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2021-07-31

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A lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US stocks

2022-04-29

$多尼斯(DOGZ)$👍

08-11

$IX生物制药(42C.SI)$

2021-06-11

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Soros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a "false sense of security"

2021-06-11

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Meituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company

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href=\"https://ttm.financial/S/DOGZ\">$多尼斯(DOGZ)$</a>👍","text":"$多尼斯(DOGZ)$👍","images":[{"img":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/198aca3d6e0b040b631bd73d5d30b388","width":"1125","height":"3750"}],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9069381210","isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":4425,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":1,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":802806301,"gmtCreate":1627743900703,"gmtModify":1703495411910,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3567313446080368","authorIdStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"good","listText":"good","text":"good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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>Oaktree Capital founder Marks said that Federal Reserve rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure the economy does not overheat, because high inflation demands higher interest rates, or both, it is very possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly falling asset prices) would make everyone uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational by reference to interest rates.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, is arguably the world's leading investment philosopher, with $153 billion in assets under management. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, each of which is considered a classic. Here is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions: it must be important and knowable at the same time. —Warren Buffett</p><p>As long-time readers of my memo know, Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macroeconomic expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six investment philosophies is simply that we do not make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own companies do not employ economists, and we rarely invite outside economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for doing this is actually very simple: to paraphrase Buffett's famous quote, we firmly believe that the macroeconomic future is unknowable. Or you could say that macroeconomic forecasting is a different field, just like investing itself—it's very easy to be as accurate as the public, but extremely difficult to be more accurate. So-called consensus expectations do not give you any advantage. Investors who want to obtain above-average returns must have a knowledge advantage and be more accurate than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that, given this, they must make their own macroeconomic forecasts and invest accordingly. Successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, also frequently make statements related to macroeconomic expectations, even if people find little evidence to suggest a link between their investment success and their accurate macroeconomic expectations. Nevertheless, the enormous impact of changes in the macroeconomic situation has convinced many investors that ignoring the macroeconomic situation when investing is absolutely irresponsible. However...</p><p>● Most macroeconomic expectations can actually be divided into two categories: either consistent expectations that are of little help, or different expectations that are rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I've encountered, I can count them on one hand who can make successful investment decisions based on macroeconomic expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they buy when they think they've found a discount and sell when they think it's overvalued, basically without caring about the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you actually have little understanding of the macro future, but in these areas full of significant variables, agnosticism is probably always better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is just my opinion? So let's hear what the authorities have to say.</p><p>The thought that you might not understand something is scary, but overall, it's even scarier if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what's going on.</p><p>—Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't understand, but the things you firmly believe you know but don't actually understand.\"</p><p>—Mark Twain</p><p>At this point, I am reminded of a topic about the prophets' performance records, or rather, their lack of performance records. Back in the 1970s, an elder once told me, \"A so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never focuses on the market.\" This definition still seems so vivid today. When an economist or macroeconomic strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he does not specify what percentage of his previous recession expectations came true within a year. It is well known that investment managers must provide their historical performance records at all times, otherwise investors will not consider them at all. Why, then, should we trust macroeconomic prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I would like to point out that the same comments actually apply to most investors. We rarely hear these people say they have no idea about the macro future or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions for becoming a successful investor is to understand self-assessment. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you invest based on your own macro judgments, how much help can these judgments provide overall? Should you continue to invest based on them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>These are my personal thoughts on the so-called flaws of expectations. In the remainder of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why am I even talking about this topic? This can be understood by reversing Warren Buffett's famous quote at the beginning of the article—although the macroeconomic future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, I found that market movements were primarily a reaction to events surrounding certain companies and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market appeared to be dominated primarily by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and major international events, a point that became even clearer after the 2008 global financial crisis. That's why I'm writing this memo on a topic I rarely touch on.</p><p>Below, I will attempt to list some significant macroeconomic issues, discuss them, and make prospects. Finally, I will offer some related suggestions. Here, I also need to reiterate my belief that we all have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's principles state; “It’s one thing to have our own ideas, but it’s another thing to assume that they are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such things.”</p><p><b>inflation</b></p><p>At the moment this article is written, the most concerning macroeconomic issue in the United States is undoubtedly inflation. Over the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress have been turning on the money supply to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. This resulted in three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospects for a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have skyrocketed; Third, concerns about inflation are growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records indicate that these policies, as described earlier, are likely to result in the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger-than-normal economy;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and the resulting higher wages;</p><p>● More funds are chasing goods with limited supply;</p><p>● The rate of increase in commodity prices (i.e., inflation) is accelerating;</p><p>● Monetary policy tightened to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and uncertainties in the operation of the economy, the orthodox view holds that the above general process model is highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing the important variables inherent in thinking about inflation.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined who I am today was that I invested in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation, which remained high in the United States from the 1970s until 1982. The two chief economists dubbed \"Dr. Doom” and \"Dr. Dark” (I can't remember which title belongs to whom), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often gave depressing speeches declaring that they didn't know what was causing the terrible inflation, much less how to control it. Everyone was helpless against inflation until Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker finally solved the problem through massive rate hike, which led to the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what has our experience been like in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set their sights on a healthy 2% inflation rate, but no one has been able to achieve it. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is substantial, the money supply expands rapidly through quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historically low levels—all of which, from a traditional perspective, are extremely inflationary—the latter has been consistently absent.</p><p>● Finally, over the past six decades or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, which assumes a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation—the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more capital workers have when bargaining with employers, the faster wages rise, and the greater the increase in consumer prices. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline over the past decade, eventually reaching its lowest point in half a century, while inflation has still not made substantial progress. 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 attributable to changes in the methods used to compile the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real crucial truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes, and how to deal with it. I've used the word \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so it seems to me that we must place even lower trust in inflation-related expectations compared to other areas. Of course, this will make investors more uneasy today, since inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variable at present.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed the outlook for inflation, and I certainly can't copy everything, but I can provide a brief summary. Here is a general background;</p><p>● With the economy forced to shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress took dramatic action to support the economy and its participants, preventing the Great Global Economic Slowdown from eventually turning into a second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare spending on individuals, loans and guarantees to businesses and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and massive bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 was a year when you could hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people earned more in 2020 than in 2019. In 2020, income exceeded the trend line while expenses fell below it, since travel, dining out, sports competitions, concerts, and weddings had all disappeared. The end result of all this progress is an estimated $2 trillion in additional cash on American consumers' balance sheets.</p><p>● With the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, the financial markets were flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital markets to reopen. Against the backdrop of trillions of dollars in stock market value inflation and a surge in home prices, a clear wealth effect has emerged. Compared to this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs suggest that we may be heading towards a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of the above will lead to an accelerated rise in the inflation rate.</p><p>Concerns about high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the coming years. Initially, people's anxieties mainly stemmed from economic theories, but in 2021, these concerns began to be supported by concrete evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Housing prices soared.</p><p>● The prices of raw materials and components have skyrocketed, such as copper, timber, and semiconductors.</p><p>● There is a shortage of smartphones.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and sectors have increased the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase in the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May, and 5.4% in June, setting new records for the highest readings since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only stem from the supply and demand imbalance caused by rising input costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened demand for dollars, lowered the real value of the dollar, and led to higher prices for imported goods.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that a climate has recently developed in Washington where trillions of dollars in spending can be carried out indiscriminately without a reliable mechanism to pay the bills. At the same time, the influence of modern monetary theory (MMT), which essentially holds that deficits and debt are not to be feared, is growing. What if these ideas are ultimately proven to be untenable?</p><p>On the other hand, many people have tried to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is practically the most popular word at the moment).</p><p>● Many of the shortages that lead to high input costs for manufactured goods and manufacturing, ultimately leading to price increases, can be understood as natural consequences of economic restarts, especially products of the restart of global supply chains. It is clearly unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to return to efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any one component can lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufactured goods. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, they are naturally only short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the prices of raw materials or manufactured goods are not determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way. This means that prices do not necessarily have to be \"correct\" or in line with the current environment—the same principle applies to stock prices. In fact, just like the stock market, commodity prices are determined more by the psychology of economic participants, which can be both excessive and insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in his article \"The Fed's Folly\" on July 23 this year, \"The rise in commodity prices that leads to increased inflationary pressures is actually a product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only a result of the current supply and demand situation, but also reveal people's judgments about future price trends. In this regard, timber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020 when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to the peak in May 2021 when almost no one believed that housing supply could keep up with demand, the price of this essential construction commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, timber prices have fallen by more than 60%, and their impact on inflation is no longer what it was not long ago.</p><p>● Clearly, a large part of the inflation experienced by people in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the arrival of pandemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. This can only be temporary, of course; a limited total pool of funds is unlikely to lead to sustained high spending.</p><p>● Additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, bringing more workers back into the labor market and easing the pressure on wages and commodity prices from labor shortages.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, economic growth will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the pent-up consumer demand from 2020 will have been basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, the intensity of recent stimulus, deficit spending, and money printing will decrease (at least the growth rate will slow down), which means that the proportion of these factors relative to the size of the economy will decrease.</p><p>● Technological advances, automation, and globalization are expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether current inflation will be permanent or temporary remains a hotly debated issue. This debate is significant because higher inflation will undoubtedly lead to higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for us to know the real answer. (As mentioned earlier, it is important but unknowable.) Both sides of the argument are well-educated and talented, but I still firmly believe that none of them are truly prophets.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the Fed's responsibilities is to ensure that inflation remains under control. However, Fed leaders also admit that they are not entirely sure about their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"Therefore, I cannot give exact numbers or a precise timeframe. I can only say that we do expect inflation to decline. Look at my and my colleagues' forecasts for 2022 and 2023, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to decline significantly toward our target.\" I believe that the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our target.</p><p>Around the same time, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard also mentioned in his speech that variables still exist. Media reports on June 18 wrote:</p><p>\"Bullard... stated that the U.S. economy is 'in a highly volatile environment, making it impossible to see whether any path anyone predicts will ultimately become a reality.'\"</p><p>This is exactly the frankness we need. However, from the above quotes, it is clear that the Federal Reserve cannot make a statement that \"we have the answer\" to the inflation issue—in fact, it can 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, which, in my opinion, was completely irrational. So I wrote a memo (Visiting a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I appeared on a television program discussing the contents of the memo, people discussed whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, and I gave a resounding negative answer. I emphasized 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 19, 2016), I published another article, \"What the Market Knows\". So, what lessons do these have 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 stock market declines to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 experienced a very limited decline, and the following day, June 19, the media wrote:</p><p>\"U.S. stocks fell on Friday as traders closely watched the Federal Reserve for clues about the next steps in monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6% on Friday, or 533.37 points, to close at 33,290.08, down 3.45% for the week.\"</p><p>The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday, or 55.41 points, to close at 4,166.45, down 1.9% for the week. This ended a three-week upward trend. Along with big tech stocks also declining, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14,030.38, down 0.3% for the week.</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect to begin a rate hike in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. Market sentiment was dampened again on Friday after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike to occur as early as the second half of 2022.\"</p><p>“ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada said the decline in U.S. stocks was not unexpected. The stock market has been rising continuously since last year, hitting new highs, and is well ahead of the economic recovery process. Now that traders are witnessing the Federal Reserve slowly shifting its monetary policy stance, it is natural to start repricing the ‘reinflation trade.’”</p><p>\"'The day has finally arrived,' he commented. 'Because the market got ahead too much, this sell-off was bound to happen sooner or later.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, the so-called Wall Street 'fear indicator,' has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at Mitsubishi UFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If a rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more shocked because it will inevitably mean that the Federal Reserve will also taper at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any given time, media commentators seem always well-prepared to offer a logical explanation of what is happening in the markets and why (I'm always curious where they get that explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these things mean for the future—without exception, of course, by extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme of 2021 so far has been high inflation. As a result, people repeatedly explain most of the changes in the market by inflation and the resulting fear of high interest rates. For example, the latest economic data shows that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has turned negative as a result.</p><p>So far, these arguments seem to make sense. You could argue that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the views of the bond market seem to be quite different from those of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18:</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 fallen for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of over 7% in May, compared to over 9% in April. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience its highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that there is no need to be afraid, while the bond market does not appear to be worried.\" Although bond yields rose somewhat due to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed an overall downward trend last week and remain at a historically low level. Since the market isn't worried, perhaps we don't need to worry unnecessarily.</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation and higher interest rates, but the bond market, which mainly depends on the outlook for interest rates, is showing higher prices and lower interest rates, seemingly unconcerned about inflation.</p><p>This reminds me of gold, which has been considered a target for inflationary surges throughout history. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market also seems to agree with the bond market's judgment that the inflation outlook is actually still moderate. The media wrote on June 19:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, extending Thursday's losses and now experiencing their biggest drop in more than ten months. For the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, marking their worst weekly performance since March 13, 2020.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, gold prices surged to an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, likely because the Federal Reserve was injecting a staggering amount of money into the economy and markets. From then until June 18, 2021, although fears of inflation seemed to be growing, gold prices fell to $1,773, a 14% drop from their high ten months earlier.