저자: DavidWoo · 외국인
요약 보기
버핏 지표(윌셔5000 시총/미국 명목 GDP)는 2008~2022년 사이 거의 일직선으로 약 4배 상승해 장기간 고평가를 경고했으나 실제 증시 전환 전까지 유용하지 않았다. 지표 이탈의 원인은 두 가지다. 첫째, 2000~2015년 노동생산성이 실질 보상 증가를 크게 앞서 기업 이익률이 약 10%에서 13%로 약 30% 확대됐고, 노동비용 비중은 65%에서 57%로 낮아졌다. 둘째, 단위노동비용 둔화로 인플레이션이 낮아져 금리가 하락했고, S&P500 12개월 선행 이익수익률이 2012년 8%에서 올해 초 4%로 떨어져 주가가 올랐다. 결국 노동생산성과 이익률, 저금리가 증시의 GDP 대비 비율을 역사적 고점으로 밀어올렸다. 세계화가 미국 노동자의 임금 협상력을 약화시켰으나, 2018년 미중 무역전쟁과 팬데믹으로 해외 생산 비용이 올라 역전되기 시작했다. 케어니 조사에서 미국 경영진 92%가 리쇼어링에 긍정적이고, 중국 생산 기업의 79%가 3년 내 일부 이전을 계획 중이다. 팬데믹 이후 퇴사율 고점, 신규 사업 증가 등으로 타이트한 노동시장이 임금 상승(20여 년 만의 최고)을 부추겼다. 단위노동비용은 1960년대 후반 이후 가장 빠르게 오르고 있어 이익률을 압박하고 인플레와 금리를 밀어올린다. 그 결과 주가 하락과 버핏 지표의 평균회귀가 시작됐다. 스태그플레이션 우려와 미중 신냉전이 세계화 되돌림과 함께 버핏 지표를 되살리고 있다. 현재 하락폭은 닷컴 고점 수준까지만 지표를 되돌렸으므로 추가 하락 여지가 있다. 향후 24개월 예측: ① 미국 기업이 지난 20년 이익률 개선분(30%)의 최소 1/3을 노동자에게 넘겨줄 것, ② 장기금리가 4.5%까지 상승할 것. 이 시나리오가 맞으면 주가는 추가로 약 25% 하락하고 버핏 지표는 1:1 수준에 근접할 수 있다.
다듬은 글
was proposed by Warren Buffet. The so-called Buffet indicator is just a simple ratio between the market capitalization of the Wilshire 5000 index, the broadest measure of the US stock market, and US nominal GDP. The idea in a nutshell is that the stock market should be correlated with the economy, at least over time.
If this premise is correct, it follows that when the indicator is high, stocks are expensive. When it is low, stocks are cheap. In 2001, Warren Buffet called this indicator "probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment". Undoubtedly, this indicator would have helped him and his followers steer clear of the dotcom bubble and achieved outperformance when the bubble popped.
However, since then the usefulness of the indicator has been more questionable. Should you pay attention to this indicator? Is it possible that stagflation is making it relevant once again? What does it tell us about how much more downside there may be in stocks from here onwards?? Hi, I am David Woo, a former Wall Street investment strategist with a 20-year track record of making actionable predictions about major global change welcome to the money game where I take on groupthink propaganda and conspiracy theories in my critical analysis of markets economics and politics Before we begin, please hit subscribe so that you'll be notified when a new video comes out.
For any valuation indicator to be truly useful, it should be mean reverting over time, with a well-defined range. The problem with the Buffet indicator is that it nearly quadrupled between 2008 and the beginning of 2022, and almost in a straight line. The indicator suggested that stocks were expensive for a very long time before the market finally turned.
No long for it to have been useful. What went wrong with the indicator, at least its original formulation? What caused the stock market to rise from just 50% of US GDP to 200% of GDP over those 14 years. There are two reasons. The first reason is that corporate profits have increased significantly as a share of GDP during this period.
