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A 10,000-word article from the founder of Oaktree Capital! Talking about inflation, Fed policy and U.S. stocks

橡树资本创始人马克斯表示，美联储加息绝非不可想象的事情，不管他们是为了确保经济不至于过热，还是因为高通胀率要求更高利率的缘故而这么做，又或者是两者兼而有之，这都是很可能的事情。虽然利率走高（资产价格相

A 10,000-word article from the founder of Oaktree Capital! Talking about inflation, Fed policy and U.S. stocks

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{"i18n":{"language":"en_US"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":802806301,"tweetId":"802806301","gmtCreate":1627743900703,"gmtModify":1703495411910,"author":{"id":3567313446080368,"idStr":"3567313446080368","authorId":3567313446080368,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493-3","templateUuid":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493","name":" Tiger Idol","description":"Join the tiger community for 1500 days","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8b40ae7da5bf081a1c84df14bf9e6367","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f160eceddd7c284a8e1136557615cfad","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/11792805c468334a9b31c39f95a41c6a","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2024.12.11","individualDisplayEnabled":0},"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":2,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body><p>good</p></body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body><p>good</p></body></html>","text":"good","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/802806301","repostId":1112061733,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1112061733","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1627690929,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1112061733?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-31 08:22","market":"us","language":"zh","title":"A 10,000-word article from the founder of Oaktree Capital! Talking about inflation, Fed policy and U.S. stocks","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1112061733","media":" 腾讯美股","summary":"橡树资本创始人马克斯表示，美联储加息绝非不可想象的事情，不管他们是为了确保经济不至于过热，还是因为高通胀率要求更高利率的缘故而这么做，又或者是两者兼而有之，这都是很可能的事情。虽然利率走高（资产价格相","content":"<p><i>Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, said that the Fed's rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure that the economy does not overheat, because high inflation rates require higher interest rates, or both. Yes, this is a very possible thing. Although the possibility of higher interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) will make everyone feel uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational with interest rates as a reference.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, the founder of Oaktree Capital, is the number one philosopher in the investment world. His Oaktree Capital manages $153 billion in assets. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, which can be called classics. The following is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions, namely, it must be important and knowable at the same time. -Warren Buffett</p><p>Regular readers of my memo know that both Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macro expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six major investment philosophies is simply that we don't make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own company doesn't employ economists, and we rarely invite external economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for this is actually very simple. To paraphrase Buffett's famous saying, we firmly believe that the macro future is unknowable. Or, it can be said that macro forecasting is another field, just like investing itself-it is very easy to be as correct as the public, but it is extremely difficult to be more correct. The so-called unanimous expectation can't give you any advantage. If investors want to obtain returns above the average level, they must have knowledge advantages and be more correct than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that in view of this, they must make their own macro forecasts and invest accordingly. Those successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, often make statements related to macro expectations, even if people can find little evidence of any connection between their investment success and their accurate macro expectations. Nevertheless, due to the huge influence of changes in the macro situation, many investors are convinced that it is absolutely irresponsible to ignore the macro when investing. However...</p><p>● Most macro expectations can actually be classified into two categories, either consensus expectations that are not helpful, or expectations that are different but rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I have met, I can count on one hand those who can make successful investment decisions based on macro expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they just buy when they feel that they have found a discount, and sell when they feel that they are overvalued, basically regardless of the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you don't really know much about the macro future, but in these fields full of major variables, agnosticism is probably better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is my family word? Then let's hear what the pundits have to say.</p><p>It is scary to think that you may not know something, but overall, it is even more scary if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what is happening.</p><p>-Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't know, but the things you firmly believe you know, but actually don't.\"</p><p>-Mark Twain</p><p>Speaking of this, I'm reminded of a topic about the performance records of the Prophets, or perhaps their lack of performance records. It was in the 1970s, when an elder once told me, \"The so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never marks the market.\" This definition still looks so vivid today. When an economist or macro strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he doesn't say what percentage of his previous recession expectations have been fulfilled within a year. As we all know, investment managers must provide their historical performance records at any time, otherwise investors will not consider him at all. In that case, why should we trust macro prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I want to point out that the same comment actually applies to most investors. We rarely hear these people say that they have no view of the macro future at all, or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions to become a successful investor is to know how to evaluate yourself. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you are investing based on your own macro judgments, how helpful can these judgments be overall? Should you continue to invest according to them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>This is my personal opinion on the so-called defect of expectation. In the rest of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why do I still talk about this topic? It is understandable to reverse Buffett's famous quote quoted at the beginning of the article-although the macro future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the Internet bubble burst in 2000, I found that the market at that time was mainly reacting to events surrounding some specific enterprises and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market seemed to be mainly dominated by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Ministry of Finance, and international events. This became clearer after the global financial crisis in 2008. That's why I'm writing this memo on a subject that I seldom touch.</p><p>Below, I will try to list those important macro issues, discuss them, make an outlook, and finally put forward some relevant suggestions. Here, it is also necessary for me to clarify my conviction that all of us have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's guidelines say; \"It's one thing for us to have our own claims, but it's another thing for us to assume that claims are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such a thing.\"</p><p><b>Inflation</b></p><p>At the moment of writing this article, the most interesting issue at the macro level of the US economy is undoubtedly inflation. For the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and Congress have been opening the head of the money supply wide open to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. Therefore, there are three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospect of a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have risen above the sky; Third, the fear of inflation is growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records show that these policies, as described earlier, will most likely cause the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger economy than normal;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and, as a result, higher wages;</p><p>● More money chasing goods with limited supplies;</p><p>● Commodity price increases (i.e. inflation) have accelerated;</p><p>● Monetary policy is tightening to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and variables in the operation of the economy, the orthodox idea holds that the above general process model is still highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing those important variables contained in inflation thinking.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined me to be who I am today was that I was investing in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation. The inflation rate in the United States remained high from the 1970s to 1982. The two chief economists known as \"Dr. Doom\" and \"Dr. Dark\" (which title belongs to which I can't remember exactly), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often make depressing speeches, claiming that they don't know what causes terrible inflation, let alone how to control it. Everyone was helpless about inflation until Federal Reserve President Paul Volcker finally solved the problem with substantial rate hike, and his approach also caused the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what is our experience in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set a healthy inflation rate of 2% as their goal, but no one can achieve this goal. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is considerable, the money supply is expanding rapidly through the quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historic lows, all of which are extremely inflationary from the traditional perspective, the latter has always been absent.</p><p>● Finally, in the past sixty years or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, and the essence of the latter is to assume that there is a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation-the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more expensive workers will be when bargaining with employers, the faster wages will increase, and the greater the price increase of consumer goods. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline in the past decade, and finally reached the lowest point in half a century, but there is still no substantial progress in inflation. As a result, almost no one talks about the Phillips curve anymore.</p><p>The low official inflation rate in the United States may be partly attributed to the changes in the method of compiling the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real key truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes and how to deal with it. I used to use words like \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so in my opinion, compared with other areas, we have to give less credit to inflation-related expectations. Of course, this will make today's investors feel more uneasy. After all, inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variables at the moment.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed too much about the prospect of inflation. Of course, I can't copy them all, but I can make a summary. Here's the general background;</p><p>● When the economy was forced to shut down due to the Novel Coronavirus epidemic last year, in order to support the economy and its participants, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Congress took alarming actions to prevent the global economic slowdown from eventually turning into the second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare expenditures to individuals, loans and guarantees to enterprises and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and large-scale bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 is simply a year when you can hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people even earned more in 2020 than they did in 2019. In 2020, there was a situation where income exceeded the trend line and expenditure was lower than the trend line. After all, travel and vacation, eating out, sports competitions, concerts and weddings have all disappeared. The final result of all the above progress is that it is estimated that the balance sheet of American consumers has increased by about $2 trillion in cash.</p><p>● Under the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Ministry of Finance, the financial market was also flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital market to open again. Against the background that the stock market value has expanded by several trillions of dollars and the housing price has also soared, there has been an obvious wealth effect. Compared with this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs indicate that we may be heading for a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of these aforementioned will lead to an accelerated rise in inflation.</p><p>The fear of high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the next few years. At first, people's anxiety mainly came from economic theory, but in 2021, these concerns have begun to be supported by tangible evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Residential prices have soared.</p><p>● The skyrocketing prices of raw materials and components, such as copper, wood and semiconductors, are examples.</p><p>● Smartphones are in short supply.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and fields increase the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase of the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May and 5.4% in June. The three consecutively set new records for the highest reading since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only come from the imbalance between supply and demand inflation caused by the increase of delivery costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened the demand for dollars, which makes the real value of the US dollar lower and leads to the price of imported goods higher.