麦睿投资三季度市场综述(2022)

经济和利率评论：

如预期所至，2022 年上半年 GDP增长 略为负数。通常情况下，经济增长为负被称为经济衰退，但今年的情况却有所不同，由于失业率尚未增加，所以人们并没有定义现阶段为经济衰退。

通胀情况喜忧参半。从积极的角度来说，通胀停止增长并且石油已大幅回落至年初的价格。从消极的角度来说，由于油价被排除在美联储用来确定核心通货膨胀率的衡量标准之外，核心通货膨胀的最大组成部分（工资和住房）一直保持在高位，这些因素具有“粘性”并没有因为货币政策的调整显著下降。为应对这些通胀数据，美联储将联邦基金利率（短期利率）大幅提高至 3.26%。这些行动对所有资产价格产生了巨大影响，但对通胀充其量只能有滞后6-18个月的的预期影响；而且，在通胀的某些组成部分中，实际上会进一步加剧通胀。例如，更高的利率使住房建造更加困难，供需更加不一致。美联储希望资产价格的下跌能够让雇主对雇员有更多的议价权。

美联储表示他们希望在未来 12 个月内将利率提高至 4-5%，美联储预计这将导致未来 2-3 年的年增长率低于 1%，通胀率到2025年将回落至 2 %。美联储的估计可能是一厢情愿的想法，因为鉴于当前世界环境与2009-2019低通胀时期的差异，通胀率每年降至 2% 可能不再现实；除非一些经济敏感因素破裂导致他们降低利率。

债券和被动企业所有权（股票）市场评论：

所有二级市场的资产类别连续第三个季度下降（债券和股票-5%，房地产投资信托基金的-10%）。这是自 2008-09 年金融危机以来最长的季度亏损。我将下降归因于美联储扭转其宽松政策，通过出售债券和提高利率来减少货币供应。八月份市场出现了一次短期反弹，直到鲍威尔主席重申了他打算牺牲经济以降低通胀的打算；导致 2 年期债券的短期利率达到 4% 以上，是2007 年（金融危机前）以来的最高水平。这导致许多市场策略师涌向相对安全的债券。

我同意就短期而言较高利率使债券比年初更具吸引力；但要警惕的是，美联储的政策已经消除了股票和债券的历史（2019 年之前）反向关系。换句话说，在 2019 年前股市下跌债券上涨，反之亦然，两者负相关；2019年以来两者趋势基本一致。所以我认为当前情况下不适合卖股票买短期债券。因为要在短期债券上获利，你需要利率稳定或下跌，在这种环境下，股票的涨幅将超过债券。

因此，我们的投资策略发生变化，不再投资于固定利率债券，而是开始配置利率可变且每季度重置的私人信贷/贷款组合。这降低了利率上升和通货膨胀的风险，但被违约风险抵消（债务人无法全额还款的风险）。在经济周期的当前阶段，大多数公司仍拥有强劲的财务状况，利润并未下降。

我们今年突出并成为亮点的一项投资是黑石私募房地产投资信托 (B-REIT)，第三季度增长 1.9%，年初至今增长 8.8%。基于自金融危机以来我们的住房供应不足的信念，他们投资组合中公寓住宅占了很大权重（52%），这使得他们能够以两倍于通货膨胀率的速度提高租金，从而抵消利率上升的影响。他们所实现的也是长远来看公司/企业能够生存和发展的必要。换句话说，必须能够拥有定价权增加利润从而抵消加息的影响。

结论：美国经济正在经历一个调整期，其增长速度低于我们在 2021 年前习惯的增长率。资产市场正在适应高利率和低增长。较高的利率使债券收益率更接近实际（经通胀调整的）利率。我们倾向于那些通过增加利润来抵消利率上涨影响的商业资产。由于通货膨胀风险，我们仍然倾向于企业所有权和基础设施（尽管在此过程中会出现短期颠簸）而不是固定收益/债券的违约安全。

Economic and Interest Rate Commentary:

As expected, the 2022 1st half GDP was slightly negative. While this has normally been officially called a recession,it is not being called a recession in this case by people who classify this phenomenon because the unemployment rate has not increased yet.

The inflation picture has been mixed. On the positive it has stopped increasing, and oil/fuel has dropped significantly back to the prices at the start of the year. On the negative oil/fuel is excluded from the measurement used by the Fed to determine the appropriate inflation rate and the biggest components of inflation (wages and shelter) have stayed high as they are known as “sticky” and do not decrease (significantly) in response to monetary policy. The Fed in response to these inflation readings increased the fed funds rate (short term rates) significantly to 3.26%. These actions have had a drastic effect on all asset prices, but their intended effects on inflation are at best lagged 6-18 months, and in some components of inflation actually stoke inflation further. For example, higher rates make it more difficult for more housing to be built to bring supply in line with demand. The Fed hope the drop in asset prices will be able to give employers more bargaining power over employees.

The FED signal their desire to increase rates to the 4-5% range within the next 12 months, and the FED expects this to result in less than 1% annual growth for the next 2-3 years and inflation to come back down to 2% by 2025. The Fed estimates are probably wishful thinking as either something economically sensitive will probably break to cause them to decrease rates and bringing inflation down to 2% annually might no longer be realistic given the differences in the current world environment from the low inflation period of 2009-2019.

Bond and Passive Business Ownership (Stock) Market Commentary:

For the 3rd straight quarter all publicly traded assets classes decreased (bonds and stocks -5%, REIT’s -10%). This is the longest quarterly losing streak since the 2008-09 financial crises. I would attribute the decreases to the Fed reversing their accommodative policies to decrease money supply via selling bonds and increasing rates. There was a short-term market rally that ended in August with Chairman Powell reiterating his intent to inflict economic pain to bring down inflation. This caused the short-term rates on the 2-year bond to reach over 4%, the highest levels since 2007 (before financial crisis). This has led many market tacticians to flock to the relative safety of bonds. 

I would agree that for short term purposes the rates make bonds relatively more attractive than at the start of the year, but I would caution that the Fed policies have eliminated the historical (pre-2019) inverse relationship of stock and bonds. In other words, prior to 2019 when stocks went down, bonds went up and vice versa. Since 2019, they have basically traded in line with each other, therefore, I do not see it appropriate to sell stocks to buy short term bonds, because for you to make a profit on the short-term bonds, you need rates to stabilize or drop, and in that environment, stocks would increase more than the bonds. 

Instead of investing on fixed rates bonds, we have started to allocate to a private credit/loan portfolio in which the interest rate is variable and resets quarterly. This reduces the risk of interest rate increases and inflation, but is offset by default risk (risk creditor does not payback loan in full). At this point in the economic cycle most companies are still in a strong financial position as profits have not dropped.

One investment that we have highlighted this year and has been a bright spot is the Blackstone Private REIT (B-REIT) as it increased 1.9% Q3 and 8.8% YTD. They have been heavily weighted (52%) toward multi-family housing based on the belief we are undersupplied on housing since the financial crisis and this has allowed them to increase rent rates at double the rate of inflation offsetting the effects on rising rates on their assets.What they are able to do is what will over the longer term be what results on a company/business to survive and thrive. In other words, you have to be able to have pricing power to increase profits to offset the effects of interest rate increases.

Conclusion: The US economy is going thru an adjustment period with slower growth than we were accustomed to in 2021. Asset markets are adjusting to higher interest rates and lower growth. Higher interest rates are starting to bring bond yields closer to the real (inflation adjusted) rate. We favor assets than can increase profits over time to offset the effects of rate increases. We still favor business ownership and infrastructure (despite short term bumps along the way) over the default safety of fixed income / bonds due to inflation risk.