A numerical model is presented 1 in an attempt to better understand, and hence navigate, an investment landscape that is always changing. The entities in this landscape could include equities, bonds, preference shares, listed property, real estate, and cash. The focus of this work, however, is on equities and bonds only. Taking the view of an investor, a simple quantitative time-discrete model is presented to help assess the relative attractiveness of equities and bonds. Along the way, two important concepts are introduced to place equities and bonds on an equal comparative footing. They are the future relative real equity worth and the future relative real bond worth. The model is applied to US equity and US bond data spanning nearly the last 100 years. A novel quantitative strategy is introduced for investing in equities. The strategy obtains from the numerical model presented here and from careful scrutiny of the historical data. The strategy culminates in a ruleset for signalling when to buy, hold or sell equities at any instant. By applying this ruleset at many instants over the last 100 years, I show that the strategy compares favourably with two other widely used—or at least, widely cited—investment strategies. It is encouraging that in an ever-changing investment landscape, the model, together with the novel signalling ruleset, offers mid- to long-term investors an enhanced capability with which to make sensible investment decisions.
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