Foreign Equities P/E10

Here're some very interesting and elusive valuations data: P/E10 (aka CAPE) for foreign equities, courtesy of Mebane Faber. As you can see, these numbers show virtually all of the EAFE (which consists of Western Europe, Japan, and Australia) equities have much lower P/E10 values than US, meaning foreign stocks are cheaper. These numbers confirm what I've been saying for a while: European and Japanese stocks are somewhere between cheap and fairly priced which bodes well for their future returns (though no guarantees, of course, especially in the short term).

The caveat is that we really don't know the methodology behind Faber's table. I am a little dubious about the accuracy of some of the numbers, such as the suspiciously low 12.88 P/E10 on Chinese equities. Given the stellar growth of China of the past 10 years -- I would have expected Chinese numbers to be similar to India's, at around 20 P/E10. But that is just my gut feel; I may well be wrong. Most of the other numbers are in line with what I would have expected.

In any case, I find these numbers very interesting and supportive of the case for buying EAFE and especially European equities now.