黃金即將迎來令人振奮的輝煌的一天：吉姆·格蘭特警告說，沒有人準(zhǔn)備好迎接“更高、更高、更長時間的本質(zhì)”

撰寫作者： Christoph Gisiger，來自 TheMarket.ch，

世界正在經(jīng)歷歷史性的利率飆升。  《格蘭特利率觀察家》編輯吉姆·格蘭特認(rèn)為， 持續(xù)的動蕩可能是長達(dá)數(shù)年的債券熊市的開始。

在這次深度采訪中，他解釋了風(fēng)險是什么以及機(jī)遇在哪里。

飆升出乎意料：在美國，10年期國債收益率迅速升至5%，為2007年以來的最高水平。從歐洲到日本再到澳大利亞，世界各地的長期利率也呈上升趨勢。關(guān)于其原因有很多猜測。然而，顯而易見的是，這種沖擊不會沒有后果。

“這提出了一個有趣的可能性，即我們正在進(jìn)入一個新的債券熊市，” 標(biāo)志性投資公報 《格蘭特利率觀察家》的編輯吉姆·格蘭特說。?債券在金融資產(chǎn)領(lǐng)域是不尋常的，因為它們的價格歷來傾向于以代際長度為區(qū)間的趨勢；這是我們在股票或大宗商品中看不到的東西”，他補(bǔ)充道。

在這篇對《The Market NZZ》的深度采訪中，這位經(jīng)驗豐富的金融史專家解釋了持續(xù)走高的利率對投資者意味著什么、與這種新環(huán)境相關(guān)的風(fēng)險以及長期的影響。任期機(jī)會出現(xiàn)。

“我認(rèn)為黃金不應(yīng)該作為通脹對沖工具進(jìn)行交易，而應(yīng)該作為對貨幣混亂的投資，而我們在世界上的貨幣混亂已經(jīng)足夠了”：吉姆·格蘭特。

格蘭特先生，《格蘭特利率觀察家》正在 慶祝其成立 40 周年。您目前對金融市場正在經(jīng)歷的利率大幅飆升有何觀察？

嗯，我們當(dāng)然有一些東西需要觀察。已經(jīng)過去很長時間了，所以我想說幾句話。一是利率從接近零到利率敲響正常之門的變化——這種上升速度——是我們以前很少看到的。這就像一輛汽車在四秒內(nèi)從0 英里每小時加速到 60 英里每小時。因此，這是一種非常迅速的增長，人們可能會猜想，這是一種非常具有破壞性的增長，因為它的速度如此之快。

怎樣才能把這次債券市場的動蕩放到歷史的角度來看呢？

這提出了一個有趣的可能性，即我們正在進(jìn)入新的債券熊市。債券在金融資產(chǎn)領(lǐng)域很不尋常，因為從歷史上看，債券的價格往往以一代人的時間間隔為趨勢。我們在股票或大宗商品中很少看到這種情況。

過去這樣的世代循環(huán)是如何發(fā)生的？

在美國，從南北戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束前后的35年到19世紀(jì)末，債券收益率一直在下降。然后，它們在 20 年的時間里緩慢上漲，然后從1921 年左右到 1946 年再次下跌。接下來，戰(zhàn)后債券大熊市開始，收益率在 1981 年一路攀升至 15%。此后，債券大熊市開始了。牛市開始，收益率在 2021 年降至 1%。當(dāng)然，在歐洲和日本，短期證券的收益率甚至遠(yuǎn)低于零，高達(dá) 16 萬億美元的證券定價為收益率低于零。

對于當(dāng)今的環(huán)境，可以從中得出什么結(jié)論？

追溯到大約 150 年前，債券牛市和熊市經(jīng)歷了一連串，每次都至少持續(xù) 20 年。因此，也許自 2021 年以來，我們已經(jīng)開始了收益率的長期上漲——如果是這樣的話，口號不應(yīng)該是“收益率持續(xù)更長的時間”，而是“收益率持續(xù)更長、更多、更長的時間”。話又說回來，沒有任何證據(jù)表明這種模式識別練習(xí)一定能保證任何未來的結(jié)果。但無論如何，這是描述債券收益率最猛烈、最劇烈上漲的一種方式。