</p><p>Thus, in June, we witnessed a strange combination: weak stock markets, reportedly the product of inflation fears, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation remained under control. Then there's gold, a classic inflation-hedging tool, whose price is also falling as stock market investors are described as increasingly concerned about inflation. These markets not only don't know what the future holds, but their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In my 2016 book, \"What the Market Knows,\" I concluded that \"the market doesn't actually make any contribution when it comes to when to buy and sell securities.\" I believe the same conclusion applies to the prospects for various macroeconomic events in the future. To understand the market's thought process, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help; I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychologist\" back then.</p><p>The market operates like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and react accordingly, whether bullish or bearish. Although markets are often excellent \"observers,\" capable of reacting extremely quickly and effectively to current changes, sometimes, as shown in the cartoon, they also seem to wear positive or negative tinted glasses when observing events (and jump back and forth between the two). Furthermore, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and often knows nothing about what is about to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, its judgment of the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the fact that the present cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when a security's price performance differs from what we predict based on our own judgment, we must first consider whether the market has sensed something sufficient to overturn our previous judgments and expectations. (Does the market occasionally have exceptions, moments of foresight? Let's look back at the 68% gain in the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020, to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided it made sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most commentators in recognizing the potential impact of Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictions and statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still really hope to share them with everyone. I am able to learn this thanks to my long-time partner, Sheldon Stone, with whom I have worked for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended a New York Times article from December 18th to me, titled \"After Guessing Completely 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 would rise 2.7% in 2020. Given the actual increase of 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was a full 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. However, what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the pandemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus expectation was further lowered to -11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in the special year of 2020, it is obviously unreasonable for a strategist to predict the outbreak of the epidemic. The same principle applies to expecting him to predict the great success of the response policies or the specific timing and intensity of the subsequent market rebound. Crucially, the article goes on to list a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is far more significant. Below, I will give a general introduction based on the original text:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts have projected a median annual return of 9.5% for the S&P 500, while the actual return has been 6.0%. Some might say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points,' but others might say, 'That's terrible—the forecasters exaggerated the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number in the median return expectations, that is, a prediction of a decline.\" However, the fact is that the US 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 predicted that the market would rise by 7.5%, a gap of 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets predicted that the market would rise by 12.5%, but in reality it fell by 23.3%, a gap of nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"In summary, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectations and reality averaged 12.9 percentage points annually, which is equivalent to twice the stock market's real average annual return of 6.0% during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to a weatherman who reports sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the time.\" This is called prediction!” (Why is the average error initially said to be 3.5 percentage points, and later said to be 12.9 percentage points? I estimate the latter is the average from the 'absolute value' of the error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than reality, and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than reality, then the absolute value of the error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that while hundreds or even thousands of people make a living doing professional market forecasting, the reality is that their median forecasts are worthless, their average forecasts are wrong, they are bullish in both good and bad years, and they are always completely wrong in the years when accurate forecasts can really make a lot of money.</p><p><b>The role of the Federal Reserve</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macroeconomic outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its actions. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has lasted to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs and made large purchases of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a great success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same actions have also contributed to the current threat of persistently high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities: to ensure sufficient economic growth to create jobs and achieve full employment, and to keep inflation under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation leads 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 thanks to policies from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and was later strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with real GDP growing at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue throughout the remainder of 2021 and into 2022. However, under these circumstances, the Federal Reserve maintained its established interest rate and continued its monthly bond purchases of $120 billion. Why continue stimulus when the economy is already performing well, and risk pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. Initially, they said they did not believe high inflation would occur, but this assertion has certainly been refuted by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly emphasized that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, maintaining such a strong easing policy indicates that the Fed is more concerned about potential trouble for economic growth than about inflation. One well-informed observer told me that the Fed's thinking was that if economic growth returned to its normal rate of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagflation was 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 stagnant expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its actual pace was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's recent testimony to Congress also demonstrates that this is still his top priority now that the recovery has been ongoing for several months. A Reuters press release on July 14 wrote:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pledged to 'strongly support' the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process from the pandemic.\"</p><p>\"During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices was mainly due to the country's post-pandemic restart and would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus on getting as many people back to work as possible.\"</p><p>Powell stated that given the current job losses caused by the pandemic, which still amount to as much as 7.5 million, weakening economic support, such as reducing the Federal Reserve's $120 billion monthly bond-buying operations, is \"still a very long way off.\"</p><p>However, even if a setback in economic growth is indeed a greater risk—and no one dares to argue with the Fed that this risk does not exist—the risk of inflation, and the various consequences of this risk, remains highly real. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that the Fed's stimulus policies will be too strong than insufficient. I also believe that while these Fed policies have the potential to have negative side effects, they are indeed doing the right thing. However, we must also have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● Higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, leading to higher interest rates. On the other hand, controlling inflation requires tightening monetary policy and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates lead investors to demand higher returns, causing financial asset prices to fall and possibly even crash (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, as most of their income is invested in various necessities, while millions of retirees and other people who rely on fixed incomes will also be severely impacted.</p><p>● Higher inflation will increase Treasury Bond’s repayment costs, leading to a further widening of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will lead lenders (and foreign buyers) to further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, ultimately causing a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we continue to print enough dollars to pay interest and cover deficits, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate, and even its status as the world's reserve currency will be questioned.</p><p>● As history has shown, rapidly rising prices can cause inflationary expectations to be implanted in the American psyche, eventually snowballing into a self-fulfilling situation, at which point the situation becomes difficult to rectify.</p><p>Furthermore, the loose monetary policy itself has a series of negative impacts that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The Fed's generosity will be seen as evidence that the so-called \"Fed response\" does exist, leading people to believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This can lead to a series of consequences, such as a moral crisis (investors believe they can take risks freely without having to bear the consequences), and a failure of market risk aversion mechanisms, threatening the safety of the market.</p><p>● In the environment described above, businesses and investors will be more inclined to use leverage, which will amplify the destructive power of the economy once it slows down.</p><p>● As the experience of the past sixteen months has demonstrated, the Federal Reserve cannot stimulate the economy without increasing its size. So, whose pockets do these extra benefits end up in? The answer is those who own the economy (those who own stocks, businesses, real estate, etc.). This means that the stimulus and the resulting asset price increases have actually exacerbated the problem of wealth inequality, a point that is now attracting more and more attention.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing—including keeping interest rates near zero—then when the economy slows again in the future and needs more stimulus, they will have relatively few policy tools at their disposal. For example, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements in last year's rescue policy package, but if interest rates were already zero, the Fed would have little room to maneuver in this regard.</p><p>Some believe that the Fed may be able to replicate last year's miracle, creating long-term prosperity and avoiding or minimizing a recession. Some people hope that low interest rates will keep the market rising forever. Some argue that the Treasury can issue as much Treasury Bond as it wants because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of ultimate buyer. Clearly, there are many in the federal government who feel they can spend as much as they want without the ever-increasing deficit and debt having any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive my foolishness for not being able to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are far too wishful thinking. This logic seems like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayments. I can't tell you exactly what loopholes are hidden in this logic, but I believe that loopholes definitely exist. Or you could put it this way: if you're going to bet me that there's definitely a lot of loopholes here, I absolutely won't bet with 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 known as \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means without costs. Even Keynes himself believed that while deficits were a reasonable option for reviving the economy, governments must be able to generate fiscal surpluses during booms to offset deficits caused by downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surpluses, and debt repayment seem to have been thrown into the dustbin of history.</p><p>For more than two decades, the United States has had a huge and ever-increasing deficit, a trend that seems increasingly difficult to reverse. Traditional economics believes this will cause inflation, but as mentioned earlier in the article, a full decade of deficits in the second decade of the new century did not lead to any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps these deficits simply helped prop up a faltering economy—without the help of deficit spending, the economy's real performance could only have been worse.</p><p>In any case, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I mentioned earlier, in 2020 we witnessed a trillion-dollar increase in welfare benefits, the Federal Reserve's bond-buying operations, and a rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these proportions relative to the total size of the U.S. economy are rising rapidly. What will be the consequences? The future will inevitably unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually transform the Federal Reserve into a highly active market player (the term \"Greenspan strategy\" emerged and eventually evolved into the \"Fed strategy\" it is today), which is how he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operations were necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my view, they should not be permanent. I would prefer to see a Fed that is no longer constantly preoccupied with fine-tuning, but rather sits on the sidelines most of the time, only taking measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it reaches an extreme.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially its power as the best means of allocating resources. In a free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to where they can be most efficient. However, we no longer have free capital markets, not since the 2008 global financial crisis. The Fed reduced Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009 and has maintained it almost ever since. They also tried rate hike, but each time the market responded with turmoil, forcing them to stop.</p><p>I must clarify that I have never felt more intelligent than anyone at the Fed. However, overall, I would prefer to see economic stimulus policies introduced less frequently and less continuously. Perhaps, due to policy, our economic growth rate will increase further in the coming years, but I do not believe that monetary and fiscal policies can permanently increase the long-term economic growth rate without any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still hope to see a free money market, which in my view means that interest rates should \"happen naturally\". Artificially lowering interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and excessive leverage. To reiterate, I would like to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless absolutely necessary.</p><p>In my first memo during the pandemic era, I offered the following interpretation of the pandemic;</p><p>\"Because it's the first time it's happened, no one really knows. As Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch pointed out in a webcast, we can only first grasp the facts, then make reasonable inferences based on comparisons with other virus transmission situations, and ultimately form opinions or speculations.\" Scientists are trying to make sensible inferences. To date, I believe the pandemic-related data is still insufficient to allow them to translate their inferences into facts. (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If we replace \"scientists\" with \"economists\" and \"inflation\" with \"pandemic,\" I believe this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts to base our inferences on, except for our own experiences with American inflation in our own lives. Therefore, I believe that anyone's statements today about the inflation trend in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I personally prefer to be more direct and call it \"speculation\".</p><p>As I've written before, I often come across important materials near the end of a memo. This time, I would like to quote a passage related to Lipsich's views. This text comes from a second-quarter market letter released on July 9 by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an impressive track record:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of foresight. Most of the time, the market's expectations for the future are no more accurate than tossing a coin. Of course, we can find similar environments to the current one from past records and use analogy to make predictions, but the success or failure of this approach actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the methods we invoke have real dominance.\" Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it's a mixed bag of successes and failures; ultimately, it's just a coin toss.</p><p>The following quote, from former GE executive Ian Wilson, perfectly summarizes the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you cannot change the most fundamental fact that everything you know is about the past, and everything you decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible for people to express strong opinions about 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 macroeconomic future, their corresponding word is 'caution.' Followers of this school believe that people cannot predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best in investing without this understanding.\" (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 stay with us for a long time, are investors at a loss? The answer is actually in the title of a 2001 memo—\"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 indeed the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly reiterate some of my observations regarding market exposure when looking back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo, \"The Thing About Value,\" I talked about my own personality traits, my early life, and my experience successfully discovering unsustainable financial innovations and market gaps that made me a subconscious skeptic. This is what my son Andrew discovered and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated with me deeply.</p><p>In the past, I might have kept a close eye on today's high valuations and examples of various high-risk behaviors, issuing warnings of a market bubble and an impending consolidation. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that while all of the following is objective, it is not enough to justify a significant reduction in 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, we should continue to invest fully unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing.</p><p>Finally, I would like to briefly talk about the current market level. In the four or five years leading up to 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a high-yield bond bubble. My answer is; \"No, what we are actually experiencing is an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not exaggerated. The key is that due to extremely low interest rates, all bonds are overpriced.</p><p>Today, we hear again about the so-called \"bubble of everything\". As I did then, I believed that most assets were relatively reasonably priced if they were only referenced against each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic lows, doesn't it make sense that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in the early 20s, which means that the \"earnings return\" (an indicator formed by P/E inversion) is around 4% to 5%. In my opinion, this is relatively reasonable compared to the 10-year Treasury Bond yield of about 1.25%. If P/E shrinks to the long-term average of 16 levels since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is far too high compared to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is sufficient to demonstrate 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 to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to be maintained and high prices will continue to be maintained or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of hyperinflation. In fact, 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 demands higher interest rates, or both, it is quite possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) is unsettling for everyone, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational in terms of interest rates.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say simple and clear words like \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current view is actually just a combination of two different attitudes: aggressive and defensive, in an appropriate proportion. Given the aforementioned complexities, Oaktree Capital is currently maintaining a roughly balanced approach, which is in line with our normal stance (we were highly defensive at the beginning of 2020).</p><p>That said, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on the risk of inflation. If investors are more risk-averse or more concerned about a temporary market downturn (and less worried about the potential losses if inflation fails to materialize), they may consider increasing their investment in the following areas:</p><p>● Floating-rate bonds;</p><p>● Those companies with largely fixed costs, or the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and 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>From the perspective of the present, there are always ways to prepare for a high-inflation environment. I believe it is entirely reasonable for investors to be concerned about the possibility of high inflation. However, they should not make drastic changes to their asset allocation because of macroeconomic 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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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>Oaktree Capital founder Marks said that Federal Reserve rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure the economy does not overheat, because high inflation demands higher interest rates, or both, it is very possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly falling asset prices) would make everyone uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational by reference to interest rates.