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that recently, Washington seems to have formed a climate of spending trillions of dollars casually without finding a reliable paying mechanism. At the same time, the influence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is increasing day by day, and this theory essentially holds that deficits and debts are nothing to fear. What if these ideas turn out to be untenable in the end?</p><p>On the other hand, many people are trying to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is simply the most popular word at present).</p><p>● Many shortages that lead to high cost of manufactured goods and manufacturing delivery, and ultimately higher prices, can be understood as a natural consequence of economic restart, especially the product of global supply chain restart. It is obviously unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to resume efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any component will lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufacturing products. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, it is naturally short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the price of raw materials or finished goods is by no means determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way, which means that the price does not necessarily need to be \"correct\" and in line with the current environment-this principle is the same as the stock price. In fact, like the stock market, commodity prices are more determined by the psychology of economic participants, and the latter may be excessive or insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in the article \"The Folly of the Federal Reserve\" on July 23 this year: \"The rising commodity prices that lead to increased inflationary pressures are actually the product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only the result of the current situation of supply and demand, but also reveal people's judgment on the future trend of prices. In this regard, lumber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020, when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to May 2021, when almost no one believed that housing supply could catch up with the top of demand. The price of this building essential commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, the price of timber has dropped by more than 60%, and its influence on inflation is no longer the same as not long ago.</p><p>● Obviously, a large part of the inflation people experienced in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the availability of epidemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. Of course, this can only be temporary, and it is impossible for a limited total pool of funds to bring about sustained high expenditures.</p><p>● The additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, which will bring more workers back to the labor market. By then, the pressure on wages and commodity prices caused by labor shortages will also be eased.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, the economic growth rate will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the backlog of consumer demand in 2020 will be basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, recent stimulus, deficit spending and money printing will be less powerful (at least at a slower pace), which means that these factors will weaken as a weight of the economy's volume.</p><p>● Scientific and technological progress, automation and globalization are also expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether the current inflation will be permanent or temporary is still hotly debated. This argument is significant, because higher inflation will undoubtedly bring higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, it seems to me that we can't know the real answer. (Important but unknowable, as mentioned earlier.) There are many learned talents on both sides of the argument, but I still firmly believe that there are no real prophets among them.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the responsibilities of the Federal Reserve is to ensure that inflation is under control. However, the leaders of the Federal Reserve also admit that they are not very sure of their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Fed President Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"So I can't give the exact number or the exact timing, I can only say that we do expect inflation to go lower. Look at my 2022 and 2023 expectations and those of my colleagues at the Federal Open Market Committee, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to go significantly lower towards the target we set. I think the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our goal. \"</p><p>At about the same time, James Bullard, president of St. Louis Fed, also talked in his speech that variables still exist. The media reported on June 18th:</p><p>\"Bullard... said that the U.S. economy is'in a volatile environment, so it is impossible to see the possibility that any path predicted by anyone will eventually become a reality '.\"</p><p>This is exactly the kind of frank rhetoric we need. However, from the above quotation, we can clearly see that the Fed cannot make a \"we have the answer\" statement on inflation-it can even be said that whether the so-called \"answer\" exists is a huge question mark.</p><p><b>What Does the Market Know?</b></p><p>In 2016, the stock market experienced a sharp drop at the beginning of the year. In my opinion, it was actually completely irrational. As a result, I wrote a memo at that time (Going to a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I went to the TV station to participate in the program on the contents of the memo, when everyone talked about whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, I gave a categorical negative answer. I stressed at the time that the market doesn't \"know\" much more about the future than what we all know. This conversation inspired me again, and five days later (January 19th, 2016) I posted another article \"What the Market Knows\". So, what does this mean for today?</p><p>In recent months, signs of rapidly rising inflation have been almost ubiquitous, and the media has become accustomed to linking all occasional declines in the stock market to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 index suffered a very limited decline, and the media the next day, June 19, wrote this:</p><p>\"The U.S. stock market fell back on Friday, with traders keeping an eye on the Federal Reserve, hoping to find clues about the next direction of monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6%, or 533.37 points, on Friday to close at 33,290.08 points, a cumulative decline of 3.45% for the whole week.\"</p><p>\"The S&P 500 index fell 1.3%, or 55.41 points, on Friday to close at 4166.45 points, a cumulative decline of 1.9% throughout the week. The upward trend for three consecutive weeks was interrupted. As big technology stocks also fell, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14030.38 points, down 0.3% throughout the week.\"</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect a rate hike to begin in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. As St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike could even be as early as the second half of 2022, and market sentiment was weighed down again on Friday.\"</p><p>\"ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada (Fawad Razaqzada) said that the decline in U.S. stocks is not unexpected. The stock market has continued to rise since last year, hitting new highs in a row, and has already led the economic recovery process too much. Now, traders are witnessing that the Fed has begun to slowly change the stance of monetary policy, and it is natural to start repricing the'reflation trade '.\"</p><p>\"'The day has finally come,' he commented. 'This sell-off is going to come sooner or later because the market is too rushing.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the so-called Wall Street'fear gauge ', has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at MUFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If the rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more frightened, because it will inevitably mean that the Fed will also be tapered at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any time, media commentators seem to be always fully prepared and ready to make a logical explanation of what happened in the market and why it happened (I always wonder where they got this explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these mean for the future-without exception, of course, using extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme so far in 2021 has been high inflation. As a result, people have repeatedly used inflation, and the resulting fear of high interest rates, to explain most of the changes in the market. For example, the latest economic data reflects that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has therefore turned negative.</p><p>So far, all these rhetoric seem to be reasonable. You may say that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the view of the bond market seems to be very different from that of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior researcher at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18th:</p><p>\"In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury Bond yield fell from 1.509% on Thursday to 1.449% on Friday. The 10-year Treasury Bond yield has been falling for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of more than 7% in May, compared with more than 9% in April before. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience the highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that people don't have to be afraid, and the bond market doesn't seem to be worried. Although bond yields have risen due to Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed a downward trend last week and are still at a low level from a historical perspective. Since the market is not worried, maybe we don't have to worry about it. \"</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation rates and higher interest rates, but the bond market, where the market mainly depends on the interest rate outlook, shows higher prices and lower interest rates, and seems to care nothing about inflation.</p><p>This brings me to gold, which has been regarded as a surge against inflation since ancient times. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market seems to agree with the judgment of the bond market that the outlook for inflation is actually moderate. The media wrote on June 19th:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, continuing Thursday's loss trend, and have now suffered the biggest decline in more than ten months. During the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, recording March 2020. Worst weekly performance since March 13th.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, the price of gold hit an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, most likely because the Federal Reserve is injecting an astonishing amount of money into the economy and markets. Since then, until June 18, 2021, although it seems that everyone's fear of inflation is increasing day by day, the price of gold has fallen to $1,773, down 14% from the high ten months ago.</p><p>So, in June, we witnessed a strange combination-weak stock market performance, reportedly the product of inflation fear, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation continued to be suppressed. And gold, the classic inflation-fighting tool, is also trading lower at a time when stock market investors are described as increasingly worried about inflation. Not only do these markets not know what will happen in the future, but even their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In \"What the Market Knows\" in 2016, I concluded that \"the market can't actually contribute at all\" when to buy and sell securities. I think the same conclusion is equally true on the prospect of various macro events in the future. To understand the thinking process of the market, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help. I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychiatrist\" that year.</p><p>Markets operate like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and respond accordingly, either bullish or bearish. Although markets are mostly good \"observers\" who can react extremely quickly to current changes, sometimes, as the cartoon shows, they also seem to wear positive or negative colored glasses when observing events (and jump left and right between the two). Also, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and is often ignorant of what is going to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, the market's judgment on the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the present but cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when the price performance of a security is different from what we predicted based on our own judgment, we must first wonder whether the market has perceived something enough to subvert our previous judgments and expectations. (Are there occasional exceptions to the market, when it is far-sighted? Look back at the 68% gain of the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020 to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided that It makes sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most critics in recognizing the potential impact of the Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictive statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still very much hope to share them with you. I can learn this thanks to my long-time partner Sheldon Stone, who has worked together for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended to me an article in the New York Times on December 18 titled \"After Guessing All Wrong in 2020, Wall Street's 2021 Guessing Game Begins Again\":</p><p>\"In December 2019, Wall Street's median expectation was that the S&P 500 index would rise by 2.7% in 2020. Given that the actual increase was 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. But what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the epidemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Fed, the Treasury and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus forecast was further lowered to-11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in this special year of 2020, it is obviously difficult for a strategist to foresee the outbreak of the epidemic, and it is also true for him to predict the specific time and intensity of the success of the response policy or the subsequent market rebound. The point is that the article then lists a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is much more significant. I will give a general introduction in combination with the original text below:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts expect the median average annual return of the S&P 500 to be 9.5%, while the actual return is 6.0%. Some people may say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points.' But others will say, 'It's terrible-prophets exaggerate the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number, that is, a downward forecast, in the median return expectation for every year.