Saturday, August 25, 2018

Capital Ideas Investing Podcast
Predicting the Markets with Ed Yardeni

Economist and investment strategist Ed Yardeni discusses his new book, Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography, and offers his thoughts on why the nine-year-long bull market in U.S. equities can continue. Listen to hear his straightforward rationale.


Monday, July 23, 2018

CFA Institute's Review of My Book, Predicting the Markets
Financial Analysts Journal
Book Reviews
2018, Volume 13 Issue 1

Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography (a review)
Reviewed by Janet J. Mangano

Edward Yardeni’s (“Dr. Ed’s”) Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography is a massive, entertaining, and enlightening work that captures the reader’s imagination and challenges established investment and analytical processes. The title only begins to suggest what is inside. Beyond “predicting the markets,” the book encompasses decades of intense, thoughtful research that shows there is no single simple—or even complex—way to predict the markets, the economy, or any sector within them. Solid research goes a long way, however, toward blazing a trail, creating new insights, and hypothesizing about the future.

To some extent, Predicting the Markets is more retrospective than predictive. Yardeni reviews past and present Federal Reserve Bank monetary policy and certain aspects of its implementation, such as setting interest rate and inflation targets and quantitative easing. He also addresses how valuation methods have changed from dividend-driven approaches to earnings-driven approaches and beyond.

The actual professional autobiography is charmingly presented in Chapter 1. It is so extensive that it could stand as a book on its own. In these pages, Yardeni recounts his four decades in the investment business, primarily as an economist but also in a breakthrough position he attained at C.J. Lawrence as chief economist/chief investment strategist. In 2007, he founded his own firm, Yardeni Research, where he continues to serve in the dual function of president and chief investment strategist.

Certain details of the book’s autobiographical component will probably strike current CFA candidates as quaint. Computers and databases were not easily available 40 years ago, but Yardeni and his contemporaries delved into time series and corporate filings while enjoying access to great thinkers and to corporate management in an era prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure. Yardeni grew professionally in a time when corporate buybacks were considered poor practice, if not borderline illegal.

The heart of the book is simultaneously professional and personal, as well as both retrospective and predictive. Yardeni addresses, in an economic setting, the critical issues driving the markets, considering current and hypothetical conditions. History always influences—and demographics invariably guide—his work. Readers will be rewarded for the effort required to understand the specific workings of the models and relationships that Yardeni explains not only through backtesting but also by observing how they are likely to perform in the future under different conditions.

Does anyone stress to the extent Yardeni does the need to study the Federal Reserve Bank’s “Financial Accounts of the United States” on a regular basis to gain a sense of where investors are investing? Economists will recognize the legacy he shares with Janet Yellen as a former student of James Tobin at Yale University. His neo-Keynesian focus is clearly on growth in real income and investment.

Among the chapters, “Predicting the Fed” is a standout. It is the lengthiest and the most comprehensive in revisiting the reasoning behind policies and the actions that result from them. Readers will perceive in a new light why certain monetary actions (such as deactivating the gold standard) were taken at specific points in time. Thanks to the questions Yardeni poses about quantitative easing, they will begin to comprehend why it has been as massive and has lasted as long as it has over the past decade. The discussions in this chapter make the reader feel like a member of the Federal Open Market Committee. Readers will also improve their understanding of inflection points in the economy, provided they are willing to put in the necessary time to perform the required analysis. This learning is also facilitated by reviewing the book’s excellent charts, along with timely updates that Yardeni makes available online.

The chapter titled “Predicting Valuation” is informative for individuals engaged in capital investments for businesses, corporate finance, and asset management. Its clarity rests in the applicability of particular valuation methods at different points in time and their lack of validity at others. Yardeni mentions CFA candidates in this chapter and the necessity that they understand the Fed’s Stock Valuation Model of 1997 and the 1999 Yardeni extension of it. Recall that Alan Greenspan was the first Fed chair to comment about the impact of monetary policy on the interaction between the inflation rate and the valuation of equities. (How could any of us then working as analysts and investors forget Chair Greenspan’s assertion that low price inflation was boosting valuation multiples to levels of “irrational exuberance”?) The importance of this exercise is to understand why such models were used, how the inflection points were measured, and how useful or useless they may be now and in the future. The tried and true dividend discount model cannot be applied in all situations, nor can earnings-centric models when real interest rates—or earnings—are at or below zero.

