In our article, 3 legs, we exposed one of the main problems related to retirement calculations: returns on stocks depend on initial P/E. Right now, the P/E is high, so to get 7% a year could be a dream. How can we estimate the stock yield?
Crestmont Research has done an amazing job with its stock matrix (link here). How do we use it? We choose a period with similar P/E on the left, and, following the same row, check out the nominal annual returns after 20, 30 years without dividends. For instance, from 68 till 98, the yield is around 8% a year. We can appreciate that when the P/E ratio is high, the following years it is difficult to obtain high returns (red and pink colors). However, after a certain number of years, in most of the cases, we get 5% at least (6% probable). So, in our retirement calculators, we could choose 5% plus dividends (lower line of the chart) if we are going to be retired for a long time. Around 8% could make sense. It took 60 years to get that kind of return after 1929 (3% in 40 years), though.