\" However, the fact is that the U.S. stock market has lost money for six of these years.</p><p>● \"For example, in 2018, the market fell by 6.9%, but the prophets announced that the market would rise by 7.5%, and the gap between the two reached 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets announced that the market would rise by 12.5%, but the reality It fell by 23.3%, and the gap reached nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"All in all, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectation and reality reached an average annual average of 12.9 percentage points, which is equivalent to twice the real average annual return of 6.0% in the stock market during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to that of a weatherman who broadcasts sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the days. \"This is called prediction!\" (Why did you say that the average error was 3.5 percentage points at first, and then 12.9 percentage points? I estimate that the latter is the average value from the 'absolute value' of error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than the reality and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than the reality, then the absolute value of error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that although there are hundreds or even thousands of people doing professional market forecasting work to make a living, the fact is that their median expectations are worthless, and their average expectations are wrong. No matter the good or bad years, they are always wrong. Moreover, in those years when accurate predictions can really make a lot of money, they are always wrong.</p><p><b>The role of the Fed</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macro outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its behavior. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has stretched to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs, and bought a lot of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a huge success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same operations have also helped contribute to the current threat of continued high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities, namely, ensuring sufficient economic growth rate to create jobs, achieve full employment, and ensure that inflation is under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation will cause investors to demand higher interest rates to compensate for the loss of purchasing power. Higher interest rates mean the risk of slowing economic growth.</p><p>Last summer, the economic outlook became positive due to the policies of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and later was strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with the annualized growth rate of real GDP reaching 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue for the rest of 2021 and even 2022. However, in this case, the Fed still maintains the established interest rate and continues its monthly bond purchase operation of $120 billion. Why continue stimulating when the economy is already doing well, and at the risk of pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. At first, they said that they didn't think there would be high inflation, which has of course been overturned by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly stressed that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, continuing to maintain such a vigorous easing policy shows that the Fed is more worried about the possible trouble of economic growth than inflation. A well-informed observer told me that the Fed's idea is that if the economic growth rate returns to the normal state of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagnant inflation is very real. We should not forget two things: First, since the beginning of the new century, the growth rate of GDP has been slow, and everyone has been seriously discussing the topic of \"long-term stagnation and expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its specific speed was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Fed President Jerome Powell's recent testimony before Congress also shows that now that the recovery has been going on for several months, his most important thing is this issue. A July 14 press release from Reuters reads:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Fed President Jerome Powell pledged to'strongly support 'the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process out of the epidemic.\"</p><p>\"In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices, largely due to the restart of the country's post-pandemic phase, would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus its efforts on getting as many people as possible. Back to work.\"</p><p>\"Powell said that given that there are still as many as 7.5 million job losses caused by the epidemic, weakening economic support, such as reducing the US central bank's $120 billion monthly bond purchase operation, is still'still very far away '.\"</p><p>However, even if setbacks in economic growth are indeed the greater risk-and no one dares to go against the Fed and say that this risk does not exist-the risk of inflation, and its various consequences, is still highly realistic. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that their support is too strong than that of the Fed's insufficient stimulus policy. I also believe that although these policies of the Federal Reserve have the possibility of negative side effects, they are indeed right to do so. However, we must have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● On the one hand, higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, which will lead to higher interest rates. On the other hand, to control inflation, we must also resort to monetary policy tightening and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will make investors demand higher returns, leading to lower prices of financial assets and possibly even crashes (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, because most of their income is invested in various necessary options for life, while millions of retirees and others who rely on fixed income People can't escape the huge impact.</p><p>● A higher inflation rate will increase the repayment cost of Treasury Bond, leading to a further expansion of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will make lenders (and foreign buyers) further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, which will eventually lead to a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we keep printing enough dollars in order to pay interest and cover the deficit, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate and even its status as the world reserve currency to be questioned.</p><p>● As historical experience has proved, rapidly rising prices will cause inflation expectations to be implanted in American psychology, eventually rolling into a self-fulfilling snowball, and then the situation will be difficult to clean up.</p><p>Moreover, the loose monetary policy itself alone has a series of negative effects that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The generosity of the Federal Reserve will be regarded as evidence that the so-called \"Fed countermeasures\" do exist, making everyone believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This will lead to a series of consequences, such as moral crisis (investors believe that they can take risks casually without having to bear the consequences), and the failure of market risk aversion mechanism, which threatens the security of the market.</p><p>● Under the environment described above, enterprises and investors are more inclined to use leverage, so that once the economy slows down, its destructive power will be doubled.</p><p>● As the practice of the past 16 months has proved, it is impossible for the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy without increasing the economic plate. So, whose pocket do these extra benefits fall into? The answer is those who own the economy (people who own stocks, businesses and real estate etc). This means that stimulus and the rise in asset prices brought about by stimulus actually further worsen the problem of wealth inequality, which is attracting more and more people's attention at present.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing efforts-including keeping interest rates close to zero-then when the economy slows down again in the future and greater stimulus is needed, the policy tools they can use will be relatively insufficient. For example, in last year's rescue policy package, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements, but if interest rates were already zero before, the Fed would have little room to operate in this respect.</p><p>Some people think that the Fed may be able to perform last year's miracle, create long-term prosperity, avoid recession, or minimize it. Some people hope that low interest rates can keep the market rising forever. Some people believe that the Treasury can issue as many Treasury Bond as it wants, because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of the ultimate buyer. Obviously, many people in the federal government feel that they can spend whatever they want, and at the same time, the increasing deficit and debt will not have any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive me for being stupid, I really have no ability to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are too wishful thinking. It seems that this logic is almost like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayment. I can't tell you what loopholes are hidden in these logic, but I think they definitely exist. Or so to speak, if you want to bet with me that there must be many loopholes here, I will never bet against you.</p><p>In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes proposed that a country could implement deficit fiscal policies when the economy was weak to stimulate demand, revitalize the economy and create much-needed jobs. This is the so-called \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means costless. Even Keynes himself believed that although deficits are a reasonable option to revive the economy, governments must be able to make fiscal surpluses in boom times to offset deficits caused in downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surplus, debt repayment, etc. seem to have been thrown into the garbage heap of history.</p><p>Over the past two decades, the United States has always had a huge and growing deficit, and this momentum seems increasingly difficult to change. Traditional economics believes that this will cause inflation problems, but as mentioned earlier in the article, in the second decade of the new century, the whole decade of deficits did not make any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps, these deficits have only helped support the crumbling economy-without the help of deficit spending, the true performance of the economy can only be worse.</p><p>Anyway, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I said earlier, in 2020, we witnessed trillions of increases in welfare, the Fed's bond purchases, and the rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these are rapidly climbing in proportion to the overall volume of the U.S. economy. What exactly will the consequences be? The future is bound to gradually unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually turn the Federal Reserve into a highly active player in the market (the term \"Greenspan countermeasure\" emerged, and eventually evolved into the present \"Fed countermeasure\"), and in this way he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operation is necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my opinion, it should not be permanent. I would rather see a Federal Reserve that is no longer obsessed with fine-tuning all the time, but sits on the sidelines most of the time, and only takes measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it develops to an extreme situation.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially in its power as a means of optimal resource allocation. In the free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to the places where they can be maximized. However, we no longer have a free capital market, not since the global financial crisis in 2008. The Federal Reserve lowered its Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009, and it has remained almost ever since. They have also tried rate hike, but every time the market responds with turmoil, they are forced to stop there.</p><p>I have to make it clear that I have never felt that I had a better brain than anyone else in the Fed. However, on the whole, I prefer to see the introduction of economic stimulus policies less frequent, let alone less sustained. Perhaps, because of policies, our economic growth rate will be further improved in the next few years, but I don't believe that monetary and fiscal policies can improve the long-term economic growth rate forever, and it is not accompanied by any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still want to see a free capital market, which in my opinion means that interest rates should be \"naturally occurring\". Artificially low interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and heavy use of leverage. Again, I want to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless it absolutely has to.</p><p>In my first memo of the epidemic era, I made the following interpretation of the epidemic;</p><p>\"Because it happened for the first time, no one really knows anything. As Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, pointed out in the webcast, we can only grasp the facts first, and then make reasonable inferences based on the comparison with other virus transmission, and finally form opinions or speculations. Scientists are trying to make intelligent inferences. So far, I don't think the data related to the epidemic is still enough to allow them to turn inferences into facts. \" (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If \"economist\" is used to replace \"scientist\" and \"inflation\" is used to replace \"epidemic\", I think this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts, only the experience of American inflation we have experienced in our own lives as the basis for inference. Therefore, I think that anyone today's remarks about the trend of inflation in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I prefer to be direct and call them \"speculations\".