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, is arguably the world's leading investment philosopher, with $153 billion in assets under management. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, each of which is considered a classic. Here is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions: it must be important and knowable at the same time. —Warren Buffett</p><p>As long-time readers of my memo know, Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macroeconomic expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six investment philosophies is simply that we do not make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own companies do not employ economists, and we rarely invite outside economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for doing this is actually very simple: to paraphrase Buffett's famous quote, we firmly believe that the macroeconomic future is unknowable. Or you could say that macroeconomic forecasting is a different field, just like investing itself—it's very easy to be as accurate as the public, but extremely difficult to be more accurate. So-called consensus expectations do not give you any advantage. Investors who want to obtain above-average returns must have a knowledge advantage and be more accurate than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that, given this, they must make their own macroeconomic forecasts and invest accordingly. Successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, also frequently make statements related to macroeconomic expectations, even if people find little evidence to suggest a link between their investment success and their accurate macroeconomic expectations. Nevertheless, the enormous impact of changes in the macroeconomic situation has convinced many investors that ignoring the macroeconomic situation when investing is absolutely irresponsible. However...</p><p>● Most macroeconomic expectations can actually be divided into two categories: either consistent expectations that are of little help, or different expectations that are rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I've encountered, I can count them on one hand who can make successful investment decisions based on macroeconomic expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they buy when they think they've found a discount and sell when they think it's overvalued, basically without caring about the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you actually have little understanding of the macro future, but in these areas full of significant variables, agnosticism is probably always better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is just my opinion? So let's hear what the authorities have to say.</p><p>The thought that you might not understand something is scary, but overall, it's even scarier if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what's going on.</p><p>—Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't understand, but the things you firmly believe you know but don't actually understand.\"</p><p>—Mark Twain</p><p>At this point, I am reminded of a topic about the prophets' performance records, or rather, their lack of performance records. Back in the 1970s, an elder once told me, \"A so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never focuses on the market.\" This definition still seems so vivid today. When an economist or macroeconomic strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he does not specify what percentage of his previous recession expectations came true within a year. It is well known that investment managers must provide their historical performance records at all times, otherwise investors will not consider them at all. Why, then, should we trust macroeconomic prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I would like to point out that the same comments actually apply to most investors. We rarely hear these people say they have no idea about the macro future or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions for becoming a successful investor is to understand self-assessment. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you invest based on your own macro judgments, how much help can these judgments provide overall? Should you continue to invest based on them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>These are my personal thoughts on the so-called flaws of expectations. In the remainder of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why am I even talking about this topic? This can be understood by reversing Warren Buffett's famous quote at the beginning of the article—although the macroeconomic future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, I found that market movements were primarily a reaction to events surrounding certain companies and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market appeared to be dominated primarily by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and major international events, a point that became even clearer after the 2008 global financial crisis. That's why I'm writing this memo on a topic I rarely touch on.</p><p>Below, I will attempt to list some significant macroeconomic issues, discuss them, and make prospects. Finally, I will offer some related suggestions. Here, I also need to reiterate my belief that we all have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's principles state; “It’s one thing to have our own ideas, but it’s another thing to assume that they are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such things.”</p><p><b>inflation</b></p><p>At the moment this article is written, the most concerning macroeconomic issue in the United States is undoubtedly inflation. Over the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress have been turning on the money supply to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. This resulted in three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospects for a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have skyrocketed; Third, concerns about inflation are growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records indicate that these policies, as described earlier, are likely to result in the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger-than-normal economy;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and the resulting higher wages;</p><p>● More funds are chasing goods with limited supply;</p><p>● The rate of increase in commodity prices (i.e., inflation) is accelerating;</p><p>● Monetary policy tightened to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and uncertainties in the operation of the economy, the orthodox view holds that the above general process model is highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing the important variables inherent in thinking about inflation.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined who I am today was that I invested in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation, which remained high in the United States from the 1970s until 1982. The two chief economists dubbed \"Dr. Doom” and \"Dr. Dark” (I can't remember which title belongs to whom), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often gave depressing speeches declaring that they didn't know what was causing the terrible inflation, much less how to control it. Everyone was helpless against inflation until Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker finally solved the problem through massive rate hike, which led to the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what has our experience been like in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set their sights on a healthy 2% inflation rate, but no one has been able to achieve it. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is substantial, the money supply expands rapidly through quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historically low levels—all of which, from a traditional perspective, are extremely inflationary—the latter has been consistently absent.</p><p>● Finally, over the past six decades or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, which assumes a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation—the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more capital workers have when bargaining with employers, the faster wages rise, and the greater the increase in consumer prices. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline over the past decade, eventually reaching its lowest point in half a century, while inflation has still not made substantial progress. 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 attributable to changes in the methods used to compile the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real crucial truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes, and how to deal with it. I've used the word \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so it seems to me that we must place even lower trust in inflation-related expectations compared to other areas. Of course, this will make investors more uneasy today, since inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variable at present.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed the outlook for inflation, and I certainly can't copy everything, but I can provide a brief summary. Here is a general background;</p><p>● With the economy forced to shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress took dramatic action to support the economy and its participants, preventing the Great Global Economic Slowdown from eventually turning into a second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare spending on individuals, loans and guarantees to businesses and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and massive bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 was a year when you could hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people earned more in 2020 than in 2019. In 2020, income exceeded the trend line while expenses fell below it, since travel, dining out, sports competitions, concerts, and weddings had all disappeared. The end result of all this progress is an estimated $2 trillion in additional cash on American consumers' balance sheets.</p><p>● With the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, the financial markets were flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital markets to reopen. Against the backdrop of trillions of dollars in stock market value inflation and a surge in home prices, a clear wealth effect has emerged. Compared to this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs suggest that we may be heading towards a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of the above will lead to an accelerated rise in the inflation rate.</p><p>Concerns about high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the coming years. Initially, people's anxieties mainly stemmed from economic theories, but in 2021, these concerns began to be supported by concrete evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Housing prices soared.</p><p>● The prices of raw materials and components have skyrocketed, such as copper, timber, and semiconductors.</p><p>● There is a shortage of smartphones.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and sectors have increased the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase in the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May, and 5.4% in June, setting new records for the highest readings since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only stem from the supply and demand imbalance caused by rising input costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened demand for dollars, lowered the real value of the dollar, and led to higher prices for imported goods.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that a climate has recently developed in Washington where trillions of dollars in spending can be carried out indiscriminately without a reliable mechanism to pay the bills. At the same time, the influence of modern monetary theory (MMT), which essentially holds that deficits and debt are not to be feared, is growing. What if these ideas are ultimately proven to be untenable?</p><p>On the other hand, many people have tried to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is practically the most popular word at the moment).</p><p>● Many of the shortages that lead to high input costs for manufactured goods and manufacturing, ultimately leading to price increases, can be understood as natural consequences of economic restarts, especially products of the restart of global supply chains. It is clearly unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to return to efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any one component can lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufactured goods. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, they are naturally only short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the prices of raw materials or manufactured goods are not determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way. This means that prices do not necessarily have to be \"correct\" or in line with the current environment—the same principle applies to stock prices. In fact, just like the stock market, commodity prices are determined more by the psychology of economic participants, which can be both excessive and insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in his article \"The Fed's Folly\" on July 23 this year, \"The rise in commodity prices that leads to increased inflationary pressures is actually a product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only a result of the current supply and demand situation, but also reveal people's judgments about future price trends. In this regard, timber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020 when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to the peak in May 2021 when almost no one believed that housing supply could keep up with demand, the price of this essential construction commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, timber prices have fallen by more than 60%, and their impact on inflation is no longer what it was not long ago.</p><p>● Clearly, a large part of the inflation experienced by people in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the arrival of pandemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. This can only be temporary, of course; a limited total pool of funds is unlikely to lead to sustained high spending.</p><p>● Additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, bringing more workers back into the labor market and easing the pressure on wages and commodity prices from labor shortages.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, economic growth will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the pent-up consumer demand from 2020 will have been basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, the intensity of recent stimulus, deficit spending, and money printing will decrease (at least the growth rate will slow down), which means that the proportion of these factors relative to the size of the economy will decrease.</p><p>● Technological advances, automation, and globalization are expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether current inflation will be permanent or temporary remains a hotly debated issue. This debate is significant because higher inflation will undoubtedly lead to higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for us to know the real answer. (As mentioned earlier, it is important but unknowable.) Both sides of the argument are well-educated and talented, but I still firmly believe that none of them are truly prophets.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the Fed's responsibilities is to ensure that inflation remains under control. However, Fed leaders also admit that they are not entirely sure about their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"Therefore, I cannot give exact numbers or a precise timeframe. I can only say that we do expect inflation to decline. Look at my and my colleagues' forecasts for 2022 and 2023, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to decline significantly toward our target.\" I believe that the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our target.</p><p>Around the same time, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard also mentioned in his speech that variables still exist. Media reports on June 18 wrote:</p><p>\"Bullard... stated that the U.S. economy is 'in a highly volatile environment, making it impossible to see whether any path anyone predicts will ultimately become a reality.'\"</p><p>This is exactly the frankness we need. However, from the above quotes, it is clear that the Federal Reserve cannot make a statement that \"we have the answer\" to the inflation issue—in fact, it can 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, which, in my opinion, was completely irrational. So I wrote a memo (Visiting a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I appeared on a television program discussing the contents of the memo, people discussed whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, and I gave a resounding negative answer. I emphasized 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 19, 2016), I published another article, \"What the Market Knows\". So, what lessons do these have 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 stock market declines to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 experienced a very limited decline, and the following day, June 19, the media wrote:</p><p>\"U.S. stocks fell on Friday as traders closely watched the Federal Reserve for clues about the next steps in monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6% on Friday, or 533.37 points, to close at 33,290.08, down 3.45% for the week.\"</p><p>The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday, or 55.41 points, to close at 4,166.45, down 1.9% for the week. This ended a three-week upward trend. Along with big tech stocks also declining, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14,030.38, down 0.3% for the week.</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect to begin a rate hike in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. Market sentiment was dampened again on Friday after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike to occur as early as the second half of 2022.\"</p><p>“ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada said the decline in U.S. stocks was not unexpected. The stock market has been rising continuously since last year, hitting new highs, and is well ahead of the economic recovery process. Now that traders are witnessing the Federal Reserve slowly shifting its monetary policy stance, it is natural to start repricing the ‘reinflation trade.’”</p><p>\"'The day has finally arrived,' he commented. 'Because the market got ahead too much, this sell-off was bound to happen sooner or later.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, the so-called Wall Street 'fear indicator,' has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at Mitsubishi UFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If a rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more shocked because it will inevitably mean that the Federal Reserve will also taper at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any given time, media commentators seem always well-prepared to offer a logical explanation of what is happening in the markets and why (I'm always curious where they get that explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these things mean for the future—without exception, of course, by extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme of 2021 so far has been high inflation. As a result, people repeatedly explain most of the changes in the market by inflation and the resulting fear of high interest rates. For example, the latest economic data shows that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has turned negative as a result.</p><p>So far, these arguments seem to make sense. You could argue that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the views of the bond market seem to be quite different from those of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18:</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 fallen for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of over 7% in May, compared to over 9% in April. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience its highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that there is no need to be afraid, while the bond market does not appear to be worried.\" Although bond yields rose somewhat due to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed an overall downward trend last week and remain at a historically low level. Since the market isn't worried, perhaps we don't need to worry unnecessarily.</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation and higher interest rates, but the bond market, which mainly depends on the outlook for interest rates, is showing higher prices and lower interest rates, seemingly unconcerned about inflation.</p><p>This reminds me of gold, which has been considered a target for inflationary surges throughout history. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market also seems to agree with the bond market's judgment that the inflation outlook is actually still moderate. The media wrote on June 19:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, extending Thursday's losses and now experiencing their biggest drop in more than ten months. For the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, marking their worst weekly performance since March 13, 2020.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, gold prices surged to an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, likely because the Federal Reserve was injecting a staggering amount of money into the economy and markets. From then until June 18, 2021, although fears of inflation seemed to be growing, gold prices fell to $1,773, a 14% drop from their high ten months earlier.</p><p>Thus, in June, we witnessed a strange combination: weak stock markets, reportedly the product of inflation fears, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation remained under control. Then there's gold, a classic inflation-hedging tool, whose price is also falling as stock market investors are described as increasingly concerned about inflation. These markets not only don't know what the future holds, but their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In my 2016 book, \"What the Market Knows,\" I concluded that \"the market doesn't actually make any contribution when it comes to when to buy and sell securities.\" I believe the same conclusion applies to the prospects for various macroeconomic events in the future. To understand the market's thought process, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help; I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychologist\" back then.