您為什么認(rèn)為債券市場可能已經(jīng)開始新的周期？

有一種思考方式：1981 年，里根總統(tǒng)看到空中交通管制員工會威脅要罷工。因此他警告他們不要罷工，認(rèn)為這是針對公眾的，而且是非法的。不管怎樣，空中交通管制員還是罷工了，所以里根把他們?nèi)拷夤土耍⒁M(jìn)了新的。那是利率達(dá)到頂峰的時候。這是一個時代的標(biāo)記。當(dāng)時，我們并不知道長達(dá) 45 年的債券熊市已經(jīng)結(jié)束。這是一個象征性的結(jié)局：里根總統(tǒng)打破了這個重要的聯(lián)盟。這是一個改變；這就像 1980 年大宗商品價格的突破一樣。

而這和現(xiàn)在的情況有什么關(guān)系呢？

快進(jìn)到今天，另一位總統(tǒng)喬·拜登前往底特律。他走在糾察線上聲援汽車工會的罷工者，鼓勵他們：“堅持住，你做到了！” 對我來說，這是另一個時代的標(biāo)志，另一種預(yù)兆。因此，我們可能會在很長一段時間內(nèi)將利率提高很多很多。而且，我們可能不僅進(jìn)入了一個通貨膨脹周期，而且進(jìn)入了一個通貨膨脹時代。

那么我們是否應(yīng)該預(yù)期債券市場會進(jìn)一步震蕩呢？

We’ve just talked about how fast this bond bear market we’re hypothesizing about has been to date. But we haven’t talked about the tempo. For instance, at the beginning of the previous bond bear market in 1964, it took ten years for the yield on long-dated treasuries to go from 2?% to 3?%. So nothing says that the current rate of speed is going to continue. As a matter of fact, it can’t continue because otherwise rates would need three digits to write them down. So based on form, on the historical precedent, the tempo is going to be very measured at times. In other words, it might just be that for a certain time, the bond market won’t be very dramatic at all. Yet, it won’t go back to 2%, which will be good for some people, not good for others, but in any case, very different from what we’ve seen over the last four decades.

What are the consequences of this fundamental change for investments?

During the course of not one investment career, but rather one and a half investment careers, the whole world has become accustomed to interest rates basically only going in one direction. Of course, there was plenty of volatility along the way, but persistent, if not continuous declines in rates have been the norm for the careers and investment minds of most living human beings. Consequently, expectations are deeply embedded in our collective psyche that rates do one thing, which is to decline. Yet here we are, observing them go up. So it’s no wonder th很多人都不愿意相信這一點。這是非常不規(guī)則的，而且完全不符合我們很多很多年前的集體經(jīng)驗。

那么這將如何改變投資環(huán)境呢？

在 1981 年開始的長期債券牛市期間，可以可靠地預(yù)期債券和股票的走勢相反：股票上漲，債券下跌，反之亦然。因此，債券為股票風(fēng)險提供了良好的對沖或緩沖。很長一段時間都是這種情況，當(dāng)債券產(chǎn)生一定收益時，這種情況尤其有吸引力。事實上，最近 1984 年的長期國債收益率為 14%，最近的 1987 年則高達(dá) 10%。因此，在過去 40 年的大部分時間里，債券不僅提供了投資組合平衡，而且還提供了大量利息一路上的收入。

還有今天？

This advantageous arrangement ended, or at least became much less advantageous, during the long period of zero percent rates and QE: Bonds yielded very little and might have provided some cushion, if stocks decline. But there was no great interest income for a long time from one’s bond position. Today however, there is a possibility that bonds and stocks could decline at the same time, as was the case for many years in the last bond bear market, beginning in the late Sixties and continuing into the early Eighties. So correlations could change. The popular 60/40 portfolio could deliver disappointing returns, rather than persistently attractive ones – and that too would be a big change in the investment weather.

