Trader’s Narrative

Yesterday, while meeting with Gordon Brown, President Obama said:

What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it

While cheerleading the US economy and stock market is part and parcel of being the president, that his is a fairly accurate description:

Source: Prof. Robert J. Shiller

And while some are pointing out a dichotomy between Obama’s pronouncement and his advisor Buffett’s description of the US economy as being in “shambles”, there really isn’t a conflict with the two views as long as you realize that the economy and the US market are two different things.

In any case, the data for February and March 2009 are an estimate only and take us down to 12 - which is without an argument a very low P/E Ratio. But not as low as we’ve seen the price earnings ratio go.

In August 1982, the PE Ratio dropped below 7. And in both July 1932 and July 1921 it went below 6. To see that scenario again, the S&P 500 would have to drop another 40-50% to the 430-360 level (assuming earnings miraculously stay the same).

The only time that the PE Ratio has dropped as precipitously as in this bear market was in the aftermath of the 1929 bull market top. At its zenith in 1929, the PE Ratio was only approaching 33 while in the 2000 market top it reached 44.

Finally, I should mention that this isn’t necessarily the way that others calculate PR ratios - Shiller methodology smoothes out the data over 10 years to remove short term volatility.

Somehow, for some strange reason a progressive tax system which is what the US has had and which it will continue to have, has been called a “socialist” system by the McCain campaign:

“His (Obama’s) plans are redistribution of wealth.. that is one of the tenets of socialism.”

But as anyone will readily attest, a progressive tax system does exactly that, it “spreads the wealth around”. The only question which the government and candidates haggle over is not if wealth will be spread around, but how much.

By now Obama and McCain’s tax plans have both been picked cleaner than a carcass by a pack of economists from both sides of the spectrum. There is unanimous consensus that Obama’s tax plans will give more money to lower income earners and tax the wealthy a little more. Take a look at this excellent visualization for more details (courtesy of ChartJunk)

So is taxing the wealthy a tad more a bad thing?

John McCain doesn’t think so. Or at least, didn’t used to think so.

Listen as he answer’s a young woman’s question in this following video. She even brings up the “S” word (socialism) and McCain rightfully bats it down graciously.

“When you reach a certain level of comfort, there is nothing wrong with paying somewhat more”

“I think the first people that deserve a tax cut are working Americans with children…”

Where did this McCain go? This version would have stood a chance of actually winning against Obama. This version wouldn’t have given more tax cuts to millionaires while ignoring “working Americans” as his current tax plan does.

Look, I consider myself a capitalist through and through. Having said that, it doesn’t take a genius to see the inherent problem that concentration of wealth presents to any society. We are not a collection of individuals, we are a community, a society and we need to understand that. What is best for 0.1% of the wealthiest shouldn’t be ahead of what is best for the 99% of the rest of society.

For this and (many) other reasons, I’m saddened that as a non-US citizen I can not take part in this US election and vote for Barack Obama.