Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller says that, while US equities look to be on the pricier side, stocks in other parts of the world are dirt-cheap.
Shiller, who uses the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio (which measures average inflation-adjusted earnings for stock indexes over the previous 10 years) to value stocks, said the S&P 500’s CAPE is 27. That’s “high” but not “super high”, he told CNBC.
But overseas, valuations are cheaper in certain markets. “Some people say that everything is overpriced right now, well there’s some truth to that, but there’s also still a lot of opportunities. The other thing is sectors within countries — you can go into low price sectors.” Shiller says the CAPE for Europe is “much, much, lower [than the US] … Just looking at CAPE for Russia, under 8. The U.S. hasn’t been that low since 1982, I think. There are variations, it’s not a simple world.” Shiller also noted that Greece’s CAPE is under 4.