CEIX - SPLG: S&P 500 Dashboard For January 2024

2024-01-02 04:40:24 ET

Summary

• A hypothetical S&P 500 “median” company is overvalued by about 12% relative to 11-year averages.
• Energy, real estate and financials have the best value and quality scores among GICS sectors, whereas industrials and technology are significantly overvalued.
• 7 stocks cheaper than their peers in January 2024.

About SPLG

This monthly article series reports sector metrics in the S&P 500 index. It is also a top-down review of all funds tracking it. Among them, the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF ( SPLG ), launched in November 2005, is less popular than the SPDR S&P 500 ETF ( SPY ). However, it has a lower expense ratio (0.02% vs. 0.09%) and a lower share price, offering more flexibility to investors who can’t trade fractional shares. It has about $25.7B of assets under management and an average daily volume of $305.7M, which is enough to satisfy long-term investors and most traders. SPLG pays quarterly dividends.

Shortcut

The next two paragraphs in italic describe the dashboard methodology. They are necessary for new readers to understand the metrics. If you are used to this series or if you are short of time, you can skip them and go to the charts.

Base Metrics

I calculate the median value of five fundamental ratios in every sector: Earnings Yield ("EY"), Sales Yield ("SY"), Free Cash Flow Yield ("FY"), Return on Equity ("ROE"), Gross Margin ("GM"). All are calculated on trailing 12 months. For all these ratios, higher is better and negative is bad. EY, SY and FY are medians of the inverse of Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Price/Free Cash Flow. They are better for statistical studies than price-to-something ratios, which are unusable when the "something" is close to zero or negative (for example, companies with negative earnings). I also calculate two momentum metrics for each group: the median monthly return (RetM) and the median annual return (RetY).

I prefer medians rather than averages because a median splits a set in a good half and a bad half. Capital-weighted averages are skewed by extreme values and the largest companies. As a consequence, these metrics are designed for stock-picking rather than index investing.

Value and Quality Scores

Historical baselines are calculated as the averages on a look-back period of 11 years for all metrics. They are noted respectively EYh, SYh, FYh, ROEh, GMh. For example, the value of EYh for technology in the table below is the 11-year average of the median Earnings Yield of S&P 500 tech companies.

The Value Score "VS" is the average difference in % between the three valuation ratios (EY, SY, FY) and their baselines (EYh, SYh, FYh). The same way, the Quality Score "QS" is the average difference between the two quality ratios (ROE, GM) and their baselines (ROEh, GMh).

VS may be interpreted as the percentage of undervaluation or overvaluation relative to the baseline (positive is good, negative is bad). This interpretation must be taken with caution: the baseline is an arbitrary reference, not a supposed fair value. The formula assumes that the three valuation metrics are of equal importance, except in energy and utilities where the Free Cash Flow Yield is ignored to avoid some inconsistencies. VS and QS are capped between -100 and +100 when the calculation goes beyond th ese value s .

Current data

The next table shows the metrics and scores as of writing. Columns stand for all the data defined above.

**capped for convenience

Score charts

The next chart plots the Value and Quality Scores by sector (higher is better).

Due to a quite stretched market rally, valuations have significantly deteriorated in one month:

The next chart plots momentum scores based on median returns by sector.

Interpretation

A hypothetical S&P 500 “median” company is overvalued by about 12% relative to historical averages since 2013. Its quality score is above the historical baseline. We can translate median yields in their inverse ratios:

Price/Earnings: 26.04 - Price/Sales: 2.69 - Price/Free Cash Flow: 41.49

Energy still is the sector with the most attractive value and quality scores: it has been so since February 2022 . Financials and real estate are undervalued by about 15% relative to the historical baseline, and they also have good quality scores. The fundamental ratios used to calculate these metrics are not the most relevant in these two sectors, but their evolution in time is meaningful (it is what the scores look at). Utilities and communication services are very close to the baseline regarding both value and quality. Consumer discretionary, consumer staples, healthcare and materials are moderately overvalued (by less than 15%). Technology and industrials are overvalued by 25% to 30%. Overvaluation may be partly justified by a good quality score for technology and consumer discretionary.

SPLG shows a total return of 26.8% in 12 months, whereas the median return of the S&P 500 is only 13.5% (reported above in the table) and the equal-weight average is at 13.8% (measured on RSP ). It means the capital-weighted index performance has been significantly skewed to the upside by mega cap companies in 2023.

We use the table above to calculate value and quality scores. It may also be used in a stock-picking process to check how companies stand among their peers. For example, the EY column tells that a large consumer staples company with an Earnings Yield above 0.0428 (or price/earnings below 23.36) is in the better half of the sector regarding this metric. A Dashboard List is sent every month to Quantitative Risk & Value members with the most profitable companies standing in the better half among their peers regarding the three valuation metrics at the same time. The table below is an excerpt of the list of 75 stocks sent to QRV members for the month of January 2024.

It is part of a larger rotational model with a statistical bias toward excess returns on the long-term, not the result of individual company analysis.

For further details see: