Today I would like to take a stab at the question “why is the Shiller P/E flawed?”

What is Cape and why is the Shiller P/E flawed?

The cyclical P/E-ratio is calculated by taking the average over the past ten years’ Inflation Adjusted Earnings.

This may sound as a good way of looking at the value of a company, but it is not and I will explain why in this post.

The Shiller P/E is only a way of looking in the rear view mirror and not ahead.

As we all know a trailing P/E does not give you any information about coming Earnings.

It does, however, give you an idea of past earnings.

If you want to make real money in the market you will have to guess future earnings which a Shiller P/E does not do.

Then ten years is a long time. We all know that.

During this time small-cap companies often change and sometimes even dramatically.

Their business model may change so to calculate an average over ten years makes no sense.

Moreover, the accounting methodology over the past ten years has changed which makes the Shiller P/E even more flawed.

What do you suggest instead?

Instead I propose to look at the inflation adjusted earnings of the past three years and using that as a guess for next year.

I believe this is a better metric because it gives the investor a clearer idea of what to expect for next year’s earnings.

The post Why is the Shiller P/E flawed? appeared first on LJ Nissen's blog.