</p><p>I have written before that I often come across some important materials when the memo is almost finished. This time, I want to quote here a passage related to Lipsic's point of view. This text comes from the second quarter market letter released by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an amazing performance record, on July 9th:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of predicting the prophet. Most of the time, the market's expectation for the future is not higher than that of flipping a coin. Of course, we can look for an environment similar to the current one from past records and use analogy to predict, but the success or failure of this practice actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the method we cite has real dominance. Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it is also a mutual difference between success and failure, and in the end it is still just the probability of flipping a coin. \"</p><p>The following quote from former GE executive Ian Wilson gives an excellent summary of the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you can't change the most fundamental fact that all you know is about the past, and all you have to decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this doesn't mean that it's impossible for people to make strong views on future inflation now. As I wrote seventeen years ago:</p><p>\"When describing members of the 'I know' school, the key word is' confidence '. Meanwhile, for the' I don't know 'school, especially when dealing with the macro future, their counterpart is' caution '. Followers of this school believe that people can't predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best to invest in the absence of awareness.\" (Us and Them, May 7, 2004)</p><p>So, what does this mean for today's investor behavior? If we can't know for sure whether today's inflation will be a flash in the pan or will stay with us for a long time, will investors have nothing to do? The answer is actually in the title of a memo in 2001-\"You can't predict, but you can prepare\". No one can confidently predict whether we will enter an era of inflation, but if that is the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly repeat some of my views related to market exposure when I look back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo \"The Thing of Value\", I talked about my own personality traits, early life, and the successful discovery of unsustainable financial innovations and market excess that made me a knee-jerk skeptic. This was discovered by my son Andrew and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated deeply with me.</p><p>In the past, I may keep an eye on today's high valuations and various examples of high-risk behavior, warning that there is a bubble in the market and consolidation is coming. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that although all the following exists objectively, they are not enough reasons for us to drastically reduce our market exposure;</p><p>● Based on inflation expectations that may or may not materialize,</p><p>● Encountering some very strong opposing opinions, and...</p><p>● Since the most important principle of investing is that we must focus on the long term, unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing, we should continue to fully invest.</p><p>Finally, I want to talk briefly about the current water level of the market. In the four or five years before 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a bubble of high-yield bonds. My answer is; \"No, what we are experiencing is actually an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not an exaggeration, but the point is that all bonds are overpriced because of the super low interest rates.</p><p>Today, we have heard the so-called \"bubble of all things\" again. As at the time, my view is that most assets are relatively reasonably priced if they are only referenced to each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic bottoms, isn't it logical that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in its early 20s, which means that the \"profit rate\" (the indicator formed by P/E inversion) is 4% to 5%. In my opinion, comparing this with the yield of about 1.25% on the 10-year Treasury Bond is relatively reasonable. If P/E contracts to the long-term average of 16 since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is too high relative to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is enough to show that asset prices are still reasonable relative to interest rates.</p><p>Of course, it is one thing to say that asset prices are reasonable relative to interest rates, but another thing to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to remain, and high prices will continue to remain or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of Great Inflation. In fact, the Fed's rate hike is by no means unimaginable. Whether they are doing so to ensure that the economy does not overheat, because high inflation rates require higher interest rates, or both, this is very possible. Although the possibility of higher interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) will make everyone feel uneasy, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational with interest rates as a reference.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say such simple and clear words as \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current point of view is actually just a combination of radical and defensive postures according to the appropriate proportion. Considering the aforementioned complicated situations, Oaktree Capital currently maintains a balance between the two postures, which is also in line with our normal position (at the beginning of 2020, we were highly inclined to be defensive).</p><p>Having said that, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on inflation risks. If investors are more inclined to avoid risks, or are more worried about the temporary decline (relatively less worried about the corresponding losses they may suffer if inflation is not implemented), then they can consider increasing their investment in the following aspects:</p><p>● Floating rate bonds;</p><p>● Those enterprises that have roughly fixed costs, or have the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and have the ability to integrate inflation into prices (such as some landlords); And...</p><p>● Areas where profit growth has the potential to outpace price increases.</p><p>Standing at the moment, if you want to prepare for a high inflation environment, there are always ways. In my opinion, it is completely reasonable for investors to pay attention to the possibility of high inflation. However, everyone must not fight against their asset allocation because of those macro expectations that may or may not be reliable.</p><p>July 29, 2021</p>","source":"txmg","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>A 10,000-word article from the founder of Oaktree Capital! Talking about inflation, Fed policy and U.S. stocks</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 12.5px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nA 10,000-word article from the founder of Oaktree Capital! Talking about inflation, Fed policy and U.S. stocks\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"head\">\n<strong class=\"h-name small\"> 腾讯美股</strong><span class=\"h-time small\">2021-07-31 08:22</span>\n</p>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p><i>Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, said that the Fed's rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure that the economy does not overheat, because high inflation rates require higher interest rates, or both. Yes, this is a very possible thing. Although the possibility of higher interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) will make everyone feel uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational with interest rates as a reference.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, the founder of Oaktree Capital, is the number one philosopher in the investment world. His Oaktree Capital manages $153 billion in assets. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, which can be called classics. The following is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions, namely, it must be important and knowable at the same time. -Warren Buffett</p><p>Regular readers of my memo know that both Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macro expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six major investment philosophies is simply that we don't make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own company doesn't employ economists, and we rarely invite external economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for this is actually very simple. To paraphrase Buffett's famous saying, we firmly believe that the macro future is unknowable. Or, it can be said that macro forecasting is another field, just like investing itself-it is very easy to be as correct as the public, but it is extremely difficult to be more correct. The so-called unanimous expectation can't give you any advantage. If investors want to obtain returns above the average level, they must have knowledge advantages and be more correct than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that in view of this, they must make their own macro forecasts and invest accordingly. Those successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, often make statements related to macro expectations, even if people can find little evidence of any connection between their investment success and their accurate macro expectations. Nevertheless, due to the huge influence of changes in the macro situation, many investors are convinced that it is absolutely irresponsible to ignore the macro when investing. However...</p><p>● Most macro expectations can actually be classified into two categories, either consensus expectations that are not helpful, or expectations that are different but rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I have met, I can count on one hand those who can make successful investment decisions based on macro expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they just buy when they feel that they have found a discount, and sell when they feel that they are overvalued, basically regardless of the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you don't really know much about the macro future, but in these fields full of major variables, agnosticism is probably better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is my family word? Then let's hear what the pundits have to say.</p><p>It is scary to think that you may not know something, but overall, it is even more scary if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what is happening.</p><p>-Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't know, but the things you firmly believe you know, but actually don't.\"</p><p>-Mark Twain</p><p>Speaking of this, I'm reminded of a topic about the performance records of the Prophets, or perhaps their lack of performance records. It was in the 1970s, when an elder once told me, \"The so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never marks the market.\" This definition still looks so vivid today. When an economist or macro strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he doesn't say what percentage of his previous recession expectations have been fulfilled within a year. As we all know, investment managers must provide their historical performance records at any time, otherwise investors will not consider him at all. In that case, why should we trust macro prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I want to point out that the same comment actually applies to most investors. We rarely hear these people say that they have no view of the macro future at all, or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions to become a successful investor is to know how to evaluate yourself. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you are investing based on your own macro judgments, how helpful can these judgments be overall? Should you continue to invest according to them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>This is my personal opinion on the so-called defect of expectation. In the rest of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why do I still talk about this topic? It is understandable to reverse Buffett's famous quote quoted at the beginning of the article-although the macro future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the Internet bubble burst in 2000, I found that the market at that time was mainly reacting to events surrounding some specific enterprises and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market seemed to be mainly dominated by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Ministry of Finance, and international events. This became clearer after the global financial crisis in 2008. That's why I'm writing this memo on a subject that I seldom touch.</p><p>Below, I will try to list those important macro issues, discuss them, make an outlook, and finally put forward some relevant suggestions. Here, it is also necessary for me to clarify my conviction that all of us have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's guidelines say; \"It's one thing for us to have our own claims, but it's another thing for us to assume that claims are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such a thing.\"</p><p><b>Inflation</b></p><p>At the moment of writing this article, the most interesting issue at the macro level of the US economy is undoubtedly inflation. For the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and Congress have been opening the head of the money supply wide open to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. Therefore, there are three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospect of a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have risen above the sky; Third, the fear of inflation is growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records show that these policies, as described earlier, will most likely cause the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger economy than normal;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and, as a result, higher wages;</p><p>● More money chasing goods with limited supplies;</p><p>● Commodity price increases (i.e. inflation) have accelerated;</p><p>● Monetary policy is tightening to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and variables in the operation of the economy, the orthodox idea holds that the above general process model is still highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing those important variables contained in inflation thinking.