</p><p>The market operates like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and react accordingly, whether bullish or bearish. Although markets are often excellent \"observers,\" capable of reacting extremely quickly and effectively to current changes, sometimes, as shown in the cartoon, they also seem to wear positive or negative tinted glasses when observing events (and jump back and forth between the two). Furthermore, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and often knows nothing about what is about to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, its judgment of the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the fact that the present cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when a security's price performance differs from what we predict based on our own judgment, we must first consider whether the market has sensed something sufficient to overturn our previous judgments and expectations. (Does the market occasionally have exceptions, moments of foresight? Let's look back at the 68% gain in the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020, to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided it made sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most commentators in recognizing the potential impact of Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictions and statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still really hope to share them with everyone. I am able to learn this thanks to my long-time partner, Sheldon Stone, with whom I have worked for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended a New York Times article from December 18th to me, titled \"After Guessing Completely 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 would rise 2.7% in 2020. Given the actual increase of 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was a full 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. However, what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the pandemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus expectation was further lowered to -11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in the special year of 2020, it is obviously unreasonable for a strategist to predict the outbreak of the epidemic. The same principle applies to expecting him to predict the great success of the response policies or the specific timing and intensity of the subsequent market rebound. Crucially, the article goes on to list a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is far more significant. Below, I will give a general introduction based on the original text:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts have projected a median annual return of 9.5% for the S&P 500, while the actual return has been 6.0%. Some might say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points,' but others might say, 'That's terrible—the forecasters exaggerated the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number in the median return expectations, that is, a prediction of a decline.\" However, the fact is that the US 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 predicted that the market would rise by 7.5%, a gap of 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets predicted that the market would rise by 12.5%, but in reality it fell by 23.3%, a gap of nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"In summary, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectations and reality averaged 12.9 percentage points annually, which is equivalent to twice the stock market's real average annual return of 6.0% during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to a weatherman who reports sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the time.\" This is called prediction!” (Why is the average error initially said to be 3.5 percentage points, and later said to be 12.9 percentage points? I estimate the latter is the average from the 'absolute value' of the error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than reality, and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than reality, then the absolute value of the error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that while hundreds or even thousands of people make a living doing professional market forecasting, the reality is that their median forecasts are worthless, their average forecasts are wrong, they are bullish in both good and bad years, and they are always completely wrong in the years when accurate forecasts can really make a lot of money.</p><p><b>The role of the Federal Reserve</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macroeconomic outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its actions. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has lasted to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs and made large purchases of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a great success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same actions have also contributed to the current threat of persistently high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities: to ensure sufficient economic growth to create jobs and achieve full employment, and to keep inflation under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation leads 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 thanks to policies from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and was later strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with real GDP growing at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue throughout the remainder of 2021 and into 2022. However, under these circumstances, the Federal Reserve maintained its established interest rate and continued its monthly bond purchases of $120 billion. Why continue stimulus when the economy is already performing well, and risk pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. Initially, they said they did not believe high inflation would occur, but this assertion has certainly been refuted by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly emphasized that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, maintaining such a strong easing policy indicates that the Fed is more concerned about potential trouble for economic growth than about inflation. One well-informed observer told me that the Fed's thinking was that if economic growth returned to its normal rate of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagflation was 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 stagnant expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its actual pace was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's recent testimony to Congress also demonstrates that this is still his top priority now that the recovery has been ongoing for several months. A Reuters press release on July 14 wrote:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pledged to 'strongly support' the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process from the pandemic.\"</p><p>\"During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices was mainly due to the country's post-pandemic restart and would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus on getting as many people back to work as possible.\"</p><p>Powell stated that given the current job losses caused by the pandemic, which still amount to as much as 7.5 million, weakening economic support, such as reducing the Federal Reserve's $120 billion monthly bond-buying operations, is \"still a very long way off.\"</p><p>However, even if a setback in economic growth is indeed a greater risk—and no one dares to argue with the Fed that this risk does not exist—the risk of inflation, and the various consequences of this risk, remains highly real. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that the Fed's stimulus policies will be too strong than insufficient. I also believe that while these Fed policies have the potential to have negative side effects, they are indeed doing the right thing. However, we must also have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● Higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, leading to higher interest rates. On the other hand, controlling inflation requires tightening monetary policy and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates lead investors to demand higher returns, causing financial asset prices to fall and possibly even crash (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, as most of their income is invested in various necessities, while millions of retirees and other people who rely on fixed incomes will also be severely impacted.</p><p>● Higher inflation will increase Treasury Bond’s repayment costs, leading to a further widening of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will lead lenders (and foreign buyers) to further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, ultimately causing a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we continue to print enough dollars to pay interest and cover deficits, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate, and even its status as the world's reserve currency will be questioned.</p><p>● As history has shown, rapidly rising prices can cause inflationary expectations to be implanted in the American psyche, eventually snowballing into a self-fulfilling situation, at which point the situation becomes difficult to rectify.</p><p>Furthermore, the loose monetary policy itself has a series of negative impacts that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The Fed's generosity will be seen as evidence that the so-called \"Fed response\" does exist, leading people to believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This can lead to a series of consequences, such as a moral crisis (investors believe they can take risks freely without having to bear the consequences), and a failure of market risk aversion mechanisms, threatening the safety of the market.</p><p>● In the environment described above, businesses and investors will be more inclined to use leverage, which will amplify the destructive power of the economy once it slows down.</p><p>● As the experience of the past sixteen months has demonstrated, the Federal Reserve cannot stimulate the economy without increasing its size. So, whose pockets do these extra benefits end up in? The answer is those who own the economy (those who own stocks, businesses, real estate, etc.). This means that the stimulus and the resulting asset price increases have actually exacerbated the problem of wealth inequality, a point that is now attracting more and more attention.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing—including keeping interest rates near zero—then when the economy slows again in the future and needs more stimulus, they will have relatively few policy tools at their disposal. For example, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements in last year's rescue policy package, but if interest rates were already zero, the Fed would have little room to maneuver in this regard.</p><p>Some believe that the Fed may be able to replicate last year's miracle, creating long-term prosperity and avoiding or minimizing a recession. Some people hope that low interest rates will keep the market rising forever. Some argue that the Treasury can issue as much Treasury Bond as it wants because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of ultimate buyer. Clearly, there are many in the federal government who feel they can spend as much as they want without the ever-increasing deficit and debt having any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive my foolishness for not being able to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are far too wishful thinking. This logic seems like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayments. I can't tell you exactly what loopholes are hidden in this logic, but I believe that loopholes definitely exist. Or you could put it this way: if you're going to bet me that there's definitely a lot of loopholes here, I absolutely won't bet with 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 known as \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means without costs. Even Keynes himself believed that while deficits were a reasonable option for reviving the economy, governments must be able to generate fiscal surpluses during booms to offset deficits caused by downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surpluses, and debt repayment seem to have been thrown into the dustbin of history.</p><p>For more than two decades, the United States has had a huge and ever-increasing deficit, a trend that seems increasingly difficult to reverse. Traditional economics believes this will cause inflation, but as mentioned earlier in the article, a full decade of deficits in the second decade of the new century did not lead to any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps these deficits simply helped prop up a faltering economy—without the help of deficit spending, the economy's real performance could only have been worse.</p><p>In any case, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I mentioned earlier, in 2020 we witnessed a trillion-dollar increase in welfare benefits, the Federal Reserve's bond-buying operations, and a rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these proportions relative to the total size of the U.S. economy are rising rapidly. What will be the consequences? The future will inevitably unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually transform the Federal Reserve into a highly active market player (the term \"Greenspan strategy\" emerged and eventually evolved into the \"Fed strategy\" it is today), which is how he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operations were necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my view, they should not be permanent. I would prefer to see a Fed that is no longer constantly preoccupied with fine-tuning, but rather sits on the sidelines most of the time, only taking measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it reaches an extreme.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially its power as the best means of allocating resources. In a free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to where they can be most efficient. However, we no longer have free capital markets, not since the 2008 global financial crisis. The Fed reduced Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009 and has maintained it almost ever since. They also tried rate hike, but each time the market responded with turmoil, forcing them to stop.</p><p>I must clarify that I have never felt more intelligent than anyone at the Fed. However, overall, I would prefer to see economic stimulus policies introduced less frequently and less continuously. Perhaps, due to policy, our economic growth rate will increase further in the coming years, but I do not believe that monetary and fiscal policies can permanently increase the long-term economic growth rate without any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still hope to see a free money market, which in my view means that interest rates should \"happen naturally\". Artificially lowering interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and excessive leverage. To reiterate, I would like to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless absolutely necessary.</p><p>In my first memo during the pandemic era, I offered the following interpretation of the pandemic;</p><p>\"Because it's the first time it's happened, no one really knows. As Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch pointed out in a webcast, we can only first grasp the facts, then make reasonable inferences based on comparisons with other virus transmission situations, and ultimately form opinions or speculations.\" Scientists are trying to make sensible inferences. To date, I believe the pandemic-related data is still insufficient to allow them to translate their inferences into facts. (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If we replace \"scientists\" with \"economists\" and \"inflation\" with \"pandemic,\" I believe this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts to base our inferences on, except for our own experiences with American inflation in our own lives. Therefore, I believe that anyone's statements today about the inflation trend in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I personally prefer to be more direct and call it \"speculation\".</p><p>As I've written before, I often come across important materials near the end of a memo. This time, I would like to quote a passage related to Lipsich's views. This text comes from a second-quarter market letter released on July 9 by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an impressive track record:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of foresight. Most of the time, the market's expectations for the future are no more accurate than tossing a coin. Of course, we can find similar environments to the current one from past records and use analogy to make predictions, but the success or failure of this approach actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the methods we invoke have real dominance.\" Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it's a mixed bag of successes and failures; ultimately, it's just a coin toss.</p><p>The following quote, from former GE executive Ian Wilson, perfectly summarizes the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you cannot change the most fundamental fact that everything you know is about the past, and everything you decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible for people to express strong opinions about 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 macroeconomic future, their corresponding word is 'caution.' Followers of this school believe that people cannot predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best in investing without this understanding.\" (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 stay with us for a long time, are investors at a loss? The answer is actually in the title of a 2001 memo—\"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 indeed the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly reiterate some of my observations regarding market exposure when looking back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo, \"The Thing About Value,\" I talked about my own personality traits, my early life, and my experience successfully discovering unsustainable financial innovations and market gaps that made me a subconscious skeptic. This is what my son Andrew discovered and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated with me deeply.</p><p>In the past, I might have kept a close eye on today's high valuations and examples of various high-risk behaviors, issuing warnings of a market bubble and an impending consolidation. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that while all of the following is objective, it is not enough to justify a significant reduction in 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, we should continue to invest fully unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing.</p><p>Finally, I would like to briefly talk about the current market level. In the four or five years leading up to 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a high-yield bond bubble. My answer is; \"No, what we are actually experiencing is an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not exaggerated. The key is that due to extremely low interest rates, all bonds are overpriced.</p><p>Today, we hear again about the so-called \"bubble of everything\". As I did then, I believed that most assets were relatively reasonably priced if they were only referenced against each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic lows, doesn't it make sense that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in the early 20s, which means that the \"earnings return\" (an indicator formed by P/E inversion) is around 4% to 5%. In my opinion, this is relatively reasonable compared to the 10-year Treasury Bond yield of about 1.25%. If P/E shrinks to the long-term average of 16 levels since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is far too high compared to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is sufficient to demonstrate 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 to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to be maintained and high prices will continue to be maintained or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of hyperinflation. In fact, 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 demands higher interest rates, or both, it is quite possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) is unsettling for everyone, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational in terms of interest rates.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say simple and clear words like \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current view is actually just a combination of two different attitudes: aggressive and defensive, in an appropriate proportion. Given the aforementioned complexities, Oaktree Capital is currently maintaining a roughly balanced approach, which is in line with our normal stance (we were highly defensive at the beginning of 2020).</p><p>That said, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on the risk of inflation. If investors are more risk-averse or more concerned about a temporary market downturn (and less worried about the potential losses if inflation fails to materialize), they may consider increasing their investment in the following areas:</p><p>● Floating-rate bonds;</p><p>● Those companies with largely fixed costs, or the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and 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>From the perspective of the present, there are always ways to prepare for a high-inflation environment. I believe it is entirely reasonable for investors to be concerned about the possibility of high inflation. However, they should not make drastic changes to their asset allocation because of macroeconomic 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":4683,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":181877946,"gmtCreate":1623387400785,"gmtModify":1704202283128,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3567313446080368","authorIdStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"Good&nbsp;","listText":"Good&nbsp;","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/181877946","repostId":"1155810638","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155810638","kind":"news","weMediaInfo":{"introduction":"追踪全球财经热点，精选影响您财富的资讯，投资理财必备神器！","home_visible":1,"media_name":"华尔街见闻","id":"1084101182","head_image":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/66809d1f5c2e43e2bdf15820c6d6897e"},"pubTimestamp":1623383065,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155810638?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-06-11 11:44","market":"us","language":"zh","title":"Soros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155810638","media":"华尔街见闻","summary":"有“华尔街天才”之称的Stanley Druckenmiller，又一次炮轰了美联储。","content":"<p>Author: Zeng Xinyi</p><p>Stanley Druckenmiller, known as the \"Wall Street genius,\" has once again criticized the Federal Reserve.</p><p>On Thursday, June 10, Druckenmiller stated in an email,<b>The Federal Reserve's continued loose monetary policy has distorted asset prices and lulled investors into a false sense of security, but the market has not yet made a statement on U.S. inflation in May.</b></p><p>He also stated that<b>Until the Federal Reserve stops eliminating market signals, market participants will continue to ignore risks such as emerging inflation.</b></p><p>Recently, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly emphasized that with the economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, inflation is only rising temporarily. This means that the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy in response to the pandemic crisis may continue for the foreseeable future.</p><p>However, Druckenmiller was quite dissatisfied with this and had previously issued warnings several times.</p><p>Last month, he said in an interview that the Federal Reserve's policies aimed at maintaining market and economic stability during the COVID-19 pandemic could ultimately threaten the long-term health of the dollar.