Q Ratio-Overvalued
Guest post by Doug Short.
The Q Ratio is a popular method of estimating the fair value of the stock market developed by Nobel Laureate James Tobin. It’s a fairly simple concept, but laborious to calculate. The Q Ratio is the total price of the market divided by the replacement cost of all its companies. Fortunately, the government does the work of accumulating the data for the calculation. The numbers are supplied in the Federal Reserve Z.1 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, which is released quarterly.
The first chart shows Q Ratio from 1900 to the present. I’ve calculated the ratio since the latest Fed data (through 2011 Q4) based on a subjective process of extrapolating the Z.1 data itself and factoring in the monthly averages of daily closes for the Vanguard Total Market ETF (VTI).
Spain attacked again
Spain seems to be “attacked” from everywhere at the moment. Latest being the nationalization of an electricity company in Bolivia. What’s next? Germany taking over Mallorca? Meanwhile, Banco de Espana released some interesting figures on the 1st of May. 128.655 billion euros has been pulled from Spain by financial investors since July of last year. From El Pais.
In a surprise move, Bolivian President Evo Morales on Tuesday announced the expropriation of the local affiliate of Spain’s Red Eléctrica de España, Transportadora de Electricidad SA.
Signing a decree to coincide with International Worker’s Day, Morales ordered the army to take over the company’s installations throughout the landlocked Andean country.
“Today, again, in merited homage of the workers and people of Bolivia who have fought to recover natural resources and basic services, we are nationalizing Transportadora de Electricidad,” Morales said in a ceremony at the presidential palace in La Paz.
According to Morales’ decree number 1214, all of REE’s shares in Transportadora de Electricidad will will be turned over to the Bolivian government, which will control them through the National Electric Company ENDE.REE controls 77 percent of Transportadora. The facilities and land owned by REE will also automatically be forfeited over to the government, Morales said.
There was no official comment from the Spanish government by press time.
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May Day
May day for the Europeans returning from their holiday day rest yesterday.
Chart presented without comments, by The Economist.
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