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined me to be who I am today was that I was investing in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation. The inflation rate in the United States remained high from the 1970s to 1982. The two chief economists known as \"Dr. Doom\" and \"Dr. Dark\" (which title belongs to which I can't remember exactly), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often make depressing speeches, claiming that they don't know what causes terrible inflation, let alone how to control it. Everyone was helpless about inflation until Federal Reserve President Paul Volcker finally solved the problem with substantial rate hike, and his approach also caused the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what is our experience in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set a healthy inflation rate of 2% as their goal, but no one can achieve this goal. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is considerable, the money supply is expanding rapidly through the quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historic lows, all of which are extremely inflationary from the traditional perspective, the latter has always been absent.</p><p>● Finally, in the past sixty years or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, and the essence of the latter is to assume that there is a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation-the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more expensive workers will be when bargaining with employers, the faster wages will increase, and the greater the price increase of consumer goods. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline in the past decade, and finally reached the lowest point in half a century, but there is still no substantial progress in inflation. As a result, almost no one talks about the Phillips curve anymore.</p><p>The low official inflation rate in the United States may be partly attributed to the changes in the method of compiling the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real key truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes and how to deal with it. I used to use words like \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so in my opinion, compared with other areas, we have to give less credit to inflation-related expectations. Of course, this will make today's investors feel more uneasy. After all, inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variables at the moment.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed too much about the prospect of inflation. Of course, I can't copy them all, but I can make a summary. Here's the general background;</p><p>● When the economy was forced to shut down due to the Novel Coronavirus epidemic last year, in order to support the economy and its participants, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Congress took alarming actions to prevent the global economic slowdown from eventually turning into the second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare expenditures to individuals, loans and guarantees to enterprises and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and large-scale bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 is simply a year when you can hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people even earned more in 2020 than they did in 2019. In 2020, there was a situation where income exceeded the trend line and expenditure was lower than the trend line. After all, travel and vacation, eating out, sports competitions, concerts and weddings have all disappeared. The final result of all the above progress is that it is estimated that the balance sheet of American consumers has increased by about $2 trillion in cash.</p><p>● Under the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Ministry of Finance, the financial market was also flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital market to open again. Against the background that the stock market value has expanded by several trillions of dollars and the housing price has also soared, there has been an obvious wealth effect. Compared with this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs indicate that we may be heading for a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of these aforementioned will lead to an accelerated rise in inflation.</p><p>The fear of high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the next few years. At first, people's anxiety mainly came from economic theory, but in 2021, these concerns have begun to be supported by tangible evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Residential prices have soared.</p><p>● The skyrocketing prices of raw materials and components, such as copper, wood and semiconductors, are examples.</p><p>● Smartphones are in short supply.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and fields increase the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase of the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May and 5.4% in June. The three consecutively set new records for the highest reading since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only come from the imbalance between supply and demand inflation caused by the increase of delivery costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened the demand for dollars, which makes the real value of the US dollar lower and leads to the price of imported goods higher.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that recently, Washington seems to have formed a climate of spending trillions of dollars casually without finding a reliable paying mechanism. At the same time, the influence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is increasing day by day, and this theory essentially holds that deficits and debts are nothing to fear. What if these ideas turn out to be untenable in the end?</p><p>On the other hand, many people are trying to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is simply the most popular word at present).</p><p>● Many shortages that lead to high cost of manufactured goods and manufacturing delivery, and ultimately higher prices, can be understood as a natural consequence of economic restart, especially the product of global supply chain restart. It is obviously unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to resume efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any component will lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufacturing products. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, it is naturally short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the price of raw materials or finished goods is by no means determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way, which means that the price does not necessarily need to be \"correct\" and in line with the current environment-this principle is the same as the stock price. In fact, like the stock market, commodity prices are more determined by the psychology of economic participants, and the latter may be excessive or insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in the article \"The Folly of the Federal Reserve\" on July 23 this year: \"The rising commodity prices that lead to increased inflationary pressures are actually the product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only the result of the current situation of supply and demand, but also reveal people's judgment on the future trend of prices. In this regard, lumber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020, when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to May 2021, when almost no one believed that housing supply could catch up with the top of demand. The price of this building essential commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, the price of timber has dropped by more than 60%, and its influence on inflation is no longer the same as not long ago.</p><p>● Obviously, a large part of the inflation people experienced in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the availability of epidemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. Of course, this can only be temporary, and it is impossible for a limited total pool of funds to bring about sustained high expenditures.</p><p>● The additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, which will bring more workers back to the labor market. By then, the pressure on wages and commodity prices caused by labor shortages will also be eased.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, the economic growth rate will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the backlog of consumer demand in 2020 will be basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, recent stimulus, deficit spending and money printing will be less powerful (at least at a slower pace), which means that these factors will weaken as a weight of the economy's volume.</p><p>● Scientific and technological progress, automation and globalization are also expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether the current inflation will be permanent or temporary is still hotly debated. This argument is significant, because higher inflation will undoubtedly bring higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, it seems to me that we can't know the real answer. (Important but unknowable, as mentioned earlier.) There are many learned talents on both sides of the argument, but I still firmly believe that there are no real prophets among them.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the responsibilities of the Federal Reserve is to ensure that inflation is under control. However, the leaders of the Federal Reserve also admit that they are not very sure of their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Fed President Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"So I can't give the exact number or the exact timing, I can only say that we do expect inflation to go lower. Look at my 2022 and 2023 expectations and those of my colleagues at the Federal Open Market Committee, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to go significantly lower towards the target we set. I think the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our goal. \"</p><p>At about the same time, James Bullard, president of St. Louis Fed, also talked in his speech that variables still exist. The media reported on June 18th:</p><p>\"Bullard... said that the U.S. economy is'in a volatile environment, so it is impossible to see the possibility that any path predicted by anyone will eventually become a reality '.\"</p><p>This is exactly the kind of frank rhetoric we need. However, from the above quotation, we can clearly see that the Fed cannot make a \"we have the answer\" statement on inflation-it can even be said that whether the so-called \"answer\" exists is a huge question mark.</p><p><b>What Does the Market Know?</b></p><p>In 2016, the stock market experienced a sharp drop at the beginning of the year. In my opinion, it was actually completely irrational. As a result, I wrote a memo at that time (Going to a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I went to the TV station to participate in the program on the contents of the memo, when everyone talked about whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, I gave a categorical negative answer. I stressed at the time that the market doesn't \"know\" much more about the future than what we all know. This conversation inspired me again, and five days later (January 19th, 2016) I posted another article \"What the Market Knows\". So, what does this mean for today?</p><p>In recent months, signs of rapidly rising inflation have been almost ubiquitous, and the media has become accustomed to linking all occasional declines in the stock market to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 index suffered a very limited decline, and the media the next day, June 19, wrote this:</p><p>\"The U.S. stock market fell back on Friday, with traders keeping an eye on the Federal Reserve, hoping to find clues about the next direction of monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6%, or 533.37 points, on Friday to close at 33,290.08 points, a cumulative decline of 3.45% for the whole week.\"</p><p>\"The S&P 500 index fell 1.3%, or 55.41 points, on Friday to close at 4166.45 points, a cumulative decline of 1.9% throughout the week. The upward trend for three consecutive weeks was interrupted. As big technology stocks also fell, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14030.38 points, down 0.3% throughout the week.\"</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect a rate hike to begin in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. As St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike could even be as early as the second half of 2022, and market sentiment was weighed down again on Friday.\"</p><p>\"ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada (Fawad Razaqzada) said that the decline in U.S. stocks is not unexpected. The stock market has continued to rise since last year, hitting new highs in a row, and has already led the economic recovery process too much. Now, traders are witnessing that the Fed has begun to slowly change the stance of monetary policy, and it is natural to start repricing the'reflation trade '.\"</p><p>\"'The day has finally come,' he commented. 'This sell-off is going to come sooner or later because the market is too rushing.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the so-called Wall Street'fear gauge ', has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at MUFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If the rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more frightened, because it will inevitably mean that the Fed will also be tapered at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any time, media commentators seem to be always fully prepared and ready to make a logical explanation of what happened in the market and why it happened (I always wonder where they got this explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these mean for the future-without exception, of course, using extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme so far in 2021 has been high inflation. As a result, people have repeatedly used inflation, and the resulting fear of high interest rates, to explain most of the changes in the market. For example, the latest economic data reflects that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has therefore turned negative.</p><p>So far, all these rhetoric seem to be reasonable. You may say that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the view of the bond market seems to be very different from that of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior researcher at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18th:</p><p>\"In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury Bond yield fell from 1.509% on Thursday to 1.449% on Friday. The 10-year Treasury Bond yield has been falling for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of more than 7% in May, compared with more than 9% in April before. