About CMV

Contact

  • feedback@currentmarketvaluation.com. Any feedback is appreciated. All emails will be read, though unfortunately not everything can be responded to.
  • press@currentmarketvaluation.com for any press inquiries. Press outlets and/or research analysts or publications may use any quotes or images from the site, given attribution is made (with a hyperlink if practical) to www.currentmarketvaluation.com.

Philosophy

Too much online financial reporting is meant to drive fear, engagement, and clicks. The vast majority of the time the economy and stock market are doing fine. But, sometimes not! Current Market Valuation (CMV) is a resource to objectively track long-term indicators of market valuation. This site aims to be an educational resource on market cycles and fundamentals -not to be a stock trading strategy or timing system. Research has consistently shown for decades that the best investment strategy (particularly for retail investors) is long term buy-and-hold, and that the more active trading retail investors do, the worse they perform. CMV makes judgements about whether or not the market is under/(over) valued relative to historic norms, but those ratings are not necessarily predictive of future rallies/(crashes). Valuation models like this can be wrong for a very long time. Even if the market does revert to norms, it may not be for years, or decades.

As ever, past performance is not indicative of future results. For just a few examples, geopolitical changes (war, trade), technological changes (AI, automation), or geologic changes (climate change) could/should/do permanently deviate the market from the norms we've seen in the modern era. Even without any such obvious causes, there is no intrinsic guarantee that markets will correct and return to historical norms. There are very good reasons to disbelieve that any of these models will be useful in predicting future market performance, and each model description makes a good faith effort to explain those counterarguments. And regardless of it all, sometimes the market is just irrational, and the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid.

CMV strives to be as transparent as possible in data and methodology. Nothing on this site is either complex or proprietary. Most data are publicly available from free sources, and always cited.

For those who are seeking investment advice, Reddit's r/personalfinance community is a great place to start. Their wiki on general personal finance is fantastic, and specifically the subsection on general investment advice is great.

Our Ratings

CMV tracks several long term macroeconomic indicators, comparing current values to their historical norms. The methodology is explained in each model's individual page, but generally each model looks for the over/undervaluation of the respective indicator in terms of how many standard deviations the current value is from the historical norm.

Our market valuation ratings are:

Strongly Overvalued This rating corresponds to values greater than 2 standard deviations from the mean, and should statistically occur about 2% of the time.

Overvalued This rating corresponds to values between 1 and 2 standard deviations from the mean, and should statistically occur about 14% of the time.

Fairly Valued This is by far the largest rank, corresponding to values between -1 and 1 standard deviation from the mean. Our models should be ranked as Fairly Valued about 70% of the time. Depending if the value is greater than / less than zero, we may present this a 'slightly over/undervalued'.

Undervalued This rating corresponds to values between -1 and -2 standard deviations from the mean, and should statistically occur about 14% of the time.

Strongly Undervalued This rating corresponds to values less than -2 standard deviations from the mean, and should statistically occur about 2% of the time.

Note that our other model categories (recession indicators, market sentiment) use the identical +/- standard deviation methodology as above, though these are assigned different terminology as those models do not track valuation. Those ratings are:

Recession Indicators: Very High, High, Normal, Low, Very Low.

Market Sentiment: Very Bullish, Bullish, Neutral, Bearish, Very Bearish.

Press

Selected press clippings featuring CMV are below.

This Is Not Financial Advice

Current Market Valuation is meant to be used as an educational resource to help readers understand today's market in a historical perspective. This might be useful context to have when making investment decisions, but this is absolutely not presented as, or intended to be used as a singular investment strategy.

The information on this website is provided for informational purposes only. Do not consider the information as individualized financial advice. Please contact a certified financial planner or other professional so they can tailor their advice to your individual circumstances.

The valuation models that are explored on this site are very long term focused. The trends analyzed and illustrated here play out over years, or even decades. When we say that the market is "overvalued", that is in reference to historical norms only, not a prediction of future results.

Please, please, please do not use CMV to try to time the market. Day trading and/or market timing is a fantastic way to lose money.

Said Another Way...

The information provided on www.currentmarketvaluation.com ("CMV") is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice. You should consult with an attorney or other professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs.

CMV does not make any guarantee or other promise as to any results that may be obtained from using our content. No one should make any investment decision without first consulting his or her own financial advisor and conducting his or her own research and due diligence. We are not a registered investment advisor, broker/dealer, securities broker, or financial planner. To the maximum extent permitted by law, CMV disclaims any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and/or recommendations prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any investment or other losses.

Content contained on or made available through the website is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice or investment advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed. Your use of the information on the website or materials linked from the Web is at your own risk.

Privacy Policy

Effective and last updated June 1, 2022.

The CMV website hosted on the server www.currentmarketvaluation.com (the "website", "Site") does not monitor, collect, or store any user data whatsoever, to the best of our knowledge. This is an informational, read-only website with no 'user profiles', or any customized content. Honestly, we have no interest knowing anything about you - and even less interest in paying to store any such data. This website does not use/host cookies or any other technology that collects any user information.

However...

In order to keep the lights on around here, we leverage two external services: Google Analytics, in order to understand traffic volume and patterns on the site, and Google AdSense to display advertising.

Analytics: Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the traffic and usage patterns on our website. This information is collected and stored by Google. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

Advertising: CafeMedia

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a CafeMedia ("CafeMedia") for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and CafeMedia will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about CafeMedia's data usage, visit http://www.cafemedia.com/publisher-advertising-privacy-policy.

Your web browser may allow you to disable cookies. This may disrupt your experience using other web sites (e.g., you may not remain 'logged in' to other sites/services). However, since CMV does not use cookies, the experience of this web site will not be negatively affected.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most recent version of the Privacy Policy will always be posted on the Site, with the "Effective Date" posted at the top of the Policy. We may revise and update this Privacy Policy if our practices change, as technology changes, or as we add new services or change existing ones. If we make any material changes to our Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, or we are going to use any personal information in a manner that is materially different from that stated in our Privacy Policy at the time we collected such information, we will give you a reasonable opportunity to consent to the change. If you do not consent, your personal information will be used as agreed to under the terms of the privacy policy in effect at the time we obtained that information. By using our Site or services after the Effective Date, you are deemed to consent to our then-current privacy policy. We will use information previously obtained in accordance with the Privacy Policy in effect when the information was obtained from you.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or the practices of this site, please contact us at feedback@currentmarketvaluation.com.