Why did this happen? When plotting labor productivity growth against real compensation growth, between 2000 and 2015, we can see that labor productivity grew much faster than compensation received by labor. Just a reminder, labor productivity is defined as output per hour worked. Real compensation is defined as compensation per hour worked, adjusted for inflation.
In other words, the wage or salary and any benefits you received from your employers. As a result, the share of labor cost in the price of goods and services produced by American corporations fell from 65% in 2000 to just 57% by 2015. It has been reversing gradually since, but it is still much lower than it was 20 years ago.
The consequence is that the profit margin of non-financial corporations has risen from 10% at the start of the new millennium to about 13% since. That represents a 30% widening of corporate profit margins. This 30% in corporate profit margins is the first reason why the Buffet Indicator began to break down.
What is the second reason? The fact that labor productivity increased faster than labor compensation meant that unit labor cost slowed. This was probably the single most important driver behind the deceleration of inflation in recent years. Lower inflation drove down short-term interest rates and bond yields across the yield curve.
In turn, lower bond yields made holding stocks more attractive, driving down earning yields and driving up stock prices. As you can see on this chart, the 12-month forward earning yields of S&P 500 fell from 8% to just 4% between 2012 and the start of this year. This was the second reason why the Buffet indicator broke down.
The bottom-line: Labor productivity growth outstripped labor compensation growth for most of the past 20 years, resulting in increased corporate profit margins and lower interest rates. These in turn helped propelled the stock market to GDP ratio to its all-time high. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that the Buffet indicator stopped working.
Apparently, so has gone Warren Buffet’s magic touch. Over the past 15 years, Berkshire Hathaway stocks have been behaving like S&P 500 except with tracking errors. Value investors have struggled for many reasons over the past decade. But value investing has been outperforming growth investing lately.
What are the chances that the Buffet indicator make a come-back? In my humble opinion, the chances are pretty good. This is why. Globalization is the most important reason why Americans workers have not been able to fully benefit from their increased productivity over the past 20 years. Manufacturing workers in the US and other advanced economies saw their wage bargaining power weakened as their employers began to outsource to China.
However, the trade war waged by Donald Trump against China in 2018 began to turn the table for American workers. Then came the pandemic that has significantly driven up the cost of offshoring and has slowed supplier deliveries. While the supply chain disruption has eased in recent months, it is not clear that thing will ever return to where they were before the pandemic.
A recent survey by Kearney shows that 92 percent of American executives expressed positive sentiments toward reshoring, in other words bringing jobs home. The same survey showed that 79 percent of executives who have manufacturing operations in China have either already moved part of their operations to the United States or plan to do so in the next three years Meanwhile, the pandemic seems to have also changed the way Americans think about their work-life balance.
I believe this is an important reason why quit rate is at an all time high. The fact that new business formations, which shot up during the pandemic, have stayed high is another piece of evidence that Americans want more control in the way they live their lives. All this is contributing to a tight labor market that has sent wage growth to their highest level in more than 20 years.
As I pointed out in a previous video, unit labor cost is now growing at the fastest pace since the late 1960s. Rising unit labor cost is squeezing corporate profit margins and pushing up inflation and interest rates. As a result, the stock market has been falling and the Buffet indicator has finally been mean reverting.
Ironic as it may be, the pandemic, the new Cold War between the US and China, and the prospect of stagflation, are together breathing new life into the Buffet indicator as the effects of globalization unwind. If the Buffet indicator is indeed back, what does it say about how much the stock market can fall from here?
The drop in the US stock market so far only takes the Buffet indicator back to the dotcom peak. In other words, there is room for stocks to fall further. I am going to make two predictions for the coming 24 months: One, American corporations will surrender at least one third of the 30% improvement in their profit margins over the past 20 years to their workers Two, long-term interest rates will go up to 4.5% over time If I am right, this would imply another 25% downside for stocks.
Depending on how fast this plays out, this could bring the Buffet ratio closer to parity as you can see on this chart. One thing is clear. If this turns out to be the case, Warren Buffet might become even more famous than he is.
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