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience the highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that people don't have to be afraid, and the bond market doesn't seem to be worried. Although bond yields have risen due to Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed a downward trend last week and are still at a low level from a historical perspective. Since the market is not worried, maybe we don't have to worry about it. \"</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation rates and higher interest rates, but the bond market, where the market mainly depends on the interest rate outlook, shows higher prices and lower interest rates, and seems to care nothing about inflation.</p><p>This brings me to gold, which has been regarded as a surge against inflation since ancient times. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market seems to agree with the judgment of the bond market that the outlook for inflation is actually moderate. The media wrote on June 19th:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, continuing Thursday's loss trend, and have now suffered the biggest decline in more than ten months. During the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, recording March 2020. Worst weekly performance since March 13th.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, the price of gold hit an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, most likely because the Federal Reserve is injecting an astonishing amount of money into the economy and markets. Since then, until June 18, 2021, although it seems that everyone's fear of inflation is increasing day by day, the price of gold has fallen to $1,773, down 14% from the high ten months ago.</p><p>So, in June, we witnessed a strange combination-weak stock market performance, reportedly the product of inflation fear, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation continued to be suppressed. And gold, the classic inflation-fighting tool, is also trading lower at a time when stock market investors are described as increasingly worried about inflation. Not only do these markets not know what will happen in the future, but even their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In \"What the Market Knows\" in 2016, I concluded that \"the market can't actually contribute at all\" when to buy and sell securities. I think the same conclusion is equally true on the prospect of various macro events in the future. To understand the thinking process of the market, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help. I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychiatrist\" that year.</p><p>Markets operate like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and respond accordingly, either bullish or bearish. Although markets are mostly good \"observers\" who can react extremely quickly to current changes, sometimes, as the cartoon shows, they also seem to wear positive or negative colored glasses when observing events (and jump left and right between the two). Also, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and is often ignorant of what is going to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, the market's judgment on the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the present but cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when the price performance of a security is different from what we predicted based on our own judgment, we must first wonder whether the market has perceived something enough to subvert our previous judgments and expectations. (Are there occasional exceptions to the market, when it is far-sighted? Look back at the 68% gain of the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020 to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided that It makes sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most critics in recognizing the potential impact of the Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictive statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still very much hope to share them with you. I can learn this thanks to my long-time partner Sheldon Stone, who has worked together for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended to me an article in the New York Times on December 18 titled \"After Guessing All Wrong in 2020, Wall Street's 2021 Guessing Game Begins Again\":</p><p>\"In December 2019, Wall Street's median expectation was that the S&P 500 index would rise by 2.7% in 2020. Given that the actual increase was 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. But what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the epidemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Fed, the Treasury and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus forecast was further lowered to-11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in this special year of 2020, it is obviously difficult for a strategist to foresee the outbreak of the epidemic, and it is also true for him to predict the specific time and intensity of the success of the response policy or the subsequent market rebound. The point is that the article then lists a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is much more significant. I will give a general introduction in combination with the original text below:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts expect the median average annual return of the S&P 500 to be 9.5%, while the actual return is 6.0%. Some people may say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points.' But others will say, 'It's terrible-prophets exaggerate the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number, that is, a downward forecast, in the median return expectation for every year.\" However, the fact is that the U.S. stock market has lost money for six of these years.</p><p>● \"For example, in 2018, the market fell by 6.9%, but the prophets announced that the market would rise by 7.5%, and the gap between the two reached 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets announced that the market would rise by 12.5%, but the reality It fell by 23.3%, and the gap reached nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"All in all, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectation and reality reached an average annual average of 12.9 percentage points, which is equivalent to twice the real average annual return of 6.0% in the stock market during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to that of a weatherman who broadcasts sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the days. \"This is called prediction!\" (Why did you say that the average error was 3.5 percentage points at first, and then 12.9 percentage points? I estimate that the latter is the average value from the 'absolute value' of error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than the reality and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than the reality, then the absolute value of error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that although there are hundreds or even thousands of people doing professional market forecasting work to make a living, the fact is that their median expectations are worthless, and their average expectations are wrong. No matter the good or bad years, they are always wrong. Moreover, in those years when accurate predictions can really make a lot of money, they are always wrong.</p><p><b>The role of the Fed</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macro outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its behavior. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has stretched to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs, and bought a lot of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a huge success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same operations have also helped contribute to the current threat of continued high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities, namely, ensuring sufficient economic growth rate to create jobs, achieve full employment, and ensure that inflation is under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation will cause investors to demand higher interest rates to compensate for the loss of purchasing power. Higher interest rates mean the risk of slowing economic growth.</p><p>Last summer, the economic outlook became positive due to the policies of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and later was strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with the annualized growth rate of real GDP reaching 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue for the rest of 2021 and even 2022. However, in this case, the Fed still maintains the established interest rate and continues its monthly bond purchase operation of $120 billion. Why continue stimulating when the economy is already doing well, and at the risk of pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. At first, they said that they didn't think there would be high inflation, which has of course been overturned by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly stressed that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, continuing to maintain such a vigorous easing policy shows that the Fed is more worried about the possible trouble of economic growth than inflation. A well-informed observer told me that the Fed's idea is that if the economic growth rate returns to the normal state of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagnant inflation is very real. We should not forget two things: First, since the beginning of the new century, the growth rate of GDP has been slow, and everyone has been seriously discussing the topic of \"long-term stagnation and expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its specific speed was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Fed President Jerome Powell's recent testimony before Congress also shows that now that the recovery has been going on for several months, his most important thing is this issue. A July 14 press release from Reuters reads:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Fed President Jerome Powell pledged to'strongly support 'the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process out of the epidemic.\"</p><p>\"In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices, largely due to the restart of the country's post-pandemic phase, would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus its efforts on getting as many people as possible. Back to work.\"</p><p>\"Powell said that given that there are still as many as 7.5 million job losses caused by the epidemic, weakening economic support, such as reducing the US central bank's $120 billion monthly bond purchase operation, is still'still very far away '.\"</p><p>However, even if setbacks in economic growth are indeed the greater risk-and no one dares to go against the Fed and say that this risk does not exist-the risk of inflation, and its various consequences, is still highly realistic. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that their support is too strong than that of the Fed's insufficient stimulus policy. I also believe that although these policies of the Federal Reserve have the possibility of negative side effects, they are indeed right to do so. However, we must have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● On the one hand, higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, which will lead to higher interest rates. On the other hand, to control inflation, we must also resort to monetary policy tightening and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will make investors demand higher returns, leading to lower prices of financial assets and possibly even crashes (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, because most of their income is invested in various necessary options for life, while millions of retirees and others who rely on fixed income People can't escape the huge impact.</p><p>● A higher inflation rate will increase the repayment cost of Treasury Bond, leading to a further expansion of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will make lenders (and foreign buyers) further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, which will eventually lead to a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we keep printing enough dollars in order to pay interest and cover the deficit, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate and even its status as the world reserve currency to be questioned.</p><p>● As historical experience has proved, rapidly rising prices will cause inflation expectations to be implanted in American psychology, eventually rolling into a self-fulfilling snowball, and then the situation will be difficult to clean up.</p><p>Moreover, the loose monetary policy itself alone has a series of negative effects that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The generosity of the Federal Reserve will be regarded as evidence that the so-called \"Fed countermeasures\" do exist, making everyone believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This will lead to a series of consequences, such as moral crisis (investors believe that they can take risks casually without having to bear the consequences), and the failure of market risk aversion mechanism, which threatens the security of the market.</p><p>● Under the environment described above, enterprises and investors are more inclined to use leverage, so that once the economy slows down, its destructive power will be doubled.</p><p>● As the practice of the past 16 months has proved, it is impossible for the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy without increasing the economic plate. So, whose pocket do these extra benefits fall into? The answer is those who own the economy (people who own stocks, businesses and real estate etc). This means that stimulus and the rise in asset prices brought about by stimulus actually further worsen the problem of wealth inequality, which is attracting more and more people's attention at present.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing efforts-including keeping interest rates close to zero-then when the economy slows down again in the future and greater stimulus is needed, the policy tools they can use will be relatively insufficient. For example, in last year's rescue policy package, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements, but if interest rates were already zero before, the Fed would have little room to operate in this respect.