the S&P Composite Stock Price IndexIrrational Exuberanceten-year returns. Shiller states that this plot "confirms that long-term investors—investors who commit their money to an investment for ten full years—did do well when prices were low relative to earnings at the beginning of the ten years. Long-term investors would be well advised, individually, to lower their exposure to the stock market when it is high, as it has been recently, and get into the market when it is low."[1] as computed in (inflation adjusted price divided by the prior ten-year mean of inflation-adjusted earnings). The vertical axis shows the geometric average real annual return on investing in the S&P Composite Stock Price Index, reinvesting dividends, and selling twenty years later. Data from different twenty year periods is color-coded as shown in the key. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_ratio