That’s not exactly an uplifting outlook.

這并不是說，在收益率持續(xù)上升的時期，從儲戶、長期投資者的角度來看，沒有一些明顯的優(yōu)勢。固定收益投資的經(jīng)典著作之一是一本名為“Inside the Yield Book”的書，作者：馬丁·萊博維茨和西德尼·霍默。它問世的時候，收益率已經(jīng)被印刷并裝訂成書，在數(shù)字時代、彭博時代之前。1972 年版《收益率手冊》第一章的標(biāo)題是《利息上的利息》。它描述了債券投資者以利率上升的方式投資半年期息票的算術(shù)，指出長期利息可貢獻(xiàn)高達(dá)總回報的一半。它進(jìn)一步指出，在收益率上升的時期，到期收益率將高于您購買債券的收益率，因為您將不是按照票面利率進(jìn)行投資，而是按照不斷增加的利率進(jìn)行投資。

這種復(fù)合效應(yīng)到底是如何發(fā)揮作用的呢？

Let’s say, you buy a 6% bond maturing in thirty years. In a bond bull market with continually declining interest rates, you reinvested that 6% coupon in ever lower rates and thereby ever lower returns. So the yield to maturity was not 6%, but something less than that. Now, imagine you purchase that same security today in an environment with persistently, if not continuously rising rates over the next thirty or forty years. The rate you earn on that coupon won’t be 6%. It’s likely to be something higher, and therefore your yield to maturity is going to be better than 6%.

So a bear market in bonds also brings benefits?

Indeed. For investors, it opens up another new vista to come: opportunities for interest on interest. Of course, this does not apply to people who need coupon income to pay their rent and buy their groceries. But for savers, for pension funds, for sovereign wealth funds, for people who are in the business of reinvesting their interest income this is a not-disadvantageous thing, this bond bear market. But again, to re-emphasize: This is all hypothetical, I don’t want to sound like some cocksure dogmatic prophet, which I assure you I am not.

But let’s assume you are correct in your thesis on the future development of interest rates. In principle, do bonds therefore offer an attractive alternative to equities in the portfolio?

Yes, what is old will be new again. Bonds really earn something besides nothing or less than nothing which was the case for a long time. But as mentioned earlier, it’s going to take some time getting used to it. So far, the stock market pretends not to notice. This seems surprising. As we point out in a recent issue of ?Grant’s?, the volatility of the bond market is very elevated, whereas the volatility of the stock market is very subdued. So you have to ask yourself: How can complacency reign in junior securities, when anxiety is the mood in the market of senior securities? This doesn’t make intuitive sense.

Where could the pressure of rising rates cause major problems?

I suspect that this most sudden and even violent lurch higher in interest rates is going to test financial structures that came into being during the period of very low nominal interest rates. Think of what all came into being, when money was proverbially free from 2010 to 2021: Cryptocurrencies flourished, dito venture capital and private equity. There were no constraints on sovereign debt issuance, so public credit was expanded dramatically. Interest expense seemed to be forever minimal and not worrisome because, after all, rates would never rise. To some degree, the entire world was capitalized on the expectation of extremely low interest rates.

And how do things look now?

All that has changed, but not in the expectations yet. I think people are still trying to deal with the shock of the perception of the possibility of much higher rates for a long time. Not every company has had to refinance so far, not every private equity company has met a hostile reception in the credit markets, and not every country has had to face the consequences of a potentially ruinously high national invoice for interest expense. All this is still in the making. So I’m not so quick to believe that this rise in rates, as dramatic as it has been, is going to be solitary or helpful just to savers. No, I think it’s a much, much deeper phenomenon and we’ll learn more about it in the coming fiscal quarters and years. That’s for sure.

With the crisis facing British pension funds and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, we have already seen two situations with major turmoil. Do you expect further stress in the system?