</p><p>Some people think that the Fed may be able to perform last year's miracle, create long-term prosperity, avoid recession, or minimize it. Some people hope that low interest rates can keep the market rising forever. Some people believe that the Treasury can issue as many Treasury Bond as it wants, because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of the ultimate buyer. Obviously, many people in the federal government feel that they can spend whatever they want, and at the same time, the increasing deficit and debt will not have any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive me for being stupid, I really have no ability to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are too wishful thinking. It seems that this logic is almost like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayment. I can't tell you what loopholes are hidden in these logic, but I think they definitely exist. Or so to speak, if you want to bet with me that there must be many loopholes here, I will never bet against you.</p><p>In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes proposed that a country could implement deficit fiscal policies when the economy was weak to stimulate demand, revitalize the economy and create much-needed jobs. This is the so-called \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means costless. Even Keynes himself believed that although deficits are a reasonable option to revive the economy, governments must be able to make fiscal surpluses in boom times to offset deficits caused in downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surplus, debt repayment, etc. seem to have been thrown into the garbage heap of history.</p><p>Over the past two decades, the United States has always had a huge and growing deficit, and this momentum seems increasingly difficult to change. Traditional economics believes that this will cause inflation problems, but as mentioned earlier in the article, in the second decade of the new century, the whole decade of deficits did not make any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps, these deficits have only helped support the crumbling economy-without the help of deficit spending, the true performance of the economy can only be worse.</p><p>Anyway, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I said earlier, in 2020, we witnessed trillions of increases in welfare, the Fed's bond purchases, and the rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these are rapidly climbing in proportion to the overall volume of the U.S. economy. What exactly will the consequences be? The future is bound to gradually unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually turn the Federal Reserve into a highly active player in the market (the term \"Greenspan countermeasure\" emerged, and eventually evolved into the present \"Fed countermeasure\"), and in this way he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operation is necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my opinion, it should not be permanent. I would rather see a Federal Reserve that is no longer obsessed with fine-tuning all the time, but sits on the sidelines most of the time, and only takes measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it develops to an extreme situation.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially in its power as a means of optimal resource allocation. In the free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to the places where they can be maximized. However, we no longer have a free capital market, not since the global financial crisis in 2008. The Federal Reserve lowered its Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009, and it has remained almost ever since. They have also tried rate hike, but every time the market responds with turmoil, they are forced to stop there.</p><p>I have to make it clear that I have never felt that I had a better brain than anyone else in the Fed. However, on the whole, I prefer to see the introduction of economic stimulus policies less frequent, let alone less sustained. Perhaps, because of policies, our economic growth rate will be further improved in the next few years, but I don't believe that monetary and fiscal policies can improve the long-term economic growth rate forever, and it is not accompanied by any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still want to see a free capital market, which in my opinion means that interest rates should be \"naturally occurring\". Artificially low interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and heavy use of leverage. Again, I want to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless it absolutely has to.</p><p>In my first memo of the epidemic era, I made the following interpretation of the epidemic;</p><p>\"Because it happened for the first time, no one really knows anything. As Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, pointed out in the webcast, we can only grasp the facts first, and then make reasonable inferences based on the comparison with other virus transmission, and finally form opinions or speculations. Scientists are trying to make intelligent inferences. So far, I don't think the data related to the epidemic is still enough to allow them to turn inferences into facts. \" (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If \"economist\" is used to replace \"scientist\" and \"inflation\" is used to replace \"epidemic\", I think this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts, only the experience of American inflation we have experienced in our own lives as the basis for inference. Therefore, I think that anyone today's remarks about the trend of inflation in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I prefer to be direct and call them \"speculations\".</p><p>I have written before that I often come across some important materials when the memo is almost finished. This time, I want to quote here a passage related to Lipsic's point of view. This text comes from the second quarter market letter released by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an amazing performance record, on July 9th:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of predicting the prophet. Most of the time, the market's expectation for the future is not higher than that of flipping a coin. Of course, we can look for an environment similar to the current one from past records and use analogy to predict, but the success or failure of this practice actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the method we cite has real dominance. Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it is also a mutual difference between success and failure, and in the end it is still just the probability of flipping a coin. \"</p><p>The following quote from former GE executive Ian Wilson gives an excellent summary of the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you can't change the most fundamental fact that all you know is about the past, and all you have to decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this doesn't mean that it's impossible for people to make strong views on future inflation now. As I wrote seventeen years ago:</p><p>\"When describing members of the 'I know' school, the key word is' confidence '. Meanwhile, for the' I don't know 'school, especially when dealing with the macro future, their counterpart is' caution '. Followers of this school believe that people can't predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best to invest in the absence of awareness.\" (Us and Them, May 7, 2004)</p><p>So, what does this mean for today's investor behavior? If we can't know for sure whether today's inflation will be a flash in the pan or will stay with us for a long time, will investors have nothing to do? The answer is actually in the title of a memo in 2001-\"You can't predict, but you can prepare\". No one can confidently predict whether we will enter an era of inflation, but if that is the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly repeat some of my views related to market exposure when I look back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo \"The Thing of Value\", I talked about my own personality traits, early life, and the successful discovery of unsustainable financial innovations and market excess that made me a knee-jerk skeptic. This was discovered by my son Andrew and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated deeply with me.</p><p>In the past, I may keep an eye on today's high valuations and various examples of high-risk behavior, warning that there is a bubble in the market and consolidation is coming. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that although all the following exists objectively, they are not enough reasons for us to drastically reduce our market exposure;</p><p>● Based on inflation expectations that may or may not materialize,</p><p>● Encountering some very strong opposing opinions, and...</p><p>● Since the most important principle of investing is that we must focus on the long term, unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing, we should continue to fully invest.</p><p>Finally, I want to talk briefly about the current water level of the market. In the four or five years before 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a bubble of high-yield bonds. My answer is; \"No, what we are experiencing is actually an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not an exaggeration, but the point is that all bonds are overpriced because of the super low interest rates.</p><p>Today, we have heard the so-called \"bubble of all things\" again. As at the time, my view is that most assets are relatively reasonably priced if they are only referenced to each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic bottoms, isn't it logical that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in its early 20s, which means that the \"profit rate\" (the indicator formed by P/E inversion) is 4% to 5%. In my opinion, comparing this with the yield of about 1.25% on the 10-year Treasury Bond is relatively reasonable. If P/E contracts to the long-term average of 16 since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is too high relative to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is enough to show that asset prices are still reasonable relative to interest rates.</p><p>Of course, it is one thing to say that asset prices are reasonable relative to interest rates, but another thing to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to remain, and high prices will continue to remain or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of Great Inflation. In fact, the Fed's rate hike is by no means unimaginable. Whether they are doing so to ensure that the economy does not overheat, because high inflation rates require higher interest rates, or both, this is very possible. Although the possibility of higher interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) will make everyone feel uneasy, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational with interest rates as a reference.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say such simple and clear words as \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current point of view is actually just a combination of radical and defensive postures according to the appropriate proportion. Considering the aforementioned complicated situations, Oaktree Capital currently maintains a balance between the two postures, which is also in line with our normal position (at the beginning of 2020, we were highly inclined to be defensive).</p><p>Having said that, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on inflation risks. If investors are more inclined to avoid risks, or are more worried about the temporary decline (relatively less worried about the corresponding losses they may suffer if inflation is not implemented), then they can consider increasing their investment in the following aspects:</p><p>● Floating rate bonds;</p><p>● Those enterprises that have roughly fixed costs, or have the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and have the ability to integrate inflation into prices (such as some landlords); And...</p><p>● Areas where profit growth has the potential to outpace price increases.</p><p>Standing at the moment, if you want to prepare for a high inflation environment, there are always ways. In my opinion, it is completely reasonable for investors to pay attention to the possibility of high inflation. However, everyone must not fight against their asset allocation because of those macro expectations that may or may not be reliable.</p><p>July 29, 2021</p>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n<p> source：<a href=\"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KsUpzNPh553sC98fp83Q3g\"> 腾讯美股</a></p>\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555","relate_stocks":{".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KsUpzNPh553sC98fp83Q3g","is_english":false,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1112061733","content_text":"橡树资本创始人马克斯表示，美联储加息绝非不可想象的事情，不管他们是为了确保经济不至于过热，还是因为高通胀率要求更高利率的缘故而这么做，又或者是两者兼而有之，这都是很可能的事情。虽然利率走高（资产价格相应走低）的可能性会让所有人都感到不安，但是在他看来，至少当下，以利率为参照，资产价格绝对算不上非理性。\n\n\n橡树资本创始人马克斯（Howard Marks）堪称是投资世界的头号哲人，他旗下的橡树资本管理着1530亿美元资产。从1990年至今，他已经撰写和发布了130多篇备忘录，堪称篇篇经典。以下是其最新的备忘录全文：\n一条可取的信息必须满足两个条件，即必须是重要的，同时又是可知的。——巴菲特（Warren Buffett）\n我备忘录的老读者们都知道，橡树资本和我自己的投资哲学，都对宏观预期抱着高度怀疑的态度。事实上，橡树资本的六大投资哲学理念当中，有一条干脆就是，我们不根据宏观预测进行投资决策。我们自己的公司没有雇用经济学家，而且也极少邀请外部的经济学家来和我们分享他们的看法。\n如此行事的原因其实非常简单，套用巴菲特的名言来说就是，我们坚信宏观未来是不可知的。或者也可以说，宏观预测是另外一种领域，就如同投资本身一样——要做到和大众一样正确是非常容易的，但是要做到更正确却极为困难。所谓一致预期，给不了你任何的优势，投资者想要获得超过平均水平的回报，就必须具备知识优势，做到比其他人更正确才行。\n许多投资者都认为，有鉴于此，他们就必须做出自己的宏观预测，并且据以进行投资。那些成功的选股专家，或者是房地产投资人，也经常会发表宏观预期相关的声明，哪怕人们找不到什么证据显示他们的投资成功和其准确的宏观预期之间有什么联系。尽管如此，由于宏观局面的变化具有巨大的影响力，便使得许多投资者确信，在投资时无视宏观绝对是一种不负责任的做法。然而……\n● 大多数宏观预期其实都可以归为两类，要么是没有什么帮助的一致预期，要么是与众不同，但是却极少正确的预期。\n● 我所遇到的投资人当中，能够根据宏观预期做出成功投资决定的，一只手就可以数得过来。其他多数人都是采用自下而上的研究方法，每次只评估一个具体的投资目标。简单来说，他们就是在觉得自己发现了折扣时买进，在自己觉得高估时卖出，基本上都不会去管什么宏观前景。\n● 诚然，要说服自己，甚至别人去相信你们对于宏观未来其实并没有什么了解，这的确不容易，但是在这些充满重大变数的领域，不可知论恐怕总好过自欺欺人。\n你觉得这是我的一家之言吗？那么就来听听权威人士是怎么说的。\n想到自己可能并不了解某事固然会让你觉得害怕，但是总体而言，如果这个世界是由一群有自己的信念，而且准确地知道正在发生什么的人控制着，其实才更可怕。\n——特沃斯基（Amos Tversky）\n“真正会让你陷入麻烦的，往往并不是那些你不了解的事物，而是那些你坚信自己了解，但其实并不了解的事物。”\n——马克·吐温（Mark Twain）\n说到这里，我想起了一个关于预言家们表现记录的话题，或者也可以说是他们缺乏表现记录的话题。那是在20世纪70年代，一位长者曾经告诉我，“所谓经济学家，其实就是从不盯市的投资组合经理人”，这样的定义到今天，看上去依然是那么鲜活。当一位经济学家或者宏观策略师宣称，“我认为衰退很快就会发生”时，他是不会说明自己之前的衰退预期有百分之多少是在一年内应验了的。众所周知，投资经理人却必须随时提供自己的历史表现记录，不然投资者就根本不会考虑他。既然如此，我们又为什么要相信那些从不披露自己表现记录的宏观预言家呢？\n最后，我想要指出的是，同样的评论其实也适用于大多数投资人。我们极少会听到这些人表示自己对宏观未来全无看法，或者是不愿意表达自己的观点。要成为成功的投资者，至关重要的条件之一就是要懂得自我评估。你的强势和软肋各自在哪里？如果你是根据自己的宏观判断去投资，这些判断总体而言能够提供多大帮助？你到底是应该继续根据它们去投资，还是应该放弃这种方法？\n以上就是我对所谓预期的缺陷的个人看法，在本篇备忘录余下的部分当中，我要谈谈自己对未来的想法。为什么我还要谈这个话题？将文章最开始引用的巴菲特的名言颠倒过来就可以理解了——宏观未来虽然可能是不可知的，但是它无疑是很重要的。\n回顾2000年互联网泡沫破灭之前的那几年，我发现，那时的市场行情主要是在对围绕着一些特定企业和股票发生的事件做出反应。可是，泡沫2000年破灭后，市场看上去主要就是由宏观经济、美联储、财政部，以及国际大事主导了，这一点在2008年全球金融危机之后还变得更加明晰了。正因为如此，我才会就一个我其实极少触及的主题写下这篇备忘录。\n我在下面会尝试列举出那些有重要意义的宏观问题，展开讨论，并做出展望，最后还会提出一些相关建议。