</p><p>Furthermore, the Federal Reserve's continued commitment to keeping interest rates low and purchasing trillions of dollars in bonds despite market and economic prosperity poses a long-term risk.</p><p>In the long run, the Federal Reserve's continued policies, along with the heavy debt and fiscal deficits they support, will also threaten the dollar's status as a global reserve.</p><p>He even published a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled \"The Federal Reserve is 'Playing with Fire,'\" criticizing the Federal Reserve.</p><p>He saw that under the Biden administration, two-thirds of unemployment benefits were distributed to people after vaccines proved effective and the recovery accelerated. In addition to the abundance of liquidity, the inflation rate has also reached the historical average.</p><p>Druckenmiller believes that the Federal Reserve's independence should act as a check and balance, rather than driving up asset prices. It is precisely because of this \"lenient policy\" that excessive behavior in the financial market has been fueled. Therefore, policies should be adjusted immediately to minimize risks.</p><p>Furthermore, the article also states that the Federal Reserve's focus on inflation expectations is very narrow, since the short-term risk of the economy braking due to tightening policies in 2022 is nothing compared to the long-term risks of asset bubbles and fiscal excesses!</p><p>For decades, Druckenmiller has been considered one of the world's most successful macro hedge fund managers. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved an average annual compound growth rate of 30% and maintained a record of zero negative returns in his investment career.</p><p>Druckenmiller was once a \"close comrade\" of Soros. In 1988, at the invitation of Soros, Druckenmiller officially joined Quantum Fund Company. In 1992, Druckenmiller accurately predicted that the exchange rate of the pound sterling against the German mark would fall. At the time, he helped Soros \"snipe the pound\" and won a great victory in the contest against the Bank of England.</p>","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>Soros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"</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\">\nSoros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<a class=\"head\" href=\"https://laohu8.com/wemedia/1084101182\">\n\n<div class=\"h-thumb\" style=\"background-image:url(https://static.tigerbbs.com/66809d1f5c2e43e2bdf15820c6d6897e);background-size:cover;\"></div>\n\n<div class=\"h-content\">\n<p class=\"h-name\">华尔街见闻 </p>\n<p class=\"h-time smaller\">2021-06-11 11:44</p>\n</div>\n</a>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p>Author: Zeng Xinyi</p><p>Stanley Druckenmiller, known as the \"Wall Street genius,\" has once again criticized the Federal Reserve.</p><p>On Thursday, June 10, Druckenmiller stated in an email,<b>The Federal Reserve's continued loose monetary policy has distorted asset prices and lulled investors into a false sense of security, but the market has not yet made a statement on U.S. inflation in May.</b></p><p>He also stated that<b>Until the Federal Reserve stops eliminating market signals, market participants will continue to ignore risks such as emerging inflation.</b></p><p>Recently, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly emphasized that with the economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, inflation is only rising temporarily. This means that the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy in response to the pandemic crisis may continue for the foreseeable future.</p><p>However, Druckenmiller was quite dissatisfied with this and had previously issued warnings several times.</p><p>Last month, he said in an interview that the Federal Reserve's policies aimed at maintaining market and economic stability during the COVID-19 pandemic could ultimately threaten the long-term health of the dollar.</p><p>Furthermore, the Federal Reserve's continued commitment to keeping interest rates low and purchasing trillions of dollars in bonds despite market and economic prosperity poses a long-term risk.</p><p>In the long run, the Federal Reserve's continued policies, along with the heavy debt and fiscal deficits they support, will also threaten the dollar's status as a global reserve.</p><p>He even published a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled \"The Federal Reserve is 'Playing with Fire,'\" criticizing the Federal Reserve.</p><p>He saw that under the Biden administration, two-thirds of unemployment benefits were distributed to people after vaccines proved effective and the recovery accelerated. In addition to the abundance of liquidity, the inflation rate has also reached the historical average.</p><p>Druckenmiller believes that the Federal Reserve's independence should act as a check and balance, rather than driving up asset prices. It is precisely because of this \"lenient policy\" that excessive behavior in the financial market has been fueled. Therefore, policies should be adjusted immediately to minimize risks.</p><p>Furthermore, the article also states that the Federal Reserve's focus on inflation expectations is very narrow, since the short-term risk of the economy braking due to tightening policies in 2022 is nothing compared to the long-term risks of asset bubbles and fiscal excesses!</p><p>For decades, Druckenmiller has been considered one of the world's most successful macro hedge fund managers. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved an average annual compound growth rate of 30% and maintained a record of zero negative returns in his investment career.</p><p>Druckenmiller was once a \"close comrade\" of Soros. In 1988, at the invitation of Soros, Druckenmiller officially joined Quantum Fund Company. In 1992, Druckenmiller accurately predicted that the exchange rate of the pound sterling against the German mark would fall. At the time, he helped Soros \"snipe the pound\" and won a great victory in the contest against the Bank of England.</p>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d2f6bcea082d3702b693c2ed87aa0bab","relate_stocks":{"SPY":"标普500ETF",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"is_english":false,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1155810638","content_text":"作者：曾心怡\n有“华尔街天才”之称的Stanley Druckenmiller，又一次炮轰了美联储。\n6月10日周四，Druckenmiller在一封邮件中表示，美联储持续的宽松货币政策扭曲了资产价格，并诱使投资者产生一种虚假的安全感，只是市场现在尚未就美国5月通胀作出表态。\n他还称，直到美联储停止消除市场信号为止，市场参与者都将继续忽视开始冒头的通胀等风险。\n近来，美联储反复强调，伴随着后疫情时代的经济复苏，通胀只是暂时走高。这也就意味着，美联储为应对疫情危机而实施的宽松货币政策或将在可见的未来继续下去。\n但是，Druckenmiller对此相当不满，此前就已发声警告过好几次。\n上月，他曾在接受采访时称，美联储在新冠肺炎疫情期间旨在维持市场和经济稳定的政策，最终可能会威胁美元的长期健康。\n此外，美联储在市场和经济繁荣的情况下仍然坚持压低利率，并买入数万亿美元的债券是一个长期风险。\n从长远来看，美联储继续推行其政策，以及它们所支持的沉重债务和财政赤字还将威胁到美元的全球储备地位。\n他甚至还曾《华尔街日报》发表题为《美联储在“玩火”》的专栏文章，将美联储骂了一顿。\n他看到在拜登政府麾下，三分之二的失业救济金是在疫苗被证明有效并且复苏加速之后发放给民众的。除了泛滥的流动性，通货膨胀率也达到了历史平均水平。\nDruckenmiller认为，美联储的独立性应该起到制衡作用，应该平衡而不是推高资产价格。正因为这种“怀柔政策”，助长了金融市场的过度行为。因此应该立马调整政策，将风险降至最低。\n此外，文章还称美联储对通胀预期的关注是非常狭隘的，毕竟2022年因为收紧政策带来的经济踩刹车的短期风险与资产泡沫和财政泛滥带来的长期风险相比，根本不是事儿！\n几十年来，Druckenmiller被认为是全球最成功的宏观对冲基金经理之一。30年里，他创造了年均复合增长率30%的业绩，并且保持着投资生涯无负收益年份的记录。\nDruckenmiller曾是索罗斯的“亲密战友”。1988年受索罗斯邀请，Druckenmiller正式进入量子基金公司。1992年，Druckenmiller准确预测英镑对德国马克汇率将下跌。当时他帮助索罗斯“狙击英镑”，在与英国央行的较量中大获全胜。","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{"SPY":0.9,".DJI":0.9,".IXIC":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":5063,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":181873981,"gmtCreate":1623387072743,"gmtModify":1704202273840,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3567313446080368","authorIdStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"Good&nbsp;","listText":"Good&nbsp;","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/181873981","repostId":"1183013437","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1183013437","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1623384910,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1183013437?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-06-11 12:15","market":"hk","language":"zh","title":"Meituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1183013437","media":" 中欧商业评论","summary":"自2018年上市以来，在美团的市值一路上涨的同时，是美团作为本地生活数字经济平台在组织生态上的不断进化。\nCBR精华抢先看：\n01.“Food + Platform”战略下，美团的年度营收在2020年","content":"<p>Since its listing in 2018, while Meituan's market value has been rising steadily, it has also been the continuous evolution of Meituan's organizational ecosystem as a local life digital economy platform.</p><p><b>A sneak peek at the highlights of CBR:</b></p><p>01. Under the \"Food + Platform\" strategy, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2020, with more than half of it coming from the Food delivery business. The in-store hotel and travel business contributed the highest profit margin to Meituan, while emerging businesses contributed the highest revenue growth.</p><p>02. Meituan's success stems from multiple aspects, including the management team's entrepreneurial experience and industry knowledge in the Internet field, advanced technical capabilities, efficient operation and management system, scientific and continuously evolving organizational structure, and emphasis on talent cultivation.</p><p>03. Entering the \"second half\" of the Internet, with the gradual implementation of regulations and the gradual standardization of the market competition environment, Meituan has entered a new stage of innovation-driven growth. It needs to continuously expand the boundaries of its digital economy platform, strengthen the digital empowerment of the industrial chain, and create a more open ecosystem.</p><p>As of June 7, 2021, despite its stock price having fallen by nearly 35% from its peak this year, Meituan, the local O2O giant, still had a market capitalization of HK$1.83 trillion on the Hong Kong stock market, ranking second only to Meituan among China's listed internet companies in terms of market capitalization.<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/00700\">Tencent</a>and<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/BABA\">Alibaba</a>。</p><p><b>New economy giants still expanding</b></p><p>As a digital Platform connecting consumers and merchants, Meituan defines its mission as \"helping everyone eat better and live better,\" and its strategy as \"Food + Platform.\" Through innovation and better services, it helps merchants improve operational efficiency, provides consumers with more convenient and reasonably priced high-quality products and services, and makes good use of technology to create more value for society.</p><p>According to Meituan's 2020 annual report, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. Among them, the food delivery business established in 2013 accounted for more than half of Meituan's revenue, making it the largest part of Meituan's revenue and becoming a pillar business of Meituan in recent years. However, in terms of profit margins, in-store and hotel travel businesses are where Meituan truly makes money. More than half of Meituan's revenue comes from food delivery order commissions (similar to brokerage fees) taken by Meituan as the platform provider. Another major source of revenue is marketing expenses paid by merchants to the platform. New businesses and other revenues include self-operated businesses such as Meituan Bike, Meituan Grocery, and Meituan Charging, as well as Meituan Youxuan, Meituan Taxi, Meituan Flash Sale, and B2B business Kuailv (Table 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88f31935c115bff72f1cc57d16f97697\" tg-width=\"1044\" tg-height=\"194\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 1 Meituan's Revenue Composition in 2020</p><p>Source: Meituan Annual Report 2020</p><p>It is worth noting that Meituan's net profit turned from profit to loss in the fourth quarter of 2020. The losses stemmed from investments in new businesses such as community group buying and community e-commerce. According to Meituan's Q1 2021 financial report, although the addition of more than 59 million active buyers in a single quarter set a new historical record for Meituan, Meituan basically completed the user growth of the entire previous year in one quarter. However, the new business suffered a loss of 8 billion yuan in a single quarter, and profitability is yet to come.</p><p>It can be seen that Meituan's operational model for new businesses such as community group buying is somewhat similar to that of its previous food delivery and hotel travel businesses. First, based on data accumulation, it selects specific regions, leverages traffic advantages, rapidly promotes, burns money to expand the market, transforms the supply side, outputs management capabilities, solves the difficulties of supply and demand aggregation for enterprises, subsidizes consumers, makes merchants and consumers dependent on the Meituan platform, seizes the main market share, and then transfers part of the costs to merchants and consumers to achieve profitability under the platform's scale effect (Table 2). But can community group buying replicate its previous success?</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1b2348f8d6f4baafbf2899e8321ab7b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"154\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 2 Meituan's Business Matrix</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p><b>Internet entrepreneurial culture and efficient organization and operation</b></p><p>Meituan.com was founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, Mu Rongjun, Wang Huiwen, and others, with founder Wang Xing at its core. The three were classmates and alumni of Tsinghua University and remain Meituan's three most important executives to this day. Before founding Meituan, the group had co-founded internet social networking websites such as \"Duoduoyou\", \"Xiaonei.com\", \"Fanfou.com\", and \"Hainei.com\" (Table 3). Several rounds of entrepreneurial experience have given the founding team a keen insight into the Internet and rich operation and maintenance experience. Wang Xing's team focuses on efficiency and \"three highs and three lows\"—high quality, high efficiency, high technology, low cost, low price, and low gross profit.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6db4e12bfd0f3d896c802d655f43bece\" tg-width=\"620\" tg-height=\"827\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 3 Meituan Founding and Management Team Information</p><p>Source: Company announcements,<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/600109\">Guojin Securities</a>Institute</p><p>As an O2O company, the founding team led by Wang Xing has mainly started online and has no experience in managing large-scale offline teams. Offline business requires Meituan to have strong organizational capabilities. After joining Meituan in November 2011, Gan Jiawei, a veteran of Alibaba sales, helped Meituan establish an organizational management system and a ground-based marketing system, which has been used to this day.</p><p>Gan Jiawei developed a quantifiable, measurable, traceable, and controllable operational management system for Meituan's offline team. For example, in business management, he set goals, refined execution, and widely adopted the standard operating procedure (SOP) model for management. He broke down the original overall sales process into four steps: A, B, C, and D. By controlling the process, he achieved control over the result E. At the same time, we will improve the incentive system to ensure that employee incentives are highly linked to the company's goals and that employees have a strong grasp of business processes.</p><p>Gan Jiawei emphasizes team management and building at the level of \"using falsehoods to cultivate truth,\" that is, taking data, indicators, and results as \"falsehoods,\" while taking the development and improvement of talent and the organization as \"truth,\" forming a consistency in the behavior and thoughts of members throughout the organization. In this way, even after Gan Jiawei left the company in 2016, this organizational management system and ground marketing system have continued to this day, and the team's combat effectiveness has not been affected. In terms of talent pool, Meituan reserves outstanding business development (BD) candidates at the grassroots level as candidates for city managers, and outstanding city managers as candidates for regional managers. The \"Leadership Echelon Training Program\" was launched at the top level to carry out work such as job rotation, succession planning, and talent inventory, and to establish a complete talent echelon from the grassroots to the top.</p><p><b>Organizational structure serves strategic evolution</b></p><p>Since its launch in March 2010, Meituan has undergone multiple rounds of business expansion (Table 4), and its organizational structure has continuously expanded in accordance with the transformation of its O2O business. When Meituan establishes an independent department for a new business, it quickly adjusts the structure, establishes an independent business unit, and appoints a founding team member as the direct head of the business unit to ensure that the overall culture and approach are upheld in the process of promoting the new business. Wang Huiwen and Chen Liang have played such roles on multiple occasions. By appointing members of the founding team as the heads of new businesses and then handing them over to other senior executives once they mature, Meituan's consistent entrepreneurial culture can be well inherited and played a role in developing new businesses.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0ca7684b0d4c3d14f178c69fd45d8a74\" tg-width=\"626\" tg-height=\"202\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 4 Meituan's Business Changes</p><p>In 2015, Tencent invested in Meituan. After Meituan and Dianping merged to form \"New Meituan-Dianping\", they fully leveraged their operational synergies. Meituan's initial main business, group buying, gradually faded out, truly shedding its early positioning as the \"Chinese version of Groupon\" and beginning to transform into a \"Internet plus\" new economy platform. The business structure has been established into three major business groups: food delivery, hotel and tourism, and in-store business groups, laying the foundation for Meituan's core business to date (Figure 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/734fa189ce296f1c54278290366c4b96\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 1. Meituan's business organizational structure during the \"New Meituan-Dianping\" era</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p>In 2016, Meituan acquired Qiandaibao, a fully licensed payment company, and expanded into digital finance and online payment businesses, implementing a key link in the O2O business closed loop and laying the foundation for a financial middle platform for the construction of its business ecosystem. In the same year, Meituan established the world's first talent development platform, the University of Internet plus (IPU), to coordinate and promote Meituan's internal talent development work.</p><p>Starting in 2017, Meituan's O2O business expanded significantly, and its three major business groups were reorganized (Figure 2):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/681c80f1407a319ca23266dd84e58f88\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"377\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 2. Meituan's business organizational structure during its high-speed expansion period</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>After launching Meituan Taxi in 2017, Meituan established a ride-hailing business unit and subsequently completed the acquisition of Mobike, further enriching Meituan's consumer data collection and traffic conversion channels. Subsequently, Meituan further integrated its business structure, combining the original Meituan platform and Dianping platform (Figure 3):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dfe93a8f2e88d105574844cae1c2641b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"512\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 3. Meituan's business organizational structure after launching its mobility service</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>On October 30, 2018, after completing its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company upgraded its organizational structure in accordance with the \"Food+Platform\" strategy. Over the next two years, several business unit optimizations were carried out, but the basic organizational framework was retained after adjustments in 2018.</p><p>As it continues to explore new businesses, Meituan is integrating its businesses into a platform. The company's organizational structure serves its strategic direction, with its core businesses concentrated in two major business groups: in-store and home delivery. It then uses the Meituan platform and the smart transportation platform to improve the synergy and efficiency of local businesses. With \"food\" as its core, Meituan is building a catering service chain from ingredient supply and IT systems to delivery and marketing. IT focuses on developing various catering service chain products such as Kuailv, Meituan Maicai, and Meituan Youxuan, while other business lines provide support (Figure 4).</p><p>From the changes in Meituan's organizational structure, it can be seen that Meituan's business groups, which were originally mainly divided by business, have been divided by scenario to increase synergy between different businesses and the same scenario, which is conducive to the vertical cultivation of the business. The user platform elevates user traffic to the level of a company for overall operation and management. The user platform is the entrance to Meituan's ecosystem. The platform connects traffic and then directs that traffic to the business units and groups centered on \"food,\" building a multi-level technology service platform for the life services industry from the demand side to the supply side.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fb20239d777df83381537aad6b28aaeb\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"670\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 4. Meituan's business organizational structure under the \"Food+Platform\" strategy</p><p>Source: 36kr, Tencent.com<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/SINA\">Sina</a>Technology, Debon Research Institute</p><p>Meituan's rapid growth from 2015 to 2019 was mainly due to the expansion of its business in various cities, the optimization and upgrading of its online marketing, and the improvement of its delivery network. Having now entered a mature stage, Meituan's key development potential lies in leveraging its data advantages and expanding the network effect of its ecosystem, such as empowering small and medium-sized merchants within the ecosystem and stimulating synergies between different business departments. Back in 2017, Wang Xing recognized that B2B represented future opportunities. The first half of the internet economy's traffic dividend period had ended, and the second half focused on innovation in the supply chain and B2B industry, using efficiency improvement and cost reduction to digitize the supply side of the entire Chinese industry, ultimately returning to the path of sustained growth.</p><p><b>Finding a New Growth Curve: Heavy Focus on Retail Business</b></p><p>After 2015, Meituan's annual revenue soared from 4.019 billion yuan to 114.795 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 95.5%. Behind this is the continuous evolution of Meituan's organization and strategy while obtaining financing and expanding its business. However, it is worth noting that Meituan's revenue growth rate has been declining year by year, falling below 20% in 2020 (Figure 5). Such revenue growth does not meet the high growth expectations placed on Meituan by the capital market.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e9dcd09ab7e94b0862fbba247f458704\" tg-width=\"977\" tg-height=\"616\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 5. Meituan's rapid revenue growth since 2015</p><p>Source: Company Announcements</p><p>Relying on its traditional core business inevitably leads to a decline in revenue growth. In addition, the low profit margin and fierce competition of the pure food delivery business have forced Meituan to invest in finding new growth curves. The business structure in 2020 shows that Meituan is trying to evolve into a comprehensive digital economy platform spanning local life and physical e-commerce. In community group buying and e-commerce, as China's largest food delivery platform, Meituan has leveraged its mature infrastructure, ample merchant resources, and delivery channel advantages to launch new businesses such as Meituan Maicai, Meituan Youxuan, and Flash Sale (Table 5), in order to further unleash Meituan's economies of scale as a platform.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b82f6a633186f4daecc0bbbf5adbea5c\" tg-width=\"759\" tg-height=\"282\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 5 Meituan's New Battlefield</p><p>Source: Meituan official website, company announcements</p><p>Regarding emerging businesses, Wang Xing said in the earnings call that e-commerce retail is a huge opportunity, and once the infrastructure is completed, there will be an opportunity to reach a massive user base. Once new infrastructure is in place, there will be an opportunity to create a completely new value chain, which will bring new value to the whole society. E-commerce retail is an opportunity to reach the last batch of incremental e-commerce users (hundreds of millions of users in lower-tier markets), so it is necessary to increase investment in retail businesses such as Meituan Youxuan. According to recent media reports, Meituan plans to hire 60,000 new employees in 2021. These 60,000 people are mainly needed for basic positions such as logistics and ground promotion, serving Meituan Youxuan, a community group buying business, and Kuailv, a B2B catering supply chain business. Prior to this, Meituan's number of employees had remained stable at around 50,000 in recent years. Such a large-scale expansion reflects Meituan's huge expectations for its retail business, and Meituan's organizational evolution will continue.</p>","source":"lsy1567750882116","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>Meituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company</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\">\nMeituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"head\">\n<strong class=\"h-name small\"> 中欧商业评论</strong><span class=\"h-time small\">2021-06-11 12:15</span>\n</p>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p>Since its listing in 2018, while Meituan's market value has been rising steadily, it has also been the continuous evolution of Meituan's organizational ecosystem as a local life digital economy platform.</p><p><b>A sneak peek at the highlights of CBR:</b></p><p>01. Under the \"Food + Platform\" strategy, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2020, with more than half of it coming from the Food delivery business. The in-store hotel and travel business contributed the highest profit margin to Meituan, while emerging businesses contributed the highest revenue growth.</p><p>02. Meituan's success stems from multiple aspects, including the management team's entrepreneurial experience and industry knowledge in the Internet field, advanced technical capabilities, efficient operation and management system, scientific and continuously evolving organizational structure, and emphasis on talent cultivation.</p><p>03. Entering the \"second half\" of the Internet, with the gradual implementation of regulations and the gradual standardization of the market competition environment, Meituan has entered a new stage of innovation-driven growth. It needs to continuously expand the boundaries of its digital economy platform, strengthen the digital empowerment of the industrial chain, and create a more open ecosystem.</p><p>As of June 7, 2021, despite its stock price having fallen by nearly 35% from its peak this year, Meituan, the local O2O giant, still had a market capitalization of HK$1.83 trillion on the Hong Kong stock market, ranking second only to Meituan among China's listed internet companies in terms of market capitalization.<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/00700\">Tencent</a>and<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/BABA\">Alibaba</a>。</p><p><b>New economy giants still expanding</b></p><p>As a digital Platform connecting consumers and merchants, Meituan defines its mission as \"helping everyone eat better and live better,\" and its strategy as \"Food + Platform.\" Through innovation and better services, it helps merchants improve operational efficiency, provides consumers with more convenient and reasonably priced high-quality products and services, and makes good use of technology to create more value for society.</p><p>According to Meituan's 2020 annual report, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. Among them, the food delivery business established in 2013 accounted for more than half of Meituan's revenue, making it the largest part of Meituan's revenue and becoming a pillar business of Meituan in recent years. However, in terms of profit margins, in-store and hotel travel businesses are where Meituan truly makes money. More than half of Meituan's revenue comes from food delivery order commissions (similar to brokerage fees) taken by Meituan as the platform provider. Another major source of revenue is marketing expenses paid by merchants to the platform. New businesses and other revenues include self-operated businesses such as Meituan Bike, Meituan Grocery, and Meituan Charging, as well as Meituan Youxuan, Meituan Taxi, Meituan Flash Sale, and B2B business Kuailv (Table 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88f31935c115bff72f1cc57d16f97697\" tg-width=\"1044\" tg-height=\"194\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 1 Meituan's Revenue Composition in 2020</p><p>Source: Meituan Annual Report 2020</p><p>It is worth noting that Meituan's net profit turned from profit to loss in the fourth quarter of 2020. The losses stemmed from investments in new businesses such as community group buying and community e-commerce. According to Meituan's Q1 2021 financial report, although the addition of more than 59 million active buyers in a single quarter set a new historical record for Meituan, Meituan basically completed the user growth of the entire previous year in one quarter. However, the new business suffered a loss of 8 billion yuan in a single quarter, and profitability is yet to come.</p><p>It can be seen that Meituan's operational model for new businesses such as community group buying is somewhat similar to that of its previous food delivery and hotel travel businesses. First, based on data accumulation, it selects specific regions, leverages traffic advantages, rapidly promotes, burns money to expand the market, transforms the supply side, outputs management capabilities, solves the difficulties of supply and demand aggregation for enterprises, subsidizes consumers, makes merchants and consumers dependent on the Meituan platform, seizes the main market share, and then transfers part of the costs to merchants and consumers to achieve profitability under the platform's scale effect (Table 2). But can community group buying replicate its previous success?</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1b2348f8d6f4baafbf2899e8321ab7b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"154\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 2 Meituan's Business Matrix</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p><b>Internet entrepreneurial culture and efficient organization and operation</b></p><p>Meituan.com was founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, Mu Rongjun, Wang Huiwen, and others, with founder Wang Xing at its core. The three were classmates and alumni of Tsinghua University and remain Meituan's three most important executives to this day. Before founding Meituan, the group had co-founded internet social networking websites such as \"Duoduoyou\", \"Xiaonei.com\", \"Fanfou.com\", and \"Hainei.com\" (Table 3). Several rounds of entrepreneurial experience have given the founding team a keen insight into the Internet and rich operation and maintenance experience. Wang Xing's team focuses on efficiency and \"three highs and three lows\"—high quality, high efficiency, high technology, low cost, low price, and low gross profit.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6db4e12bfd0f3d896c802d655f43bece\" tg-width=\"620\" tg-height=\"827\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 3 Meituan Founding and Management Team Information</p><p>Source: Company announcements,<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/600109\">Guojin Securities</a>Institute</p><p>As an O2O company, the founding team led by Wang Xing has mainly started online and has no experience in managing large-scale offline teams. Offline business requires Meituan to have strong organizational capabilities. After joining Meituan in November 2011, Gan Jiawei, a veteran of Alibaba sales, helped Meituan establish an organizational management system and a ground-based marketing system, which has been used to this day.</p><p>Gan Jiawei developed a quantifiable, measurable, traceable, and controllable operational management system for Meituan's offline team. For example, in business management, he set goals, refined execution, and widely adopted the standard operating procedure (SOP) model for management. He broke down the original overall sales process into four steps: A, B, C, and D. By controlling the process, he achieved control over the result E. At the same time, we will improve the incentive system to ensure that employee incentives are highly linked to the company's goals and that employees have a strong grasp of business processes.</p><p>Gan Jiawei emphasizes team management and building at the level of \"using falsehoods to cultivate truth,\" that is, taking data, indicators, and results as \"falsehoods,\" while taking the development and improvement of talent and the organization as \"truth,\" forming a consistency in the behavior and thoughts of members throughout the organization. In this way, even after Gan Jiawei left the company in 2016, this organizational management system and ground marketing system have continued to this day, and the team's combat effectiveness has not been affected. In terms of talent pool, Meituan reserves outstanding business development (BD) candidates at the grassroots level as candidates for city managers, and outstanding city managers as candidates for regional managers. The \"Leadership Echelon Training Program\" was launched at the top level to carry out work such as job rotation, succession planning, and talent inventory, and to establish a complete talent echelon from the grassroots to the top.</p><p><b>Organizational structure serves strategic evolution</b></p><p>Since its launch in March 2010, Meituan has undergone multiple rounds of business expansion (Table 4), and its organizational structure has continuously expanded in accordance with the transformation of its O2O business. When Meituan establishes an independent department for a new business, it quickly adjusts the structure, establishes an independent business unit, and appoints a founding team member as the direct head of the business unit to ensure that the overall culture and approach are upheld in the process of promoting the new business. Wang Huiwen and Chen Liang have played such roles on multiple occasions. By appointing members of the founding team as the heads of new businesses and then handing them over to other senior executives once they mature, Meituan's consistent entrepreneurial culture can be well inherited and played a role in developing new businesses.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0ca7684b0d4c3d14f178c69fd45d8a74\" tg-width=\"626\" tg-height=\"202\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 4 Meituan's Business Changes</p><p>In 2015, Tencent invested in Meituan. After Meituan and Dianping merged to form \"New Meituan-Dianping\", they fully leveraged their operational synergies. Meituan's initial main business, group buying, gradually faded out, truly shedding its early positioning as the \"Chinese version of Groupon\" and beginning to transform into a \"Internet plus\" new economy platform. The business structure has been established into three major business groups: food delivery, hotel and tourism, and in-store business groups, laying the foundation for Meituan's core business to date (Figure 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/734fa189ce296f1c54278290366c4b96\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 1. Meituan's business organizational structure during the \"New Meituan-Dianping\" era</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p>In 2016, Meituan acquired Qiandaibao, a fully licensed payment company, and expanded into digital finance and online payment businesses, implementing a key link in the O2O business closed loop and laying the foundation for a financial middle platform for the construction of its business ecosystem. In the same year, Meituan established the world's first talent development platform, the University of Internet plus (IPU), to coordinate and promote Meituan's internal talent development work.</p><p>Starting in 2017, Meituan's O2O business expanded significantly, and its three major business groups were reorganized (Figure 2):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/681c80f1407a319ca23266dd84e58f88\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"377\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 2. Meituan's business organizational structure during its high-speed expansion period</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>After launching Meituan Taxi in 2017, Meituan established a ride-hailing business unit and subsequently completed the acquisition of Mobike, further enriching Meituan's consumer data collection and traffic conversion channels. Subsequently, Meituan further integrated its business structure, combining the original Meituan platform and Dianping platform (Figure 3):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dfe93a8f2e88d105574844cae1c2641b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"512\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 3. Meituan's business organizational structure after launching its mobility service</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>On October 30, 2018, after completing its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company upgraded its organizational structure in accordance with the \"Food+Platform\" strategy. Over the next two years, several business unit optimizations were carried out, but the basic organizational framework was retained after adjustments in 2018.</p><p>As it continues to explore new businesses, Meituan is integrating its businesses into a platform. The company's organizational structure serves its strategic direction, with its core businesses concentrated in two major business groups: in-store and home delivery. It then uses the Meituan platform and the smart transportation platform to improve the synergy and efficiency of local businesses. With \"food\" as its core, Meituan is building a catering service chain from ingredient supply and IT systems to delivery and marketing. IT focuses on developing various catering service chain products such as Kuailv, Meituan Maicai, and Meituan Youxuan, while other business lines provide support (Figure 4).</p><p>From the changes in Meituan's organizational structure, it can be seen that Meituan's business groups, which were originally mainly divided by business, have been divided by scenario to increase synergy between different businesses and the same scenario, which is conducive to the vertical cultivation of the business. The user platform elevates user traffic to the level of a company for overall operation and management. The user platform is the entrance to Meituan's ecosystem. The platform connects traffic and then directs that traffic to the business units and groups centered on \"food,\" building a multi-level technology service platform for the life services industry from the demand side to the supply side.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fb20239d777df83381537aad6b28aaeb\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"670\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 4. Meituan's business organizational structure under the \"Food+Platform\" strategy</p><p>Source: 36kr, Tencent.com<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/SINA\">Sina</a>Technology, Debon Research Institute</p><p>Meituan's rapid growth from 2015 to 2019 was mainly due to the expansion of its business in various cities, the optimization and upgrading of its online marketing, and the improvement of its delivery network. Having now entered a mature stage, Meituan's key development potential lies in leveraging its data advantages and expanding the network effect of its ecosystem, such as empowering small and medium-sized merchants within the ecosystem and stimulating synergies between different business departments. Back in 2017, Wang Xing recognized that B2B represented future opportunities. The first half of the internet economy's traffic dividend period had ended, and the second half focused on innovation in the supply chain and B2B industry, using efficiency improvement and cost reduction to digitize the supply side of the entire Chinese industry, ultimately returning to the path of sustained growth.</p><p><b>Finding a New Growth Curve: Heavy Focus on Retail Business</b></p><p>After 2015, Meituan's annual revenue soared from 4.019 billion yuan to 114.795 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 95.5%. Behind this is the continuous evolution of Meituan's organization and strategy while obtaining financing and expanding its business. However, it is worth noting that Meituan's revenue growth rate has been declining year by year, falling below 20% in 2020 (Figure 5). Such revenue growth does not meet the high growth expectations placed on Meituan by the capital market.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e9dcd09ab7e94b0862fbba247f458704\" tg-width=\"977\" tg-height=\"616\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 5. Meituan's rapid revenue growth since 2015</p><p>Source: Company Announcements</p><p>Relying on its traditional core business inevitably leads to a decline in revenue growth. In addition, the low profit margin and fierce competition of the pure food delivery business have forced Meituan to invest in finding new growth curves. The business structure in 2020 shows that Meituan is trying to evolve into a comprehensive digital economy platform spanning local life and physical e-commerce. In community group buying and e-commerce, as China's largest food delivery platform, Meituan has leveraged its mature infrastructure, ample merchant resources, and delivery channel advantages to launch new businesses such as Meituan Maicai, Meituan Youxuan, and Flash Sale (Table 5), in order to further unleash Meituan's economies of scale as a platform.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b82f6a633186f4daecc0bbbf5adbea5c\" tg-width=\"759\" tg-height=\"282\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 5 Meituan's New Battlefield</p><p>Source: Meituan official website, company announcements</p><p>Regarding emerging businesses, Wang Xing said in the earnings call that e-commerce retail is a huge opportunity, and once the infrastructure is completed, there will be an opportunity to reach a massive user base. Once new infrastructure is in place, there will be an opportunity to create a completely new value chain, which will bring new value to the whole society. E-commerce retail is an opportunity to reach the last batch of incremental e-commerce users (hundreds of millions of users in lower-tier markets), so it is necessary to increase investment in retail businesses such as Meituan Youxuan. According to recent media reports, Meituan plans to hire 60,000 new employees in 2021. These 60,000 people are mainly needed for basic positions such as logistics and ground promotion, serving Meituan Youxuan, a community group buying business, and Kuailv, a B2B catering supply chain business. Prior to this, Meituan's number of employees had remained stable at around 50,000 in recent years. Such a large-scale expansion reflects Meituan's huge expectations for its retail business, and Meituan's organizational evolution will continue.</p>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n<p> source：<a href=\"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZdP1NHQVlcm25Vdb6rW3rQ\"> 中欧商业评论</a></p>\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/65b7dbfaf22c1cfa3c335c257811fa09","relate_stocks":{"160636":"互联网","161025":"移动互联","03690":"美团-W","QNETCN":"纳斯达克中美互联网老虎指数"},"source_url":"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZdP1NHQVlcm25Vdb6rW3rQ","is_english":false,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1183013437","content_text":"自2018年上市以来，在美团的市值一路上涨的同时，是美团作为本地生活数字经济平台在组织生态上的不断进化。\nCBR精华抢先看：\n01.“Food + Platform”战略下，美团的年度营收在2020年首度超过千亿元，其中超过一半来自餐饮外卖业务，到店酒旅业务则为美团贡献了最高的利润率，而新兴业务则贡献了最高的收入增长。\n02.美团的成功来自于管理团队在互联网领域积累的创业经验和行业认知、先进的技术能力、高效的运营管理体系、科学且持续进化的组织架构和对人才培养的重视等多个方面。\n03.进入互联网“下半场”，随着监管逐渐到位和市场竞争环境逐渐规范，美团进入创新驱动的新增长阶段，需要不断拓展其数字经济平台的边界，加强对产业链的数字化赋能，打造更加开放的生态系统。\n截至2021年6月7日，尽管股价自其今年的高点已下跌了近35%，本地生活O2O巨头美团在港股市场的市值仍高达1.83万亿港元，在中国的上市互联网公司中，市值上仅次于腾讯和阿里巴巴。\n仍处于扩张中的新经济巨头\n作为链接消费者和商户的数字化平台，美团将公司的使命定义为“帮大家吃得更好，生活更好”，战略定义为“Food + Platform”（“餐饮+平台”），通过创新及更优的服务助力商家提升运营效率，为消费者提供更为便利以及价格合理的优质产品和服务，善用科技为社会创造更多价值。\n根据美团2020年年报，美团全年营收首破千亿，其中2013年成立的餐饮外卖占据了美团超过一半的营收，为美团营收中占比最高的部分，已是近年来美团的支柱业务。但在利润率上，到店、酒旅业务才是美团真正赚钱的业务。美团的营收中，超过一半的收入来自于美团作为平台方进行的外卖订单抽佣（类似于中介费），另一大主要收入来源是商家支付给平台的营销费用。新业务及其他的收入则包括了美团单车、美团买菜和美团充电等自营业务，以及美团优选、美团打车、美团闪购、to B业务快驴等（表 1）。\n\n表 1 美团2020年收入构成\n来源：美团2020年年报\n值得注意的是，美团2020年第四季度净利润由盈转亏。亏损来自于对新业务的投入如社区团购、社区电商等。而根据美团的2021年一季度财报：尽管单季度新增5900多万活跃买家创造了美团的历史记录，让美团一个季度就基本完成了去年一整年的用户增量。然而单季度新业务亏损80亿，盈利还有待时日。\n可以看出，美团在社区团购等新业务的运营上，模式和此前的外卖、酒旅有一定相似，先是根据数据积累，选定特定地域，利用流量优势，快速推广，烧钱扩容市场，改造供给端，输出管理能力，解决企业供需聚合的难点，补贴消费者，让商户和消费者对美团平台产生依赖，抢占主要市场份额后再将部分成本转移给商户和消费者，在平台规模效应下实现盈利（表 2），但社区团购还能否复制此前的成功呢？\n\n表 2 美团的业务矩阵\n资料来源：根据公开信息整理\n互联网创业文化和高效组织运营\n美团网于 2010 年由王兴、穆荣均、王慧文等人创立，以创始人王兴为核心。三人曾是清华大学时期的同学及校友，至今也是美团最为主要的三位高管。在创立美团之前，几人曾联合创办过“多多友”、“校内网”、“饭否网”、“海内网”等互联网社交网站（表 3）。几轮创业经历让创始团队具备了对互联网的敏锐洞察能力及丰富的运维经验。王兴团队注重效率和“三高三低”——高质量、高效率、高科技、低成本、低价格、低毛利。\n\n表 3 美团创始及管理团队资料\n资料来源：公司公告，国金证券研究所\n作为O2O公司，以王兴为核心的创始团队的创业经历以线上创业为主，并没有管理大规模线下团队的经验，而线下业务需要美团具备强大的组织能力。阿里巴巴销售元老干嘉伟2011 年11 月加入美团后，帮助美团搭设了组织管理体系和地推营销体系，并沿袭至今。\n干嘉伟为美团的线下团队制定了可量化、可衡量、可追溯、可控制的运营管理体系，例如在业务管理上锚定目标，细化执行，广泛采用标准作业流程SOP模式进行管理，将原来一个整体的销售过程拆分成ABCD四个步骤，通过对过程的管控来实现对结果E的管控；同时改进激励制度体系，让员工激励与公司目标高度挂钩，员工对业务流程具备较强的掌握能力。\n干嘉伟注重“借假修真”层面的团队管理与建设，即以数据、指标、结果为“假”，而以人才和组织的发展和提升为“真”，形成整个组织中成员行为方式和思想的一致性，这样即使在干嘉伟于 2016 年离职后，这套组织管理体系和地推营销体系延续至今，团队的战斗力也未受影响。在人才储备上，美团在基层储备优秀的BD 作为城市经理的候选人，优秀的城市经理为区域经理的候选人；在高层启动“领导梯队培养计划”，进行轮岗锻炼、继任计划、人才盘点等工作，建立起从基层到高层完备的人才梯队。\n组织结构服务于战略演进\n从2010年3月上线以来，美团经历了多轮业务扩张（表 4），组织结构根据O2O业务变革不断拓展。美团为新业务而成立独立部门时，会迅速进行架构调整，建立独立事业部，并指定一名创始团队成员作为事业部直接负责人，确保整体文化和思路在新业务推进过程中的坚守，其中王慧文和陈亮就多次担任此类角色。以创始团队内部成员作为新业务的负责人，待到成熟后转交其他高管，这使得美团一贯的创业文化能够良好传承，在开辟新业务时发挥作用。