Predicting the Markets differs from the autobiographical works of other economists and investors (such as Henry Kaufman, Andrew Lanyi, and Michael Steinhardt) in its humor and occasional boasting. It is also grounded in disciplined study and analysis over decades, while providing clear, meaningful narrative and graphs. Yardeni demonstrates that his well-informed conclusions and insights are derived from hard data and facts and states that they remain subject to change as new conditions emerge. His mega-book will inspire both novice and seasoned economists and investors to use common sense, coupled with an intellectual edge.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Bloomberg: ’Bond Vigilantes’ Inventor Explains Why They Showed Up In Italy
Longtime market analyst Ed Yardeni came up with the term "Bond Vigilantes" to describe the way bond market participants can punish governments who run economically irresponsible policies. When Yardeni used it in the 80s, it referred to US fiscal policy that was thought to be inflationary. Now the bond vigilantes are back, but this time they’re in Italy. On this week’s podcast, Yardeni explains the history of the term, what’s going on now, and how interest rates can be used to model stock market valuations.

Listen to entire interview here.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Predicting The Markets Is Tough But Worthy Task - Forbes
Trying to predict the markets is a near-impossible task and those who attempt to do so almost always fail. Many investors who persist in attempting to untangle the many conflicting events and investor opinions, including the sophisticated players who earn a living investing in the stock market, readily admit that trying to accurately forecast market behavior is mostly a fool’s game.

The stock market is, indeed, very difficult to diagnose because it is a conglomeration of human behavior influenced by world and local events. To put it simply, investors trying to forecast or beat the markets have to be attuned to the consistencies and inconsistencies of human nature.

The stock market, for the most part, is driven by humans and human judgment, fraught with inconsistencies and conflicting thoughts. But that hasn’t stopped hordes of investors from making big bets on what they believe the market will perform at any given time.

“The trick is to learn from the hits and misses of the forecasting process .… and first and foremost, current analysis requires a thorough grounding in the economic and financial data,” says Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, who recently published the book, “Predicting The Markets, A Professional Autobiography.” The research firm provides global investment strategy and asset allocation analyses and recommendations. It also publishes for clients a daily report on its observations on what’s happening in the stock, bond and commodity markets, as well as what’s currently significant in various currencies.

If there is a Wall Street pro who is supremely qualified to make sense of the markets and who is particularly prescient as a successful investor and prognosticator of where they are likely to be heading, it is Yardeni. His career has spanned an extraordinary secular bull market in stocks, punctuated by plenty of nasty corrections and severe, wicked bear markets along the way.

See the full article here.
Ed Yardeni Discusses Investment Strategy With Barry Ritholtz
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Ed Yardeni, the president of Yardeni Research Inc., a provider of independent global investment strategy research. Dr. Yardeni previously served as chief investment strategist for Oak Associates; chief investment strategist and managing director of Prudential Equity Group; chief investment strategist for Deutsche Bank; and chief economist for C.J. Lawrence, Prudential Securities and E.F. Hutton. Yardeni recently published the book "Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography."

Listen to entire interview here.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Jim Grant Interviews Ed Yardeni About His New Book
"Well I am Jim Grant and this Grant’s Interest Rate Observer of the Air and with me today is Edward Yardeni who is first and foremost the father of five and secondly is the eponym, proprietor and brain box of Yardeni Research, Inc. consulting economist. I don’t know Ed, you are a PhD in Economics but I think it is part of the high praise I’m about to lavish on you that you would never know it. Ed and I go back to the year 1800, no it was 1900 something or other. Ed got out of Cornell in 1968 and went to Yale ever so briefly to attain an MA I guess or something like that and then a PhD in Economics under the inimitable James Tobin, and he has worked all around the place on Wall Street, not to mention the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. He jokes that he cannot hold a job but he has certainly held his clients who hold him properly. Ed, you have been the vanguard of thought on things as varied as demographics, interest rates, the Cold War, and digital technology. So I think I’ll stop talking now, and welcome Ed Yardeni to Grant’s Interest Observer of the Air."

Hear entire interview here.
Larry Kudlow Interviews Ed Yardeni About His New Book
"Welcome back folks, I’m Larry Kudlow, pleasure to be back with you. Old friend of mine, one of Wall Street’s absolute top number one economic and investment strategy forecaster. He’s got a new book out, I’m talking about Dr. Ed Yardeni, President now of Yardeni Research (that’s Yardeni.com), previously economist with Federal Reserve Bank of NY and the US Treasury. I want to say that Ed Yardeni and I were I don’t know what we were, friendly rivals, but mostly friends. Down through the years 1980s, 1990s there were three names at the top of the list of Institutional All Star Team going back. One was Ed Hyman, the other was Ed Yardeni and the other one was a wacko named Larry Kudlow, so you are going to get some great stuff here. Ed has a new book, called Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography."

Hear entire interview here.