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Can Warren Buffett forecast equity market corrections?

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  • S. Lleo
  • W. T. Ziemba

Abstract

Warren Buffett suggested that the ratio of the market value of all publicly traded stocks to the Gross National Product could identify potential overvaluations and undervaluations in the US equity market when this ratio deviates above 120% or below 80%. We investigate whether this ratio is a statistically significant predictor of equity market corrections and rallies. We find that Buffett's decision rule does not deliver satisfactory forecasts. However, when we adopt a time-varying decision rule, the ratio becomes a statistically significant predictor of equity market corrections. The two time-varying decision rules are: (i) predict an equity market correction when the ratio exceeds a 95% one-tail confidence interval based on a normal distribution, and (ii) predict an equity market correction when the ratio exceeds a threshold computed using Cantelli's inequality. These new decision rules are robust to changes in the two key parameters: the confidence level and the forecasting horizon. This paper also shows that the MV/GNP ratio performs relatively well against the four most popular equity market correction models, but the ratio is not a particularly useful predictor of equity market rallies.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Lleo & W. T. Ziemba, 2019. "Can Warren Buffett forecast equity market corrections?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 369-393, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurjfi:v:25:y:2019:i:4:p:369-393
    DOI: 10.1080/1351847X.2018.1521859
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    Cited by:

    1. Christos I. Giannikos & Hany Guirguis & Andreas Kakolyris & Tin Shan (Michael) Suen, 2024. "When to Hedge Downside Risk?," Risks, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Dichtl, Hubert & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Otto, Tizian, 2023. "Forecasting Stock Market Crashes via Machine Learning," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

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