The Many Colours of CAPE

Abstract

Campbell & Shiller's [1988] Cyclically-Adjusted Price to Earnings ratio (CAPE) has both its advocates and critics. Currently, the debate is on the validity of the high CAPE ratio for US stock markets in forecasting lower future returns, with CAPE currently at 31.21. We investigate the efficacy and validity of CAPE from several different perspectives. First, we run multiple-horizon predictability regressions for CAPE versus its peers and find that CAPE consistently displays economic and statistical significance far better than any of its peers. Second, we explore alternative constructions of CAPE based on other proxies for earnings motivated by the work of findings by Siegel [2016] using NIPA profits. We find that original CAPE is still best when comprehensively and fairly reviewing the other proxies, even for NIPA profits. Third, we assess how to practically use CAPE in both an asset allocation and relative valuation setting. We demonstrate a novel use of CAPE for asset allocation programmes as well as discuss relative valuation exercises for country, sector and single stock rotation.

Keywords: valuation, earnings, CAPE

JEL Classification: E3, E4, E7, G1, G4