The thing very few people tell you about “overvalued” markets is that, occasionally, the fundamentals arrive to justify them. — Joshua Brown

If there’s one image that captures the State of the Investing “Union”, this is one of the more important flavors. Recessions massacre profitability and explode Stock Selection Guides (2008-2009). Companies with weak profitability dip below zero and EPS “disappear.”

Value Line Arithmetic Average Companies ($VLE) ex-Financials. This statistic covers the industrials and excludes the asset-based companies where we focus on ROE.

One of the biggest reasons that the 2016-2017 period for the bull market was so “empty” for most investors is because of the recessionary conditions that materialized in some segments, rolling corrections. With the tax law revisions for 2018 and beyond, we’ll be carefully monitoring the additions of 2020 and 2024 estimates to our studies as Value Line ratchets their data arrays one year during upcoming Issue updates.