As the S&P 500 (SPX) pushes towards Goldman Sachs 2,100 year end target (for 2015!!) today, we thought it worth considering just how much awesomeness has been pulled forward, priced-in, exuberantly-chased. As the following charts show, based on bottom-up long-term-growth expectations, S&P forward P/E valuations have never been higher. But that's not all…
The current Forward P/E of the S&P 500 is dramatically higher than is the ‘norm' given bottom-up long-term growth forecasts… in fact, given current growth expectations, stocks are the most expensive ever…
Either valuations need to drop by 3 turns or long-term growth expectations need to rise by 3 turns (magically out of nowhere) for valuations to return to their highly correlated ‘norm'
But… it's not just P/E that is getting extreme…
And margins continue to test historically stratospheric levels…
Of course, it's different this time and underlying fun-durr-mentals will gently rise (along with interest rates) to bring valuations back to norm and we all live happily ever after…