Hussman Market Comment
John Hussman's long-form commentary on equity valuation, expected 10- to 12-year returns and market internals. It is the most detailed free bear case on valuations you will find, so read it critically.
Free to read
Hussman, a former economics professor who runs the Hussman Funds, has published market commentary for more than two decades. The core of the work is valuation. He tests which measures, such as market cap to gross value added, Shiller CAPE and price to revenue, best predict long-run returns, and he shows why profit margins and interest rates do not rescue rich valuations. He pairs this with a measure of market internals that he uses to judge speculative appetite.
The value is the rigor and the honesty about the record. Hussman's funds missed much of the post-2009 bull market. He has written openly about what went wrong and how he changed his approach, which is itself a useful case study in model risk. The arguments on valuation and expected returns hold up whatever you think of his market calls.
Read a few of the mid-2010s valuation pieces from the archive for the full method, then a recent comment to see how he applies it today.
Start with
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1
Margins, Multiples, and the Iron Law of Valuation (April 2014)
His central argument that a security's price is the present value of its future cash flows, and what follows from that.
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2
Rarefied Air: Valuations and Subsequent Market Returns (November 2015)
Compares valuation measures by how well they predicted later returns.
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3
The Road Up and the Road Down are the Very Same Road (September 2026)
A recent comment showing the framework applied to today's market.