\n\n表 4 美团的业务变迁\n2015年，腾讯入股美团，美团与大众点评合并组成“新美大”之后，充分发挥了经营协同效应，美团初期的主要业务团购逐渐淡出，真正摆脱了早期“中国版Groupon”的定位，开始转型成为“互联网+”新经济平台。业务架构确立为三大事业群：外卖配送、酒店旅游和到店事业群，奠定了美团到目前为止最为核心的业务（图 1）。\n\n图 1 “新美大”时期美团业务组织结构\n资料来源：根据公开资料整理\n2016年，美团收购了全牌照支付公司钱袋宝，布局了数字金融和网络支付业务，落实了O2O 商业闭环的关键环节，为业务生态的建设奠定了金融中台基础。同年，美团设立了全球首家人才培养平台“互联网+大学”(IPU)，统筹推进美团企业内部人才培养工作。\n2017年起，美团的O2O业务大幅扩张，三大事业群重新整合（图 2）：\n\n图 2 美团高速扩张期业务组织结构\n资料来源：德邦研究所\n在2017年推出美团打车后，美团成立了出行事业部，并随后完成了对摩拜单车的收购，进一步丰富了美团的消费者数据采集渠道和流量转化渠道，随后美团对业务架构进行了进一步整合，将原先的美团平台和大众点评平台进行了整合（图 3）：\n\n图 3 推出出行业务后，美团的业务组织结构\n资料来源：德邦研究所\n2018 年 10 月 30 日，公司在完成港交所上市后，按照 “Food+Platform”战略对组织架构进行了升级。此后两年间陆续进行了几次业务单元的优化，但基本组织框架在 2018 年调整后得到沿用。\n随着不断开拓新业务，美团将业务平台化整合，公司的组织架构服务于战略方向，核心业务集中在到店事业群和到家事业群两大事业群，再通过美团平台和智慧交通平台提高本地业务的协同和效率。美团以‘吃’为核心，打造从食材供应、IT系统到配送及营销的餐饮服务链，着重打造快驴、美团买菜、美团优选等各类餐饮服务链产品，同时其他业务线予以辅助（图 4）。\n从美团的组织架构变化中，可以发现美团的原来按业务划分为主的事业群改为按场景划分，以增加不同业务相同场景间的协同，利于业务的垂直深耕。用户平台将用户流量上升为公司层面整体去经营和管理。用户平台是美团生态的入口，平台接入流量，再导入流量到以“吃”为核心的事业部和事业群，建设成生活服务业从需求侧到供给侧的多层次科技服务平台。\n\n图 4 “Food+Platform”战略下美团的业务组织结构\n资料来源：36kr、腾讯网、新浪科技、德邦研究所\n2015-2019年美团的高速增长主要来自于业务在各个城市的扩张、在线营销的优化和升级、和配送网络的完善。如今已步入成熟期的美团，重点发展空间在于发挥数据优势，扩大生态系统的网络效应，如赋能生态内的中小商户，激发不同业务部门间的协同效应。在2017年，王兴就已经认识到，to B是未来的机会，互联网经济上半场的流量红利期已经结束，下半场的方向是围绕供应链和to B行业的创新，以效率提升、成本降低为方法让整个中国产业的供给侧实现互联网数字化，最终回到持续增长的道路上。\n寻找新的增长曲线：重注零售业务\n2015年之后，美团的年度营收从40.19亿元一路飙升至2020年的1147.95亿元，年复合增长率达到了95.5%，这背后是美团在获得融资、扩张业务的同时，组织和战略的持续进化。但同时值得注意的是，美团的营收增速呈逐年下滑趋势，在2020年已下降至20%以下（图 5）。这样的营收增速并不符合资本市场赋予美团的高增长期望。\n\n图 5 美团营收自2015年以来的高速增长\n资料来源：公司公告\n依赖于传统核心业务，不可避免会迎来营收增速下滑，加上单纯的餐饮外卖业务利润率低，竞争激烈，让美团投入于寻找新的增长曲线。从2020年的业务结构可以看出，美团正试图进化成横跨本地生活和实物电商的综合型数字经济平台。在社区团购和电商上，作为中国最大的外卖配送平台，美团借助自身成熟的基础设施、充足的商家资源，以及配送渠道优势，推出了美团买菜、美团优选、闪购等新业务（表 5），以更进一步释放美团作为平台的规模效应。\n\n表 5 美团的新战场\n资料来源：美团官网、公司公告\n对于新兴业务，王兴在财报电话会上称电商零售是巨大的机遇，一旦基础设施建设完毕，就有机会触及海量的用户群体。而一旦有了新的基础设施，也将有机会创建全新的价值链，这也将会为整个社会带来新的价值，电商零售是一个能触及最后一批电商增量用户（下沉市场数亿用户）的机会，所以必须对美团优选等零售业务加码投入。就在近日，据媒体报道，美团计划在2021年新招6万人。这6万人主要是物流、地推等基础岗位所需，服务于社区团购业务美团优选和B2B餐饮供应链业务快驴。而这之前美团员工近几年数量一直稳定在5万人左右，如此大规模的扩张反映出的是美团对于零售业务的巨大期望，美团的组织进化仍将继续。","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{"160636":0.9,"161025":0.9,"QNETCN":0.9,"03690":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":4552,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"hots":[{"id":802806301,"gmtCreate":1627743900703,"gmtModify":1703495411910,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","idStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"good","listText":"good","text":"good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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>Oaktree Capital founder Marks said that Federal Reserve rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure the economy does not overheat, because high inflation demands higher interest rates, or both, it is very possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly falling asset prices) would make everyone uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational by reference to interest rates.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, is arguably the world's leading investment philosopher, with $153 billion in assets under management. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, each of which is considered a classic. Here is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions: it must be important and knowable at the same time. —Warren Buffett</p><p>As long-time readers of my memo know, Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macroeconomic expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six investment philosophies is simply that we do not make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own companies do not employ economists, and we rarely invite outside economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for doing this is actually very simple: to paraphrase Buffett's famous quote, we firmly believe that the macroeconomic future is unknowable. Or you could say that macroeconomic forecasting is a different field, just like investing itself—it's very easy to be as accurate as the public, but extremely difficult to be more accurate. So-called consensus expectations do not give you any advantage. Investors who want to obtain above-average returns must have a knowledge advantage and be more accurate than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that, given this, they must make their own macroeconomic forecasts and invest accordingly. Successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, also frequently make statements related to macroeconomic expectations, even if people find little evidence to suggest a link between their investment success and their accurate macroeconomic expectations. Nevertheless, the enormous impact of changes in the macroeconomic situation has convinced many investors that ignoring the macroeconomic situation when investing is absolutely irresponsible. However...</p><p>● Most macroeconomic expectations can actually be divided into two categories: either consistent expectations that are of little help, or different expectations that are rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I've encountered, I can count them on one hand who can make successful investment decisions based on macroeconomic expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they buy when they think they've found a discount and sell when they think it's overvalued, basically without caring about the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you actually have little understanding of the macro future, but in these areas full of significant variables, agnosticism is probably always better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is just my opinion? So let's hear what the authorities have to say.</p><p>The thought that you might not understand something is scary, but overall, it's even scarier if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what's going on.</p><p>—Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't understand, but the things you firmly believe you know but don't actually understand.\"</p><p>—Mark Twain</p><p>At this point, I am reminded of a topic about the prophets' performance records, or rather, their lack of performance records. Back in the 1970s, an elder once told me, \"A so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never focuses on the market.\" This definition still seems so vivid today. When an economist or macroeconomic strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he does not specify what percentage of his previous recession expectations came true within a year. It is well known that investment managers must provide their historical performance records at all times, otherwise investors will not consider them at all. Why, then, should we trust macroeconomic prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I would like to point out that the same comments actually apply to most investors. We rarely hear these people say they have no idea about the macro future or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions for becoming a successful investor is to understand self-assessment. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you invest based on your own macro judgments, how much help can these judgments provide overall? Should you continue to invest based on them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>These are my personal thoughts on the so-called flaws of expectations. In the remainder of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why am I even talking about this topic? This can be understood by reversing Warren Buffett's famous quote at the beginning of the article—although the macroeconomic future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, I found that market movements were primarily a reaction to events surrounding certain companies and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market appeared to be dominated primarily by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and major international events, a point that became even clearer after the 2008 global financial crisis. That's why I'm writing this memo on a topic I rarely touch on.</p><p>Below, I will attempt to list some significant macroeconomic issues, discuss them, and make prospects. Finally, I will offer some related suggestions. Here, I also need to reiterate my belief that we all have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's principles state; “It’s one thing to have our own ideas, but it’s another thing to assume that they are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such things.”</p><p><b>inflation</b></p><p>At the moment this article is written, the most concerning macroeconomic issue in the United States is undoubtedly inflation. Over the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress have been turning on the money supply to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. This resulted in three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospects for a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have skyrocketed; Third, concerns about inflation are growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records indicate that these policies, as described earlier, are likely to result in the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger-than-normal economy;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and the resulting higher wages;</p><p>● More funds are chasing goods with limited supply;</p><p>● The rate of increase in commodity prices (i.e., inflation) is accelerating;</p><p>● Monetary policy tightened to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and uncertainties in the operation of the economy, the orthodox view holds that the above general process model is highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing the important variables inherent in thinking about inflation.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined who I am today was that I invested in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation, which remained high in the United States from the 1970s until 1982. The two chief economists dubbed \"Dr. Doom” and \"Dr. Dark” (I can't remember which title belongs to whom), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often gave depressing speeches declaring that they didn't know what was causing the terrible inflation, much less how to control it. Everyone was helpless against inflation until Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker finally solved the problem through massive rate hike, which led to the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what has our experience been like in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set their sights on a healthy 2% inflation rate, but no one has been able to achieve it. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is substantial, the money supply expands rapidly through quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historically low levels—all of which, from a traditional perspective, are extremely inflationary—the latter has been consistently absent.</p><p>● Finally, over the past six decades or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, which assumes a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation—the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more capital workers have when bargaining with employers, the faster wages rise, and the greater the increase in consumer prices. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline over the past decade, eventually reaching its lowest point in half a century, while inflation has still not made substantial progress. 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 attributable to changes in the methods used to compile the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real crucial truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes, and how to deal with it. I've used the word \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so it seems to me that we must place even lower trust in inflation-related expectations compared to other areas. Of course, this will make investors more uneasy today, since inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variable at present.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed the outlook for inflation, and I certainly can't copy everything, but I can provide a brief summary. Here is a general background;</p><p>● With the economy forced to shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress took dramatic action to support the economy and its participants, preventing the Great Global Economic Slowdown from eventually turning into a second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare spending on individuals, loans and guarantees to businesses and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and massive bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 was a year when you could hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people earned more in 2020 than in 2019. In 2020, income exceeded the trend line while expenses fell below it, since travel, dining out, sports competitions, concerts, and weddings had all disappeared. The end result of all this progress is an estimated $2 trillion in additional cash on American consumers' balance sheets.</p><p>● With the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, the financial markets were flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital markets to reopen. Against the backdrop of trillions of dollars in stock market value inflation and a surge in home prices, a clear wealth effect has emerged. Compared to this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs suggest that we may be heading towards a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of the above will lead to an accelerated rise in the inflation rate.</p><p>Concerns about high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the coming years. Initially, people's anxieties mainly stemmed from economic theories, but in 2021, these concerns began to be supported by concrete evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Housing prices soared.</p><p>● The prices of raw materials and components have skyrocketed, such as copper, timber, and semiconductors.</p><p>● There is a shortage of smartphones.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and sectors have increased the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase in the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May, and 5.4% in June, setting new records for the highest readings since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only stem from the supply and demand imbalance caused by rising input costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened demand for dollars, lowered the real value of the dollar, and led to higher prices for imported goods.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that a climate has recently developed in Washington where trillions of dollars in spending can be carried out indiscriminately without a reliable mechanism to pay the bills. At the same time, the influence of modern monetary theory (MMT), which essentially holds that deficits and debt are not to be feared, is growing. What if these ideas are ultimately proven to be untenable?</p><p>On the other hand, many people have tried to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is practically the most popular word at the moment).</p><p>● Many of the shortages that lead to high input costs for manufactured goods and manufacturing, ultimately leading to price increases, can be understood as natural consequences of economic restarts, especially products of the restart of global supply chains. It is clearly unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to return to efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any one component can lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufactured goods. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, they are naturally only short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the prices of raw materials or manufactured goods are not determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way. This means that prices do not necessarily have to be \"correct\" or in line with the current environment—the same principle applies to stock prices. In fact, just like the stock market, commodity prices are determined more by the psychology of economic participants, which can be both excessive and insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in his article \"The Fed's Folly\" on July 23 this year, \"The rise in commodity prices that leads to increased inflationary pressures is actually a product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only a result of the current supply and demand situation, but also reveal people's judgments about future price trends. In this regard, timber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020 when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to the peak in May 2021 when almost no one believed that housing supply could keep up with demand, the price of this essential construction commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, timber prices have fallen by more than 60%, and their impact on inflation is no longer what it was not long ago.</p><p>● Clearly, a large part of the inflation experienced by people in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the arrival of pandemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. This can only be temporary, of course; a limited total pool of funds is unlikely to lead to sustained high spending.</p><p>● Additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, bringing more workers back into the labor market and easing the pressure on wages and commodity prices from labor shortages.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, economic growth will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the pent-up consumer demand from 2020 will have been basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, the intensity of recent stimulus, deficit spending, and money printing will decrease (at least the growth rate will slow down), which means that the proportion of these factors relative to the size of the economy will decrease.</p><p>● Technological advances, automation, and globalization are expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether current inflation will be permanent or temporary remains a hotly debated issue. This debate is significant because higher inflation will undoubtedly lead to higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for us to know the real answer. (As mentioned earlier, it is important but unknowable.) Both sides of the argument are well-educated and talented, but I still firmly believe that none of them are truly prophets.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the Fed's responsibilities is to ensure that inflation remains under control. However, Fed leaders also admit that they are not entirely sure about their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"Therefore, I cannot give exact numbers or a precise timeframe. I can only say that we do expect inflation to decline. Look at my and my colleagues' forecasts for 2022 and 2023, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to decline significantly toward our target.\" I believe that the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our target.</p><p>Around the same time, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard also mentioned in his speech that variables still exist. Media reports on June 18 wrote:</p><p>\"Bullard... stated that the U.S. economy is 'in a highly volatile environment, making it impossible to see whether any path anyone predicts will ultimately become a reality.'\"</p><p>This is exactly the frankness we need. However, from the above quotes, it is clear that the Federal Reserve cannot make a statement that \"we have the answer\" to the inflation issue—in fact, it can 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, which, in my opinion, was completely irrational. So I wrote a memo (Visiting a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I appeared on a television program discussing the contents of the memo, people discussed whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, and I gave a resounding negative answer. I emphasized 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 19, 2016), I published another article, \"What the Market Knows\". So, what lessons do these have 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 stock market declines to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 experienced a very limited decline, and the following day, June 19, the media wrote:</p><p>\"U.S. stocks fell on Friday as traders closely watched the Federal Reserve for clues about the next steps in monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6% on Friday, or 533.37 points, to close at 33,290.08, down 3.45% for the week.\"</p><p>The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday, or 55.41 points, to close at 4,166.45, down 1.9% for the week. This ended a three-week upward trend. Along with big tech stocks also declining, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14,030.38, down 0.3% for the week.</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect to begin a rate hike in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. Market sentiment was dampened again on Friday after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike to occur as early as the second half of 2022.\"</p><p>“ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada said the decline in U.S. stocks was not unexpected. The stock market has been rising continuously since last year, hitting new highs, and is well ahead of the economic recovery process. Now that traders are witnessing the Federal Reserve slowly shifting its monetary policy stance, it is natural to start repricing the ‘reinflation trade.’”</p><p>\"'The day has finally arrived,' he commented. 'Because the market got ahead too much, this sell-off was bound to happen sooner or later.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, the so-called Wall Street 'fear indicator,' has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at Mitsubishi UFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If a rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more shocked because it will inevitably mean that the Federal Reserve will also taper at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any given time, media commentators seem always well-prepared to offer a logical explanation of what is happening in the markets and why (I'm always curious where they get that explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these things mean for the future—without exception, of course, by extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme of 2021 so far has been high inflation. As a result, people repeatedly explain most of the changes in the market by inflation and the resulting fear of high interest rates. For example, the latest economic data shows that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has turned negative as a result.</p><p>So far, these arguments seem to make sense. You could argue that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the views of the bond market seem to be quite different from those of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18:</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 fallen for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of over 7% in May, compared to over 9% in April. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience its highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that there is no need to be afraid, while the bond market does not appear to be worried.\" Although bond yields rose somewhat due to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed an overall downward trend last week and remain at a historically low level. Since the market isn't worried, perhaps we don't need to worry unnecessarily.