📖Jeremy Grantham

Long-Term Forecasting

🌿 Intermediate★★★★★

Seven-year forecasts based on valuations work.

💬

Seven-year forecasts based on valuations are remarkably accurate. Short-term is noise.

— GMO Quarterly Letters,2014

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Valuation is like buying a house: the asking price reflects mood, but true value comes from structure, location, and long-term utility. Good assets still need sensible prices.

📖 Core Interpretation

In Long-Term Forecasting, Jeremy Grantham focuses on the gap between price and value. Returns come from paying less than what a business is worth, not from guessing short-term market moves.
💎 Key Insight:GMO publishes 7-year asset class return forecasts based purely on current valuations and mean reversion assumptions. These forecasts have proven highly accurate over time. The 7-year window smooths out short-term noise while being long enough for fundamentals to matter. This approach allows disciplined rebalancing between expensive and cheap asset classes.

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❓ Why It Matters

Ignoring valuation turns even good companies into poor investments. Overpaying compresses future returns and leaves little margin when assumptions are wrong.

🎯 How to Practice

Estimate intrinsic value with conservative assumptions, set clear buy ranges, and act only when price offers a meaningful discount with acceptable downside.

🎙️ Master's Voice

Career risk causes professional investors to hug benchmarks rather than seek value.
Grantham criticizes institutional investors who prioritize career safety over performance. Benchmarking creates herd behavior.

⚔️ Practical Guide

✅ Decision Checklist

  • Am I hugging benchmarks?
  • Am I thinking independently?
  • Is career risk affecting me?

📋 Action Steps

  1. Think independently
  2. Accept tracking error
  3. Seek value over benchmarks

🚨 Warning Signs

  • Benchmark hugging
  • Career risk focus
  • Herd behavior

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Confusing a low price with true cheapness
Using one metric without business context
Overly optimistic assumptions that erase margin of safety

📚 Case Studies

1
Dot-Com Bubble Warning (2000)
Grantham publicly warned that tech stocks were in a classic bubble and reduced exposure to overpriced U.S. growth shares.
✨ Outcome:The bubble burst; portfolios positioned per his advice avoided the worst losses and outperformed over the following decade.
2
Pre‑Crisis Housing and Credit Bubble (2007)
Grantham highlighted extreme overvaluation in housing, credit, and equities, cutting risk assets and raising quality and cash.
✨ Outcome:The 2008–2009 crash validated his forecast; defensive positioning preserved capital and enabled cheaper re‑entry afterward.

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