Who knows, but the protracted selloff in US treasuries is properly raising concerns that the March regional banking crisis never ended but only took the summer off. All-time low interest rates beguiled, seduced and even coerced people into doing things they would not have done perhaps except for interest rates that were not the product of the marketplace but rather the product of the models of the central bankers of the world. The problem with 4%, 5% and 6% interest rates today is not 4%, 5% and 6% on their face. The real problem is the preceding regime of zero percent rates, and the debt accumulation that those rates fostered and brought into being.

Then again, interest rates could also fall again. Or to put it another way: What are the specific forces that could foster a long bear market in bonds?

One cause might be an embedded, what they call, structural inflation. If inflation is part of the times, the spirit of the age, that could be one driver. Another cause could be a deterioration of public credit. For a long time, the United States has been in the privileged position of being the one and only superpower and the issuer of the one and only reserve currency of the world. But in its humanity, America is not so very different from other countries.

What do you mean by that?

Essentially, the privilege of consuming much more than you produce is sort of the poisoned chalice gift of a reserve currency. It’s like saying: All right, you can pay your bills in your currency you alone can produce and the world will accept it because of your evident strength and enterprise and power. If Uganda, Britain, Singapore or even Switzerland was given this privilege, I imagine any other country would have done the same. But what we have done in America is that we brought up immense net international debts and very large domestic sovereign debts. So altogether a lot of debts, financed with the dollar which – as we convinced ourselves – is kind of the Coca-Cola or Microsoft of monetary world brands. That’s a very seductive thing to have come to believe.

So the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is proving to be a curse?

When we speak about the troubles in public credit, that’s another way of saying there are more bonds on offer than are demanded at prevailing rates of interest. The United States has been downgraded by Standard & Poors’ and by Fitch, and Moody’s maybe would prefer to do the same. America is a Triple-A country in many respects. The Statue of Liberty, the Declaration of Independence, you can’t downgrade those. It’s part of the whole business model of this country, and it’s a pretty good business model. But financially speaking, we have taken advantage of these things; the things that make America truly what it is – not the financial gimmicks that make us more encumbered than we ought to be.

Nevertheless, the US economy is doing remarkably well by international comparisons. This is despite the fact that virtually everyone had feared that the economy would cool down significantly as a result of rising interest rates.

I thought that combination of an inverted yield curve and the contraction of monetary growth together were pretty strong signals of a pending recession. So again, it turns out there are no surefire indicators. But obviously, a recession will come at some time, and I think it will have its origins in the unhealthy capital structures caused by the suppression of interest rates and the distortion that suppression has brought about over the course of more than a decade. To me, that’s going to be the proximate cause of the next financial difficulties, being part and parcel of the next recession.

What is the best way to navigate this environment as a European investor based in Zurich, for example?

I would think that you would continue to look at companies in a company-by-company way. However, you would not be ignorant of the fact that the spread between the American equity market cap and the market cap of the rest of the world is at a record high. So everyone owns America already, and has been well paid for that. But it’s a big world, and there might be opportunities elsewhere as well as in America.

Where else do you spot attractive opportunities for investments?

Here’s a question: When you’re looking around for a currency, if you want to hold money in some form, are you really sure you want to hold it in dollars, or in competing fiat currencies? In this regard, I might have mentioned gold once or twice before in our previous conversations. So I would say to the gnomes of Zurich: Don’t forget what got you here! Don’t turn your little backs on gold. But seriously, I think that gold is going to have its day. It really has not had its day yet, as I see it.

Gold has experienced a strong surge in recent weeks. What speaks for further gains?

I think gold ought not to trade as an inflation hedge, but as an investment in monetary disorder of which we surely have enough in the world. So it’s a question of getting people interested in the problem, and then in the solution. If you want to go back and look at the long cycles, it might just be that the fifty odd years since the end of Bretton Woods and the end of the dollar’s convertibility to gold, that that cycle is ending. It might be that paper money in the historians’ retro perspective views will seem to have been a failure and that the world is going to charge back on unconstrained central bank credit creation 和 u不受約束的主權(quán)借款。也許，這是看待它的一種方式。這就是我看待這些事情的方式：長期的、歷史的趨勢——而貨幣歷史的五十年只是一眨眼的時間。