本轮牛市实际上对投资者不利

在本轮美国牛市即将迎来7周岁生日之际，让我们先别忙着庆祝，首先应该感叹一下，这一轮持续时间巨长，已进入晚期的牛市对我们来说究竟有多“坑”。

标普500指数自2015年5月在2135点见顶以后，一路震荡下跌15%，最近略有回弹，幅度约在一半左右，这似乎印证了一些乐观人士的观点——本轮牛市不仅没有结束，反而还有继续上升的空间。有些观点认为，最近的跌后小涨说明人们并未对本轮牛市失去信心，而且许多投资者才刚刚开始持币入市。然而事实恰恰相反，股市已经过度“得宠”，目前的短暂繁荣只是熊市的序曲。

来看看证据：在任何时期，如果股价相对于收益过高，未来的投资展望都是负面的。目前，经济学家席勒的周期调整市盈率（CAPE）已达25.3倍。要想衡量股价是高还是低，相对于大多数投资者都在使用的传统市盈率计算法，CAPE是一个要好得多的工具——当然席勒市盈率本身也正变得越来越流行。CAPE基于扣除通胀因素的10年平均利润进行计算，熨平了收益的阶段性暴涨。

目前，席勒市盈率已经达到25倍的高位，这个数值要远远高于上世纪16倍的平均值。这说明股市不仅并未“失宠”，而且比历史水平高出56%。

如果投资者还在买入，或者持有一个周期调整市盈率高达25倍的股票组合，那么5到10年后，这些投资者将面临什么样的光景？

需要指出的是，在美国证劵史上，CAPE很少达到这样的高位。1928年11月，CAPE首次达到25倍——至少记录显示是这样。而在接下来的10年，股票价格一路下跌了43%。

1966年1月，当标普500指数达到93点时，CAPE再创几十年来的最高纪录，达到24.1倍。在接下来的10年里，标普500指数起起伏伏，始终毫无起色，到1976年初仍收于90点，下跌3.2%。

如果你在高位买进股票，灾难未必一定会在10年后爆发，但爆发灾难的风险依然会存在。1996年8月，CAPE再次达到25倍，而股市仍在继续高歌猛进。10年后，很多投资者都赚得盆满钵平。到2006年劳动节前后，投资者的年收益（包括股利）已经达到8.5%。接下来不出一年，美股就出现了大跌，并最终导致1996年夏天以来积累的大部分收益蒸发殆尽。

有些投资者深晓“以史为鉴可以知兴替”的道理，在股市高位时持币观望，而选择在2008年金融危机到2009年年中的“大抛售”之后这类时机入市抄底。大钱就是这样赚来的。这种时期之后，往往会有一个牛市。要知道，老牛不会自己变成小牛，而是会直接死掉。这就是将要发生的事情。这一轮牛市死得越早，我们就将越快看到新一轮交易的兴盛，对投资者来说，那个时候也会安全得多。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

审校：任文科

Instead of celebrating the bull market’s seventh anniversary, let’s mourn the ways that, at this advanced stage, long-running bull markets are bad for us.

After peaking at 2,135 in May, the S&P 500 SPX 0.00% tumbled 15% before recently rebounding, snapping half way back, and bolstering the optimists’ view that the bull isn’t just intact, but still has legs. What recent mini-bust and even smaller rebound does not show, as some are saying, that the bull market remains unloved, and investors are just starting to get on board. On the contrary, stocks are over-loved, and the current boomlet is simply makes things worse.

Here’s the proof: In any period when prices are high relative to earnings, the future outlook for investors is bleak. Right now, the economist Robert Shiller’s cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio, or CAPE, stands at 25.3. The CAPE is a far better measure of whether prices are cheap or rich than the price-to-earnings ratio that most investors use—though the Shiller P/E has become more and more popular—because it smoothes the volatile fever chart of earnings by using a ten-year average of profits, adjusted for inflation.

Today the Shiller P/E stands at 25. That’s far above the average of around 16 for the past century. Stocks aren’t unloved. They are 56% more cherished than they generally have been historically.

So how do investors fare 5 and 10 years later when they’re buying in, or simply holding, a diversified portfolio of stocks with an adjusted P/E of 25?

It’s important to note the CAPE has seldom reached these heights in the annals of equities. In November of 1928, it reached 25 for the first time, at least on record. Over the next decade, stock prices dropped 43%.

In January of 1966, it hit a multi-decade record of 24.1 when the S&P 500 reached 93. It bobbed and weaved over the next decade, but went nowhere, finishing at 90 at the start of 1976, for a loss of 3.2%.

Disaster isn’t always lurking ten years out if you buy at high prices. But it’s still lurking. The CAPE reached 25 again in August of 1996—and kept soaring from there. Ten years later, investors had done pretty well. Around Labor Day of 2006, they’d registered annual returns, including dividends, of 8.5% a year. But the big slide began less than a year later, and it eventually destroyed most of the gains since the summer of ’96.

Investors who learn from history pounce after a gigantic selloff, like the one following the financial crisis in 2008 through mid-2009. That’s when the big money gets made. A bull market follows those periods. Old bulls don’t turn into young bulls, they die off. That’s what’s going to happen. The sooner it does, the sooner we’ll see a whole new galaxy of bargains, and a much less dangerous time for investors.