S2N Spotlight
I found a new library, Financial Functions for Python (ffn), for performance analysis so I thought I would share some of its outputs. I am a big believer in knowing the “personality” of the markets you invest in, intimately. The symbols below are ETFs: SPY = S&P 500, QQQ = Nasdaq 100, AGG = Global Bonds, GLD = Gold. I have highlighted the risk adjusted parts that I believe are so important.
With the above in mind I thought I would take a look at the profile of return distributions of the S&P 500 through different time frequencies. I also overlay a normal distribution curve to show you how well or unwell the distributions fit normality. This analysis is not from the library I described above so any errors are mine alone.
Annual returns produce a very impressive mean and certainly don’t display signs of normality. This looks very much like me trying to fit into my button shirts these days.
Dropping down to monthly frequency and we have something very close to a normal distribution except for the extra kurtosis. No I did not say monthly suffers from halitosis.
Weekly is looking a little more normal.
The daily distribution is relatively normal.
So what can I take away from all these middle finger plots 🖕?
The more normal the distribution the harder it is to predict the future. Therefore it is better to trade or invest a longer time frame if you wish to have more chance of success.
S2N Observations
Some times I am just too practical. If you look at the red line, it measures the Shiller PE ratio, which takes inflation and the last 10 years of earnings into the equation. If you look at the length of this time series, we are going back to 1850. So when it is trading in the top 1 percentile of the most expensive valuations of its history, I have to take notice and be extra cautious. The buy and hold will tell you its pointless trying to time the market as the risk of being out the market is too great. They are probably right when talking about the bulk of your retirement portfolio, but taking no action is likely to also come at a cost.
All I can say is that future returns from high valuations underperform low valuations. I have done the analysis, and it is true.
Courtesy of Ray Dalia and Visual Capitalist here is a look at the forecast 10 year Real GDP of a number of major countries.
Performance Review
For those who are new to the letter, the shading is Z-Score adjusted so that only moves bigger than usual for the symbol are highlighted.