Managing funds in the US market: how to distinguish between transitory distortions and structural changes in the stock prices?

The paper reports estimates of a reliable fundamental value of the S&P index, standing for a long run target value in Error-Correction Modelling of the dynamics of subsequent returns. The Present Value Model suggests two fundamentals: dividends and a discount rate factor, specified as a risk free rate plus an ex ante risk premium, to capture structural breaks in the expectations. The dates of the shifts are identified by estimating recursively a cointegration relationship. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compute appropriate statistics for stationarity tests. The predictive performance of the Error-Correcting Model is then used to implement winning portfolio-investment strategies.