Updated August 17, 2015
In the 1960s, 1981 Economic Nobel Laureate James Tobin developed an interesting measure which gives us a sense of stock market valuations and whether the stock market is overvalued or fairly valued. The ratio was developed based on Dr. Tobin's hypothesis that companies should be worth what it costs to replace them, in other words, the total stock market valuation of a company should not exceed the value of its assets. The ratio, known as Tobin's Q, is the ratio of price to replacement cost; in its simplest terms, it measures a firm's assets to its market value as calculated using this formula:
In the 1960s, 1981 Economic Nobel Laureate James Tobin developed an interesting measure which gives us a sense of stock market valuations and whether the stock market is overvalued or fairly valued. The ratio was developed based on Dr. Tobin's hypothesis that companies should be worth what it costs to replace them, in other words, the total stock market valuation of a company should not exceed the value of its assets. The ratio, known as Tobin's Q, is the ratio of price to replacement cost; in its simplest terms, it measures a firm's assets to its market value as calculated using this formula:
Tobin's Q = Total
Market Value of a Firm
Total Asset Value of a Firm
It can also be thought of
as the ratio of the market value of a company's installed capital to the
replacement cost of the installed capital.
Here is a very simplified example.
If a company has $40 million of assets, 10 million shares outstanding and
a share price of $3.00, Tobin's Q would be calculated as follows:
Tobin's Q =
(10,000,000*$3.00)/$40,000,000 = 0.75
When Tobin's Q is between
zero and 1, it costs more to replace a company's assets than the firm is worth
(on the stock market). If Tobin's Q is above 1, the firm (on the stock
market) is worth more than the value of its assets. Theoretically then,
if Tobin's Q is greater than 1, a company is overvalued and if it is less than 1, it is undervalued. If we look at the
aforementioned example company, leaving its assets at $40 million and its
outstanding shares at 20 million and increase its share price to $5.00, Tobin's
Q would be calculated as follows:
Tobin's Q =
(10,000,000*$5.00)/$40,000,000 = 1.25
This means that the
example company is overvalued when the stock price rises to $5.00 per share.
according to Tobin's theory.
Tobin's Q can be taken to
the extreme, covering the entire United States corporate universe by using the
quarterly Federal Flow of Funds data from the Federal Reserve's Z.1 Financial
Accounts of the United States which you can find here. If you go to table B.103, Tobin's
Q can be calculated by dividing line 39 (market value)
by line 36 (replacement cost). Tobin's Q generally hits highs during bull
or bubble market phases and drops to lows during recessions and bear market
phases.
The Tobin Q ratio can be calculated using data on the FRED website by dividing Non-financial Corporate Business Corporate Equities
Liability Level by Nonfinancial Corporate Business Net Worth Level
which will result in this graph:
The data used in this calculation is gleaned from the Federal Reserve Z.1 Statistical Release Financial Accounts of the United States which is released on a quarterly basis.
Looking all the way back to 1950, the
mean Q ratio is 0.71 and going back further to 1900, the mean is 0.68.
Right now, the Q ratio is 1.069, just below its post-Great Recession peak of 1.89 in the second quarter of 2014. You will also notice that, while the Q ratio is below its post-1950 peak of 1.64 that was experienced during the tech sector bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is just below the second highest level seen since
1950 and, if we go back in history to 1900, the Q ratio is above any peak since
that time. It has also risen significantly from its low of 0.57 during
the depths of the Great Recession.
If we look at the Q ratio
and divide it by the average over the last half century, at the tech sector peak,
the market price was about 131 percent above the historic average of
replacement cost. Right now, the latest data point is 49 percent above
the mean, suggesting that the stock market is significantly overvalued.
It is important to keep in mind that periods of stock market over- and
under-valuation can persist for many years at a time (as happened during the
tech sector bubble), however, the current high level of Tobin's Q suggests that the
stock market is likely to change direction significantly over the medium- and
long-term.
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Not that I disagree with your conclusion, however I think all of the previous data and charts dealing with financials and the stock market are mostly useless. Why do I say this, well never before in history has a central bank dumped so much money into the system. I don't think anyone really knows what that money in the system will cause. Looking back will not give foresight as nothing on this scale had been done before. We truly are in a "this time is different" will the cycles of the past simply repeat? Will something unexpected happen? Or will status quo rule the day. I don't think anyone really knows. I can say the fundamentals of how an economy should work are all messed up right now and that is why looking at past treads probably won't work as they have in the past. I think the US and Fed will surprise a lot of people with how long the can kicking can and will continue.
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