在这里，我也有必要再度明确自己的确信，即我们所有人都有自己对未来的看法，但是正如橡树资本的准则所说；“我们有自己的主张，这是一回事，但是我们假定这主张是正确的，并且向其投下重注，那就是另外一回事了，事实上，橡树资本从来不做这样的事情。”\n通货膨胀\n本文落笔的这一刻，美国经济宏观层面最引人关注的问题，毫无疑问是通货膨胀。在过去十六个月时间当中，联储、财政部和国会一直在大开着货币供应的龙头，以此来支持、补贴和刺激劳动者、企业、州和地方政府，乃至于整体经济和金融市场。由此就造成了三个后果；第一，人们对强势经济复苏的前景信心十足；第二，资产价格涨破天际；第三，对通货膨胀的担心与日俱增。\n历史记录显示，如前面所描述的这些政策，大概率将造成如下的系列反应：\n● 比正常情况下更强势的经济；\n● 更高的企业利润；\n● 更紧张的劳动力市场，以及由此而来的更高的工资；\n● 更多的资金追逐供应有限的商品；\n● 商品价格上涨（即通货膨胀）速度加快；\n● 货币政策为控制通货膨胀而紧缩，导致利率走高。\n虽然经济的运行当中还存在许多的变量和变数，但是正统理念认为，上面这样一个大致的进程模式还是高度可靠的。不过，我倒是希望再拿出一点篇幅来，强调一下那些蕴含在通货膨胀思考当中的重要变数。\n● 在我职业生涯早期，决定我会成为今日之我的要素之一就是，当时我是在年通货膨胀率5%到15%的大环境当中进行投资的，美国的通胀率从20世纪70年代，直至1982年都居高不下。两位被称作是“末日博士”和“黑暗博士”（哪个头衔属于哪一位我已经记不清了）的首席经济学家，所罗门兄弟的考夫曼（Henry Kaufman）和第一波士顿的沃伊尼洛尔（Al Wojnilower）经常发表令人沮丧的讲话，宣称他们也不知道到底是什么造成了可怕的通货膨胀，更不知道该如何予以控制。所有人都对通货膨胀束手无策，直至联储主席沃克尔（Paul Volcker）靠着大幅度加息最终解决了问题，而他的做法也造成了美国1980年至1982年严重的两位数衰退。\n● 那么，我们近年来的经历又是怎么一回事呢？多年以来，从美国到欧洲再到日本，央行银行家们都将健康的2%通货膨胀率定为了自己的目标，但是谁也无法达成这一目标。虽然经济持续增长，预算赤字可观，货币供应通过量化宽松迅速扩张，利率也处在历史性的低点，这些从传统视角看都是极端倾向通货膨胀的，但是后者却始终缺席。\n● 最后，在过去大约六十年的时间当中，经济学家们日益信赖所谓的菲利普斯曲线，而后者的要义就是假设失业率和通货膨胀之间存在着负关联——失业率越低，劳动力市场就越紧张，劳动者在与雇主讨价还价时本钱就越足，工资增长就越快速，消费品价格涨幅就越大。可是，美国的现实却是，失业率在过去十年当中持续走低，最终来到了半个世纪以来的最低点，但是通货膨胀依然没有实质性进展。结果就是，现在几乎没有人再谈论菲利普斯曲线了。\n美国官方通货膨胀率的低迷，一定程度上也许可以归因于消费者价格指数编制方法这几十年来的改变，但是真正关键的真相是在于，我们对于通货膨胀，以及通货膨胀的成因及应对方法都知之甚少。我曾经用“不可思议”这样的字眼来描绘通货膨胀，因此在我看来，与其他领域相比，我们对通货膨胀相关预期能够给予的信任度还必须再低一些。当然，这会让今天的投资者心里越发忐忑不安，毕竟通货膨胀及其对利率的影响，正是当下最重要的变数。\n当下的通胀预期\n关于通货膨胀的前景，太多人已经有了太多的论述，我当然不可能全部照搬，但是可以做一点摘要。以下就是大致的背景；\n● 在去年经济因为新冠病毒疫情而被迫停摆的情况下，为了支持经济和其参与者，美国联储、财政部和国会采取了力度惊人的行动，以阻止全球经济大减速最终演变成第二次大萧条。\n● 通过提供给个人的福利支出、提供给企业和地方政府的贷款和担保、联邦失业救济补贴、以及大规模购债等手段，他们向经济系统注入了数以万亿美元计的流动性。在我看来，2020年简直是一个每天都可以听到“万亿”字眼的年头。\n● 由于失业救济补贴的缘故，许多人2020年所得到的收入甚至还超过了2019年。2020年由此出现了收入超过趋势线而支出低于趋势线的情况，毕竟旅游度假、外出就餐、体育比赛、演唱会和婚礼等都已经消失。前述一切进展的最终结果就是，美国消费者的资产负债表上，据估计足足增加了大约2万亿美元现金。\n● 联储和财政部的联合行动下，金融市场也被资金洪水淹没了，使得价格大幅度上涨，资本市场再度开启。在股市价值膨胀了若干万亿美元，住宅价格也大涨的背景下，出现了明显的财富效应，与这效应相比，前面提及的高收入加低支出带来的消费者资产负债表改善都显得微不足道了。\n下列迹象显示，我们可能正在走向一个通胀率更高的重大周期：\n● 按照正常逻辑，前面提到的这一切都将导致通货膨胀率加速抬升。\n对通货膨胀高企的担心将成为未来若干年中最重大大讨论主题。最初的时候，人们的焦虑还主要是来自经济学理论，但是在2021年，这些担忧已经开始得到了实实在在的证据的支持：\n● 由于进口汽车零部件短缺，二手车价格飞涨。\n● 住宅价格飙升。\n● 原材料和元件价格暴涨，比如铜、木材和半导体等都是例子。\n● 智能手机供应不足。\n● 一些行业和领域的劳动力短缺使得涨价威胁增大。\n● 消费者价格指数的同比涨幅，4月时为4.2%，5月时为5.0%，6月时为5.4%，三者连续刷新2008年9月以来的最高读数纪录。\n● 更高的价格可能还不单单是来自投放成本增长（成本膨胀）与更多美元追逐有限商品（需求膨胀）所导致的供需失衡通货膨胀，更来自于过度印钞可能已经导致美元需求受到削弱，使得美元真实价值走低，导致进口商品价格上涨。\n● 尤其令人感到担心的是，近期华盛顿似乎已经形成了一种找不到可靠埋单机制就随随便便进行万亿量级支出的大气候。与此同时，现代货币理论（MMT）影响力的与日俱增，而这一理论实质上就是认为赤字和债务都不足为惧。如果这些理念最终被证明都是站不住脚的呢？\n在另外一方面，有很多人都试图解释，为何高企的通货膨胀可能只是“暂时性”（这简直是当前最流行的字眼了）的。\n● 许多导致制成品和制造业投放成本高企，最终导致价格上涨的短缺，都可以理解为经济重启的自然后果，尤其是全球供应链重启的产物。指望全球经济的所有部件都能够立即恢复高效率运转，显然是不现实的，而任何一个部件的缺失都会导致严重的故障，让制造业制成品难以完成。既然这些因素都是重启造成的，自然也就是短期的。\n● 大家必须明白，原材料或者制成品的价格绝非单单由当前经济发展情况以一种直接的、机械的方法所决定的，这也就意味着，价格未必就一定需要是“正确”的，符合当下环境的——这个道理与股票价格是一样的。事实上，同样与股市一样，商品价格更多是由经济参与者的心理所决定，而后者既可能过头又可能不充分。正如毛尔丁（John Mauldin）今年7月23日在《联储的蠢行》一文当中所写到的：“导致通货膨胀压力加大的商品价格上涨，其实是生产者与消费者的未来预期的产物。”换言之，当前的价格不单单是眼下供求现状的结果，同样也揭示了人们对于价格未来变化趋势的判断。这方面，木材价格就是个例子，从2020年4月几乎没有人觉得自己需要新住宅的低点，到2021年5月几乎没有人相信住宅供应能够追得上需求的顶部，这种建筑必需大宗商品的价格足足上涨了大约540%。现在，短短两个月时间里，木材价格已经回落了超过60%，对通货膨胀的影响力早已不能与不久前同日而语了。\n● 显然，人们2021年上半年所经历的通货膨胀，很大部分都可以归因于疫情纾困资金的到位，以及储蓄和财富由此而来的增加。这当然也只能是暂时性的，总数量有限的资金池子是不可能带来支出的持续高企的。\n● 联邦的额外失业救济补贴将在9月到期，到时就会使得更多劳动者回到劳动力市场上，到那时，劳动力短缺给薪资和商品价格造成的压力也将得到缓解。\n● 在2021年或者2022年之后，经济增长速度无疑将再度放缓，而到那时，2020年所积压下来的消费需求也将基本释放完毕。\n● 许多人依然相信，伴随经济持续扩张，近期的刺激、赤字支出和印钞，其力度就将降低（至少增长速度会减缓），这也就意味着，前述因素相对于经济体量的比重将会走低。.\n● 科技进步、自动化和全球化预计还将继续造成重大的去通货膨胀影响。\n当下的通货膨胀到底将是永久性还是暂时性的，争论依然激烈。这争论意义重大，因为更高的通货膨胀率无疑将带来更高的利率，以及更低的资产价格。不过，在我看来，我们是不可能知道真正的答案的。（如前面所说，重要但不可知。）争辩双方都不乏饱学才俊，但是我依然坚信，他们当中并没有真正意义上的先知。\n美联储知道答案吗？\n联储的职责之一，就是要确保通货膨胀处在可控范围之内。然而，联储的领导者们也承认，他们对自己的预期其实并不怎么确信。比如，在6月16日的新闻发布会上，联储主席鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）是这么说的：\n“因此，我无法给出确切的数字或者确切的时间，我只能说，我们确实预计通货膨胀将会走低。看看我和联邦公开市场委员会同事们的2022年和2023年预期，你就会发现，大家都预计通货膨胀率将向着我们设定的目标大幅走低。我认为，2023年的整体通货膨胀预期区间是2%到2.3%，这和我们的目标是一致的。”\n大约与此同时，圣路易斯联储行长布拉德（James Bullard）也在讲话当中谈到了变数依然存在。媒体在6月18日的报道写道：\n“布拉德……表示美国经济‘正处在一个波动剧烈的环境当中，因此根本看不清到底任何人预测的任何道路最终成为现实的可能性’。”\n这正是我们所需要的坦率的言辞。不过，从上述引文当中，我们显然可以看到，联储是无法在通货膨胀问题上做出“我们有了答案”的表态的——甚至可以说，所谓“答案”是否存在都是个巨大的问号。\n市场知道些什么？\n2016年时，股市开年就来了一波大跌，在我看来，那其实完全是非理性的。于是乎，我当时撰写了一篇备忘录（《去看心理医生》，2016年1月14日）。第二天，我去电视台就备忘录内容参加节目时，大家谈到了股市下跌是否是未来某些极端事件的前兆时，我做出了斩钉截铁的否定回答。我当时强调，除了我们大家人所共知的内容之外，市场对未来并不“知道”什么更多的东西。这番对话又激发了我的灵感，在五天后（2016年1月19日）又发布了一篇《市场知道些什么》。那么，这些对于今天有何启示呢？\n最近几个月当中，通货膨胀迅速高企的迹象几乎是无所不在，媒体已经习惯了将股市所有偶发的下跌都和通货膨胀恐惧挂钩。比如，在截至6月18日的十个交易日当中，标普500指数遭遇了一波其实非常有限的跌势，而第二天，即6月19日的媒体就这样写道：\n“美股市场周五回挫，交易者都紧盯着联储，希望找到货币政策下一步走向的线索。”\n“道指遭遇了10月30日那周以来最糟糕的单周表现。这一蓝筹股指数周五下跌1.6%，跌幅533.37点，收于33290.08点，全周累计下跌3.45%。”\n“标普500指数周五下跌1.3%，跌幅55.41点，收于4166.45点，全周累计下跌1.9%。连续三周上涨的趋势宣告中断。伴随大科技股票同样走低，纳指下跌0.9%，跌幅130.97点，收于14030.38点，全周累计下跌0.3%。”\n“政策制定者们周三释放出信号，表示他们预计将在2023年下半年开始加息，比之前的预期有所提前。由于圣路易斯联储行长布拉德（James Bullard）在CNBC表示，他预计第一次加息甚至可能早到2022年下半年，市场情绪周五再度受到打压。”\n“ThinkMarkets分析师拉扎克扎达（Fawad Razaqzada）表示，美股下跌并不出人意料。股市自去年以来持续上涨，连续创下新高，已经领先经济复苏进程太多。现在，交易者目睹着联储已经开始缓慢转变货币政策的立场，自然要开始为‘再膨胀交易’重新定价了。”\n“‘这一天终于来了。’他评论道，‘因为市场过分抢跑了，这种抛售是迟早要来的。’”\n“芝加哥期权交易所波动率指数，即所谓华尔街‘恐惧指标’已经攀升到了若干周以来的最高点。”\n“三菱日联欧洲的全球市场研究部门负责人赫尔潘尼（Derek Halpenny）指出：‘如果真的加息从2022年就开始了，市场还将受到更大的惊吓，因为这必然意味着联储同时还将进行缩减。’”\n不管任何时候，媒体评论员们似乎都永远准备充分，随时能够对市场上发生了什么和为什么发生做出一番符合逻辑的解释（我总是好奇他们到底是从哪里得到这番解释的）。他们总是乐于告诉我们这些对未来意味着什么——当然，无一例外是使用外推法。\n无论如何，2021年迄今为止的最大主题就是通货膨胀的高企。于是乎，大家也就一而再再而三地以通货膨胀，以及由此而来的高利率恐惧来解释市场上发生的大部分变故，比如最新出炉的经济数据反映通货膨胀正在迅速走高，而投资者情绪因此转向消极云云。\n迄今为止，这种种说辞似乎还都言之成理。你或许可以说，股市是有效反映了当前局面的发展和对未来的预期。可是，债市的看法似乎和股市迥然不同。曼哈顿研究所高级研究员施拉格（Allison Schrager）在6月18日发布于彭博的评论文章当中写道：\n“在债市上，十年期国债收益率从周四的1.509%跌到了周五的1.449%。十年期国债收益率已经是连续五周走低了。”\n“美国城市居民的消费者价格5月间上涨速度，年化超过7%，而之前的4月间更超过9%。如果这样的速度贯穿全年，那么美国就将遭遇20世纪80年代以来最高的通货膨胀率。可是，一些投资者，还有联储却宣称，大家不必害怕，而债市看上去就并不担心。债券收益率虽然在因为联储主席鲍威尔周三的讲话有所抬头，但是上周整体还是呈现下跌势头，从历史角度看依然处在低水平。既然市场都不担心，也许我们也不必杞人忧天。”\n换言之，股市目前害怕更高的通胀率和更高的利率，但是债市这个行情主要取决于利率前景的地方，却呈现出更高的价格和更低的利率，似乎对通货膨胀全不在意。\n这就让我想到了黄金，后者从古至今一直被认为是针对通货膨胀的暴涨。虽然通货膨胀迹象无处不在，但是黄金市场似乎也同意债券市场的判断，即通胀前景其实还是温和的。媒体在6月19日写道：\n“黄金期货价格周五下跌0.3%，延续了周四的亏损走势，目前已经遭遇到了超过十个月时间当中最大的一波跌势。全周当中，金价下跌5.8%，录得了2020年3月13日以来的最差单周表现。”\n2020年8月6日，黄金价格冲上了每盎司2067美元的历史最高点，而这很可能是因为联储正在向经济和市场注入体量惊人的资金。从那之后，直至2021年6月18日，虽然看上去，大家对通货膨胀的恐惧与日俱增，但是金价却跌到了1773美元，较之十个月前的高点跌去了14%。\n于是，在6月间，我们就目睹了一组奇异的组合——股市表现疲软，据报道这是通货膨胀恐惧的产物，而债券价格上涨（收益率下跌），似乎是说明债市参与者确信经济的疲软可以确保通货膨胀持续受到抑制。还有黄金，这种经典的通胀对抗工具，在股市投资者被描述为日益担忧通货膨胀的情况下，其价格也在走低。这些市场不但不知道未来将发生什么，甚至它们的具体表现本身，从长期角度看也往往是没有什么意义的。\n我在2016年的《市场知道些什么》当中就得出结论，在何时该买进和卖出证券的问题上，“市场其实一点贡献也做不出来”。我认为，在关于未来各种宏观事件的前景问题上，同样的结论也一样成立。要理解市场的思维过程，也许这幅老漫画就能够提供最大的帮助，我在当年的《去看心理医生》当中也收录了它。\n市场的运作机制就像是那些高度敏感的仪器，会感知事件并做出相应的或看涨或看空的反应。虽然市场多数情况下都是优秀的“观察家”，能够对当前的变化做出极为迅速到位的反应，但是有些时候，如漫画所示，它们似乎也会在观察事件时戴上积极或者消极的有色眼镜（并在两者间左右横跳）。还有，市场从来就不是优秀的“预报员”，对将要发生的事情往往一无所知。\n因为市场对短期变化的反应往往都会过头，因此对于一些事件的积极或者消极程度，市场的判断往往带有很大的夸张。不过，市场能够强调当前却无法预测未来的这一事实，也绝不意味着我们就可以彻底无视市场的态度。尤其是，当证券的价格表现与我们根据自己的判断所预测的不同时，我们首先必须想一下，市场是否已经感知到了什么足以颠覆我们之前判断和预期的东西。（市场是否也偶尔会有例外的，远见卓识的时候呢？不妨回顾一下标普500指数从2020年3月23日到年底那68%的涨幅，在涨势开始的时候，“没有人”决定那是有意义的。显然，在认识联储/财政部行动的潜在影响力方面，市场的工作完成得比绝大多数评论家都要出色。）\n预言家们知道些什么？\n虽然说起来，下面这些预言统计其实更多是关于股市回报，而非通货膨胀的，但是我还是非常希望能够拿出来和大家共享。我能够了解到这些，还要感谢我的长期搭档斯通（Sheldon Stone），我们已经一起工作了三十八年。去年12月，他将《纽约时报》12月18日的一篇文章推荐给了我，标题是《2020年全盘猜错之后，华尔街2021年猜谜游戏再度开始》：\n“2019年12月的时候，华尔街的预期中位数是，标普500指数2020年将上涨2.7%。鉴于实际的涨幅是18.4%，华尔街的预期足足低了16个百分点，怎么说也是太离谱了。不过更离谱的是，2020年4月，在疫情已经席卷全美之后（而且联储、财政部和国会最初的行动计划已经宣布，并且开始实施之后），华尔街的一致预期还进一步下调到了-11%，较之最终结果低了近30个百分点。”\n当然，具体到2020年这个特殊年头，要某位策略师预见到疫情将会爆发，显然强人所难，要他预测到应对政策大获成功，或者是随后而来的市场反弹的具体时间点和力度，也是一样的道理。关键是，文章接下来又列出了Bespoke Investment Group创始人之一希基（Paul Hickey）提供的一系列数据，而这些数据的意义就要重大得多了。以下我将结合原文来做大致的介绍：\n● “2000年至今，分析师预计的标普500指数年均回报率中位数是9.5%，而实际回报率是6.0%。有人可能会说，‘这也不坏，差别只有3.5个百分点’，但是也有人会说，‘太可怕了——预言家们把平均回报夸大了58%’。”\n● “2000年以来的每年12月，每一年的回报预期中位数当中，从来不曾有过负数，即下跌的预测。”可是，事实就是，这些年当中，美股市场有六年都是亏钱的。\n● “比如在2018年，市场下跌了6.9%，但预言家们却宣称市场将上涨7.5%，两者的差距达到了14.4个百分点。2002年，预言家们宣布市场将上涨12.5%，但现实却是下跌23.3%，差距更达到了近36个百分点。”\n● “总而言之，如果将上述这些差别全部计算进去，则从2000年到2020年，华尔街预期中位数与现实之间的差距，年均达到了12.9个百分点，要相当于股市这段时间内6.0%真实年均回报率的两倍。年复一年，这些预言家的整体准确率，大致就相当于一座30%的日子都在下雨下雪的城市里，每天都播报晴天的气象员。这就叫预测！” (为什么最开始说平均误差是3.5个百分点，后面又说是12.9个百分点呢？我估计后者是来自误差‘绝对值’的平均值。具体来说就是，比如第一年高出现实3个百分点，第二年低于现实2个百分点，那么误差绝对值就是5个，而非1个百分点。)\n结论就是，虽然说起来，有数以百计甚至千计的人们都在做着专业的市场预测工作，以此为生，但是事实就是，他们的预期中位数毫无价值可言，平均预期是错误的，不管好坏年头一概唱多，而且，在那些准确预测真的可以赚大钱的年头，他们总是谬之千里。\n美联储的角色\n当前关于宏观前景的大辩论当中，很大一部分都是围绕着联储，联储的政策，以及联储的行为展开的。2020年3月，联储将联邦基金利率区间降低到0%至0.25%，拉开了绵延至今的复苏的序幕，他们还出台了各种贷款和担保计划，以及大量买进债券。整体而言，这些操作获得了巨大的成功，创造了强有力的经济和金融市场复苏。不过，同样是这些操作，也帮助促成了当下通货膨胀持续高企的威胁。\n联储有两大最主要的职责，即确保足够的经济增长速度，以创造就业机会，达成充分就业，以及确保通货膨胀处在可控范围之内。某种程度上说来，这两项职责其实是有所冲突的。强势的经济增长就意味着过热和通货膨胀的风险。更高的通货膨胀会导致投资者要求更高的利率，来补偿购买力受到的损失。更高的利率则意味着经济增长减速的风险。\n去年夏季，经济前景因为联储和财政部的政策而变得积极起来，后来又受到了疫苗研发和接种的强有力支持。总之，我们目前正在经历强势的经济增长，真实国内生产总值的年化增长速度第一季度中达到了6.4%，而且2021年余下的时间，乃至2022年预计都将持续保持高增长。不过，在这种情况下，联储依然保持着既定的利率，以及延续着每个月购债1200亿美元的操作。在经济已经表现良好的时候，为什么还要继续刺激，而且冒着推高通货膨胀的风险呢？\n事实上，联储看上去相对并不怎么担心通货膨胀。最初，他们说并不认为会出现高通货膨胀，这样的论断当然已经被近期的数据推翻了。接下来，他们又说，如果通货膨胀高企，那也只会是暂时的。联储还一再强调，即便他们发现通货膨胀可能具有长期性，他们也有足够的工具去解决问题。\n其实，继续保持如此大力度的宽松政策，正说明相对于通货膨胀，联储更担心经济增长可能遇到麻烦。一位消息灵通的观察家告诉我说，联储的想法是，如果在如此强力的刺激下，经济增长速度还回归到近年来2%甚至更低的常规状态，那么停滞膨胀的风险就非常现实了。我们不该忘记两件事：第一，自从进入新世纪以来，国内生产总值增长速度一直迟缓，而大家也一直在认真讨论“长期性停滞膨胀”的话题；第二，虽然经济从2009年到2019年的复苏创下了历史最长时间的纪录，但是其具体速度也是第二次世界大战结束以来最慢的。\n联储主席鲍威尔最近在国会作证时的证词也说明，在复苏已经持续了若干个月的现在，他最看重的还是这方面的问题。路透社7月14日的新闻稿写道：\n“周三，联储主席鲍威尔保证说，要‘强有力地支持’美国走出疫情的经济复苏进程的完成。”\n“在众议院金融服务委员会作证时，鲍威尔表示，他确信价格近期的上涨势头主要是源于国家后疫情阶段的重启，最终将会消退，联储还将继续将工作重点放在让尽可能多的人回到工作岗位上。”\n“鲍威尔表示，鉴于疫情造成的就业机会损失目前还有多达750万，削弱经济支持，比如缩减美国央行每个月1200亿美元的购债操作力度，还是‘依然非常遥远’的事情。”\n不过，哪怕经济增长遇到挫折的确是更大的风险——也没有人敢和联储唱反调，说这风险不存在——通货膨胀的风险，以及这风险的各种结果依然是高度现实的。我确信，与联储刺激政策力度不足相比，我们还是更愿意接受他们支持力度过头的可能性。我也相信，虽然联储的这些政策有造成消极的副作用的可能性，但是他们这么做确实是正确的。只是，对这些副作用，我们也必须有充分的认识。\n● 更高的通货膨胀一方面会迫使投资者要求更高的真实收益率，进而造成更高的利率，另外一方面，要控制通货膨胀，也必须诉诸货币政策的紧缩和加息。\n● 更高的利率会对经济造成消极影响。\n● 更高的利率会使得投资者要求更高的回报率，导致金融资产价格走低，甚至可能发生崩盘（1972年至1982年间的历史就是证据）。\n● 高通胀之下，低收入的美国家庭会成为受创最严重的人群，因为他们的收入大部分都投入了各种生活必需选项，而成百上千万的退休者和其他依靠固定收益的人们，也难逃巨大冲击。\n● 更高的通胀率会使得国债偿付成本升高，导致年度财政赤字进一步扩大（国债进一步增多）。\n● 更大的赤字将使得放款方（以及外国买家）进一步要求美国国债提供更高的利率，最终造成恶性循环。\n● 如果我们为了支付利息和补上赤字而持续印出足够的美元，最终就会导致美元贬值，甚至其世界储备货币的地位也会受到质疑。\n● 正如历史经验所证明的，迅速高企的价格会导致通货膨胀预期被植入美国人的心理，最终滚成自我实现的雪球，到那时局面就难以收拾了。\n还有，单单宽松货币政策本身，也有一系列消极影响值得我们予以重视：\n● 联储的慷慨会被人视为所谓“联储对策”确实存在的证据，让大家相信他们未来任何时候，总是会来救援的。这便会造成一系列后果，比如道德危机（投资者相信自己可以随便冒风险而不必承担后果），以及市场风险规避机制失灵，让市场的安全受到威胁等。\n● 前面描述的环境之下，企业和投资者都会更倾向于利用杠杆手段，使得经济一旦减速，其破坏力便会被加倍放大。\n● 正如过去十六个月的实践所证明的，联储是不可能在不增大经济盘子的情况下刺激经济的。那么，这些多出来的好处落入了谁的口袋？答案是那些拥有经济的人（拥有股票、企业和房地产等的人）。这也就意味着，刺激以及由刺激带来的资产价格上涨，其实是使得财富不均问题进一步恶化了，这一点目前正在引起越来越多人的重视。\n● 如果联储保持当前的宽松力度——包括保持接近于零的利率在内——那么，当未来经济再度减速，需要更大力度刺激时，他们所能够动用的政策手段就会相对不足。比如，在去年的救援政策包裹当中，降息是关键要素之一，但是如果利率之前已经是零，联储在这方面就没有什么运作空间了。\n一些人觉得，联储也许可以持续上演去年的奇迹，创造长期繁荣，避免衰退，或者是让衰退最小化。一些人希望，低利率可以让市场永远涨下去。一些人认为，财政部可以想发行多少国债就发行多少，因为联储会进入市场，扮演终极买家的角色。显然，联邦政府里面也有很多人觉得自己可以随心所欲地支出，同时与日俱增的赤字和债务还不会造成任何不利影响。\n恕我愚钝，实在没有能力去证明他们的逻辑，但是在我看来，这些假定实在是太过于一厢情愿。看上去，这逻辑简直像是永动机，或者是没有限额也不必还款的信用卡。我不能告诉你这些逻辑当中到底隐藏着什么漏洞，但是我认为，漏洞肯定是存在的。或者可以这么说，如果你要和我打赌说这里肯定有不少漏洞，我是绝对不会和你对赌的。\n在20世纪30年代，凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）提出，一国可以在经济疲软时执行赤字财政政策来刺激需求，让经济重新获得活力，创造出急需的就业机会，这便是所谓的“凯恩斯主义”。当然，赤字支出绝不是没有代价的，即便凯恩斯自己也认为，虽然赤字是一种重振经济的合理选项，政府也必须能够在繁荣时期获得财政盈余，用其抵消低迷时期引发的赤字。然而，进入21世纪以来，诸如财政纪律、预算盈余、债务偿付等等概念，似乎都已经被扔进了历史的垃圾堆。\n在过去超过二十年的时间当中，美国始终存在着巨大的，而且还在持续增大的赤字，这样的势头看上去越来越难以改变。传统经济学认为，这将造成通货膨胀问题，但是正如文章前面提到的，新世纪第二个十年时间里，整整十年的赤字都没有使得通货膨胀有任何实质性的进展。也许，这些赤字只是帮助支持了摇摇欲坠的经济——如果没有赤字支出的帮助，经济的真实表现只能更加糟糕。\n无论如何，我们现在正在进入一段名副其实的测试周期。正如我前面说到的，在2020年，我们目睹了福利数以万亿计的增加，联储的购债操作，以及联储资产负债表、联邦财政赤字、美国国债的急速膨胀。所有这些相对于美国经济总体量的比例都迅速攀升。后果到底会怎样？未来必然将在我们眼前逐渐展开。\n在20世纪90年代，格林斯潘（Alan Greenspan）开始让联储逐渐变成一个市场上高度活跃的角色（“格林斯潘对策”的说法兴起，最终演变为现在的“联储对策”），以这样的姿态应对了新世纪以来连续的三次经济危机。需要重申的 是，联储的救援行动都是必要的和适当的，但是我要强调的是，在我看来，这不该是永久性的。我倒是更愿意看到一个不再时刻汲汲于进行微调，而是在大多数时候作壁上观，只有在经济发展到极端局面时才采取措施去刺激或者限制的联储。\n我相信，我的读者都相信自由市场，尤其是相信它作为最佳资源配置手段的威力。在自由市场当中，亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）所谓“看不见的手”推动着劳动力和资本等各种资源的配置，将其投入到能够发挥最大效率的地方。可是，我们现在已经不再拥有自由的资金市场了，从2008年全球金融危机以来就没有了。联储在2009年将联邦基金利率降低到了零，之后几乎就一直保持到现在。他们也曾经做过加息的尝试，但是每次市场都会以动荡来做出回应，让他们被迫就此收手。\n我必须要澄清的是，我从来不觉得自己比联储里面的哪一位脑子更加灵光。不过，整体而言，我更愿意看到经济刺激政策的出台不这么频繁，更不这么持续。也许，由于政策的缘故，我们未来几年的经济增长速度将获得进一步的提升，但是我并不相信货币和财政政策能够永远提升经济的长期增长速度，而且还不伴随着任何造成消极后果的风险。\n出于对资本进行更健康配置的考虑，我还是希望看到一个自由的资金市场，在我看来这就意味着利率应该是“自然发生”的。人为压低利率只能扭曲资本市场，惩罚储蓄者，补贴举债者，推高资产价格，怂恿冒险行为和大量使用杠杆的行为。再强调一次，我希望看到一个除非万不得已，否则就不愿意去进行干预的联储。\n在我第一篇疫情时代的备忘录当中，我对疫情做出了如下的解读；\n“由于它是初次发生，没有人真正有所了解。正如哈佛大学流行病学家利普希奇（Marc Lipsitch）在网络广播当中所指出的，我们只能首先掌握事实，然后根据与其他病毒传播情况的比较进行合理推断，最终形成观点或者推测。科学家们正在努力进行明智的推断。迄今为止，我认为疫情相关数据还依然不够，无法让他们将推断转化为事实。”（《天知道II》，2020年3月3日）\n如果用“经济学家”来替换“科学家”，用“通货膨胀”来替换“疫情”，我认为这段论述在现在依然成立。当我们思考通货膨胀的成因时，我们几乎没有多少事实，只有我们自己人生中曾经经历过的美国通胀体验来作为推断的基础。因此，我认为，今天任何人关于未来几年通胀走势的言论，其实都是利普希奇所谓的“观点或者推测”……我自己更愿意直接一点，称其为“臆测”。\n我以前也曾经写到过，我经常在备忘录已经快完成的时候，遇到一些重要材料。这一次，我就想在这里引用一段与利普希奇观点有关的文字。这段文字来自拥有惊人表现记录的传奇投资人米勒（Bill Miller）7月9日发布的第二季度市场信件：\n“谁也没有未卜先知的神奇，市场对于未来的预期，大多数时候其精度并不高于抛硬币。当然，我们可以从过去的记录当中寻找和当前类似的环境，采用类推的方法进行预测，但是这种做法的成败，其实是取决于未来会和过去有多相似，以及我们所援引的方法是否具有真正的支配力。从这些预测的表现记录看，也是成败互见，最终依然只是抛硬币的概率。”\n下面这段引文来自前通用电气高层威尔森（Ian Wilson），对类似当下这种情况下的决策挑战性做出了绝佳的概括：\n“不管你多么老于世故，也无法改变一个最根本的事实，即你所知的都是关于过去的，而你要决定的都是关于未来的。”\n当然，这并不意味着现在人们就不可能就未来的通货膨胀问题发表强有力的观点。正如我十七年前曾经写到的：\n“在描述‘我知道’学派成员时，关键词就是‘自信’。与此同时，对于‘我不知道’学派而言，尤其是在应对宏观未来时，他们对应的词则是‘谨慎’。这一学派的追随者都相信人们无法预知未来，因此合适的目标只能是在缺乏这方面认知的情况下尽力做好投资工作。”（《我们和他们》，2004年5月7日）\n那么，这些对于今日的投资者行为又意味着什么？如果我们无法确知今日的通货膨胀到底是会昙花一现，还是将与我们长期相伴，难道投资者就无计可施了吗？这答案其实就在2001年一篇备忘录的题目当中——《你无法预知，但你可以准备》。没有谁能够自信满满地预测出我们是否将进入一个通货膨胀时代，但是如果现实真的会是那样，则后果将是非常重大的。因此，我将简要复述一下自己回顾2020年时与市场敞口相关的一些看法。\n在1月的备忘录《价值这东西》当中，我谈到了我自己的性格特质、早期人生，以及成功发现一些不可持续的金融创新及市场过剩的经验使得我成为了一个下意识的怀疑论者。这是我儿子安德鲁发现的，去年我们全家住在一起时告诉了我，引起了我深深的共鸣。\n过去的我可能会紧紧盯着今日高企的估值和各种高风险行为的例子，发出市场存在泡沫，盘整即将到来的警告。可是，当我通过新的透镜观察问题，我的结论却是，虽然下面这一切都是客观存在的，但是都不足以成为我们大幅度削减市场敞口的理由；\n● 基于可能也可能不会兑现的通货膨胀预期，\n● 遇到一些非常强有力的对立意见，以及……\n● 既然投资最重要的原则就是我们必须着眼于长期，那么除非对立观点是有绝对说服力的，不然的话，就应该继续保持充分投资。\n最后，我想要简单地谈一谈市场当前的水位。在2020年之前的四五年时间里，经常有人问我，我们是否遭遇了一场高收益率债券的泡沫。我的回答是；“不，我们经历的其实是一场债市整体泡沫。”高收益率债券相对于其他债券的定价其实并不夸张，关键是在于，由于利率的超级低迷，所有债券的价格都过高了。\n今天，我们又听到了关于所谓“万物泡沫”的说法。和当时一样，我的看法是，大多数资产如果只是以彼此为参照，则价格都算相对合理。不过，考虑到利率在决定这些价格时扮演了怎样一个强大的角色，以及利率处在历史性谷底的现实，这些资产价格处在前所未见的高点，难道不是顺理成章的吗？比如，标普500指数的市盈率目前为20出头，也就意味着“盈利收益率”（市盈率倒置形成的指标）是4%到5%的样子。在我看来，将这拿来和十年期国债大约1.25%的收益率相比，也算是相对合理的。如果市盈率收缩到第二次世界大战以来长期平均的16水平，则盈利收益率就将达到6.7%，相对于十年期国债就实在太高了。这就足以说明，资产价格相对于利率水平还是合理的。\n当然，说资产价格相对于利率水平还算合理是一回事，说超低利率还会继续保持下去，高价格还将继续保持下去甚至进一步上涨，则是另外一回事了。后者会将我们拉回到大通胀时代。其实，联储加息绝非不可想象的事情，不管他们是为了确保经济不至于过热，还是因为高通胀率要求更高利率的缘故而这么做，又或者是两者兼而有之，这都是很可能的事情。虽然利率走高（资产价格相应走低）的可能性会让所有人都感到不安，但是在我看来，至少当下，以利率为参照，资产价格绝对算不上非理性。\n虽然媒体总是希望我能够说出“买进”或者“卖出”，“入场”或者“退场”这样简单明了的话语，但是我现在的观点，其实只是激进和防御两种不同姿态按照合适比例的结合。考虑到前述种种错综复杂的情况，橡树资本目前大致是维持着两种姿态的平衡，而这也符合我们的正常立场（2020年刚开始的时候，我们是高度倾向于防御的）。\n话虽如此，基于通货膨胀风险，进行一些微调当然是有其合理性的。投资者如果更倾向于规避风险，或者是更担心暂时的下跌行情（相对不那么担心如果通货膨胀未能落实，自己可能受到的相应损失），那么可以考虑增大下面这几方面的投资力度：\n● 浮动利率债券；\n● 那些成本大体固定，或者是有能力将成本压力传导到下游，以及有能力将通货膨胀整合到价格当中去（如某些房东）的企业；以及……\n● 利润增长速度有潜力超过价格上涨速度的领域。\n站在当下，如果想要针对高通胀环境进行准备，办法总是有的。我认为，投资者重视通货膨胀高企的可能性，是完全合情合理的，只不过，大家切不可因为那些可能靠谱也可能不靠谱的宏观预期而对自己的资产配置大动干戈。\n2021年7月29日","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{".DJI":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":2181,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":4,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}