</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation and higher interest rates, but the bond market, which mainly depends on the outlook for interest rates, is showing higher prices and lower interest rates, seemingly unconcerned about inflation.</p><p>This reminds me of gold, which has been considered a target for inflationary surges throughout history. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market also seems to agree with the bond market's judgment that the inflation outlook is actually still moderate. The media wrote on June 19:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, extending Thursday's losses and now experiencing their biggest drop in more than ten months. For the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, marking their worst weekly performance since March 13, 2020.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, gold prices surged to an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, likely because the Federal Reserve was injecting a staggering amount of money into the economy and markets. From then until June 18, 2021, although fears of inflation seemed to be growing, gold prices fell to $1,773, a 14% drop from their high ten months earlier.</p><p>Thus, in June, we witnessed a strange combination: weak stock markets, reportedly the product of inflation fears, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation remained under control. Then there's gold, a classic inflation-hedging tool, whose price is also falling as stock market investors are described as increasingly concerned about inflation. These markets not only don't know what the future holds, but their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In my 2016 book, \"What the Market Knows,\" I concluded that \"the market doesn't actually make any contribution when it comes to when to buy and sell securities.\" I believe the same conclusion applies to the prospects for various macroeconomic events in the future. To understand the market's thought process, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help; I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychologist\" back then.</p><p>The market operates like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and react accordingly, whether bullish or bearish. Although markets are often excellent \"observers,\" capable of reacting extremely quickly and effectively to current changes, sometimes, as shown in the cartoon, they also seem to wear positive or negative tinted glasses when observing events (and jump back and forth between the two). Furthermore, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and often knows nothing about what is about to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, its judgment of the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the fact that the present cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when a security's price performance differs from what we predict based on our own judgment, we must first consider whether the market has sensed something sufficient to overturn our previous judgments and expectations. (Does the market occasionally have exceptions, moments of foresight? Let's look back at the 68% gain in the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020, to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided it made sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most commentators in recognizing the potential impact of Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictions and statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still really hope to share them with everyone. I am able to learn this thanks to my long-time partner, Sheldon Stone, with whom I have worked for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended a New York Times article from December 18th to me, titled \"After Guessing Completely 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 would rise 2.7% in 2020. Given the actual increase of 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was a full 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. However, what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the pandemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus expectation was further lowered to -11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in the special year of 2020, it is obviously unreasonable for a strategist to predict the outbreak of the epidemic. The same principle applies to expecting him to predict the great success of the response policies or the specific timing and intensity of the subsequent market rebound. Crucially, the article goes on to list a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is far more significant. Below, I will give a general introduction based on the original text:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts have projected a median annual return of 9.5% for the S&P 500, while the actual return has been 6.0%. Some might say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points,' but others might say, 'That's terrible—the forecasters exaggerated the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number in the median return expectations, that is, a prediction of a decline.\" However, the fact is that the US 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 predicted that the market would rise by 7.5%, a gap of 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets predicted that the market would rise by 12.5%, but in reality it fell by 23.3%, a gap of nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"In summary, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectations and reality averaged 12.9 percentage points annually, which is equivalent to twice the stock market's real average annual return of 6.0% during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to a weatherman who reports sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the time.\" This is called prediction!” (Why is the average error initially said to be 3.5 percentage points, and later said to be 12.9 percentage points? I estimate the latter is the average from the 'absolute value' of the error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than reality, and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than reality, then the absolute value of the error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that while hundreds or even thousands of people make a living doing professional market forecasting, the reality is that their median forecasts are worthless, their average forecasts are wrong, they are bullish in both good and bad years, and they are always completely wrong in the years when accurate forecasts can really make a lot of money.</p><p><b>The role of the Federal Reserve</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macroeconomic outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its actions. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has lasted to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs and made large purchases of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a great success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same actions have also contributed to the current threat of persistently high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities: to ensure sufficient economic growth to create jobs and achieve full employment, and to keep inflation under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation leads 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 thanks to policies from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and was later strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with real GDP growing at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue throughout the remainder of 2021 and into 2022. However, under these circumstances, the Federal Reserve maintained its established interest rate and continued its monthly bond purchases of $120 billion. Why continue stimulus when the economy is already performing well, and risk pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. Initially, they said they did not believe high inflation would occur, but this assertion has certainly been refuted by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly emphasized that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, maintaining such a strong easing policy indicates that the Fed is more concerned about potential trouble for economic growth than about inflation. One well-informed observer told me that the Fed's thinking was that if economic growth returned to its normal rate of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagflation was 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 stagnant expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its actual pace was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's recent testimony to Congress also demonstrates that this is still his top priority now that the recovery has been ongoing for several months. A Reuters press release on July 14 wrote:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pledged to 'strongly support' the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process from the pandemic.\"</p><p>\"During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices was mainly due to the country's post-pandemic restart and would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus on getting as many people back to work as possible.\"</p><p>Powell stated that given the current job losses caused by the pandemic, which still amount to as much as 7.5 million, weakening economic support, such as reducing the Federal Reserve's $120 billion monthly bond-buying operations, is \"still a very long way off.\"</p><p>However, even if a setback in economic growth is indeed a greater risk—and no one dares to argue with the Fed that this risk does not exist—the risk of inflation, and the various consequences of this risk, remains highly real. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that the Fed's stimulus policies will be too strong than insufficient. I also believe that while these Fed policies have the potential to have negative side effects, they are indeed doing the right thing. However, we must also have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● Higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, leading to higher interest rates. On the other hand, controlling inflation requires tightening monetary policy and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates lead investors to demand higher returns, causing financial asset prices to fall and possibly even crash (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, as most of their income is invested in various necessities, while millions of retirees and other people who rely on fixed incomes will also be severely impacted.</p><p>● Higher inflation will increase Treasury Bond’s repayment costs, leading to a further widening of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will lead lenders (and foreign buyers) to further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, ultimately causing a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we continue to print enough dollars to pay interest and cover deficits, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate, and even its status as the world's reserve currency will be questioned.</p><p>● As history has shown, rapidly rising prices can cause inflationary expectations to be implanted in the American psyche, eventually snowballing into a self-fulfilling situation, at which point the situation becomes difficult to rectify.</p><p>Furthermore, the loose monetary policy itself has a series of negative impacts that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The Fed's generosity will be seen as evidence that the so-called \"Fed response\" does exist, leading people to believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This can lead to a series of consequences, such as a moral crisis (investors believe they can take risks freely without having to bear the consequences), and a failure of market risk aversion mechanisms, threatening the safety of the market.</p><p>● In the environment described above, businesses and investors will be more inclined to use leverage, which will amplify the destructive power of the economy once it slows down.</p><p>● As the experience of the past sixteen months has demonstrated, the Federal Reserve cannot stimulate the economy without increasing its size. So, whose pockets do these extra benefits end up in? The answer is those who own the economy (those who own stocks, businesses, real estate, etc.). This means that the stimulus and the resulting asset price increases have actually exacerbated the problem of wealth inequality, a point that is now attracting more and more attention.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing—including keeping interest rates near zero—then when the economy slows again in the future and needs more stimulus, they will have relatively few policy tools at their disposal. For example, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements in last year's rescue policy package, but if interest rates were already zero, the Fed would have little room to maneuver in this regard.</p><p>Some believe that the Fed may be able to replicate last year's miracle, creating long-term prosperity and avoiding or minimizing a recession. Some people hope that low interest rates will keep the market rising forever. Some argue that the Treasury can issue as much Treasury Bond as it wants because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of ultimate buyer. Clearly, there are many in the federal government who feel they can spend as much as they want without the ever-increasing deficit and debt having any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive my foolishness for not being able to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are far too wishful thinking. This logic seems like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayments. I can't tell you exactly what loopholes are hidden in this logic, but I believe that loopholes definitely exist. Or you could put it this way: if you're going to bet me that there's definitely a lot of loopholes here, I absolutely won't bet with 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 known as \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means without costs. Even Keynes himself believed that while deficits were a reasonable option for reviving the economy, governments must be able to generate fiscal surpluses during booms to offset deficits caused by downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surpluses, and debt repayment seem to have been thrown into the dustbin of history.</p><p>For more than two decades, the United States has had a huge and ever-increasing deficit, a trend that seems increasingly difficult to reverse. Traditional economics believes this will cause inflation, but as mentioned earlier in the article, a full decade of deficits in the second decade of the new century did not lead to any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps these deficits simply helped prop up a faltering economy—without the help of deficit spending, the economy's real performance could only have been worse.</p><p>In any case, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I mentioned earlier, in 2020 we witnessed a trillion-dollar increase in welfare benefits, the Federal Reserve's bond-buying operations, and a rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these proportions relative to the total size of the U.S. economy are rising rapidly. What will be the consequences? The future will inevitably unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually transform the Federal Reserve into a highly active market player (the term \"Greenspan strategy\" emerged and eventually evolved into the \"Fed strategy\" it is today), which is how he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operations were necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my view, they should not be permanent. I would prefer to see a Fed that is no longer constantly preoccupied with fine-tuning, but rather sits on the sidelines most of the time, only taking measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it reaches an extreme.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially its power as the best means of allocating resources. In a free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to where they can be most efficient. However, we no longer have free capital markets, not since the 2008 global financial crisis. The Fed reduced Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009 and has maintained it almost ever since. They also tried rate hike, but each time the market responded with turmoil, forcing them to stop.</p><p>I must clarify that I have never felt more intelligent than anyone at the Fed. However, overall, I would prefer to see economic stimulus policies introduced less frequently and less continuously. Perhaps, due to policy, our economic growth rate will increase further in the coming years, but I do not believe that monetary and fiscal policies can permanently increase the long-term economic growth rate without any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still hope to see a free money market, which in my view means that interest rates should \"happen naturally\". Artificially lowering interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and excessive leverage. To reiterate, I would like to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless absolutely necessary.</p><p>In my first memo during the pandemic era, I offered the following interpretation of the pandemic;</p><p>\"Because it's the first time it's happened, no one really knows. As Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch pointed out in a webcast, we can only first grasp the facts, then make reasonable inferences based on comparisons with other virus transmission situations, and ultimately form opinions or speculations.\" Scientists are trying to make sensible inferences. To date, I believe the pandemic-related data is still insufficient to allow them to translate their inferences into facts. (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If we replace \"scientists\" with \"economists\" and \"inflation\" with \"pandemic,\" I believe this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts to base our inferences on, except for our own experiences with American inflation in our own lives. Therefore, I believe that anyone's statements today about the inflation trend in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I personally prefer to be more direct and call it \"speculation\".</p><p>As I've written before, I often come across important materials near the end of a memo. This time, I would like to quote a passage related to Lipsich's views. This text comes from a second-quarter market letter released on July 9 by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an impressive track record:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of foresight. Most of the time, the market's expectations for the future are no more accurate than tossing a coin. Of course, we can find similar environments to the current one from past records and use analogy to make predictions, but the success or failure of this approach actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the methods we invoke have real dominance.\" Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it's a mixed bag of successes and failures; ultimately, it's just a coin toss.</p><p>The following quote, from former GE executive Ian Wilson, perfectly summarizes the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you cannot change the most fundamental fact that everything you know is about the past, and everything you decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible for people to express strong opinions about 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 macroeconomic future, their corresponding word is 'caution.' Followers of this school believe that people cannot predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best in investing without this understanding.\" (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 stay with us for a long time, are investors at a loss? The answer is actually in the title of a 2001 memo—\"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 indeed the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly reiterate some of my observations regarding market exposure when looking back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo, \"The Thing About Value,\" I talked about my own personality traits, my early life, and my experience successfully discovering unsustainable financial innovations and market gaps that made me a subconscious skeptic. This is what my son Andrew discovered and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated with me deeply.</p><p>In the past, I might have kept a close eye on today's high valuations and examples of various high-risk behaviors, issuing warnings of a market bubble and an impending consolidation. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that while all of the following is objective, it is not enough to justify a significant reduction in 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, we should continue to invest fully unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing.</p><p>Finally, I would like to briefly talk about the current market level. In the four or five years leading up to 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a high-yield bond bubble. My answer is; \"No, what we are actually experiencing is an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not exaggerated. The key is that due to extremely low interest rates, all bonds are overpriced.</p><p>Today, we hear again about the so-called \"bubble of everything\". As I did then, I believed that most assets were relatively reasonably priced if they were only referenced against each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic lows, doesn't it make sense that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in the early 20s, which means that the \"earnings return\" (an indicator formed by P/E inversion) is around 4% to 5%. In my opinion, this is relatively reasonable compared to the 10-year Treasury Bond yield of about 1.25%. If P/E shrinks to the long-term average of 16 levels since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is far too high compared to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is sufficient to demonstrate 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 to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to be maintained and high prices will continue to be maintained or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of hyperinflation. In fact, 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 demands higher interest rates, or both, it is quite possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) is unsettling for everyone, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational in terms of interest rates.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say simple and clear words like \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current view is actually just a combination of two different attitudes: aggressive and defensive, in an appropriate proportion. Given the aforementioned complexities, Oaktree Capital is currently maintaining a roughly balanced approach, which is in line with our normal stance (we were highly defensive at the beginning of 2020).</p><p>That said, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on the risk of inflation. If investors are more risk-averse or more concerned about a temporary market downturn (and less worried about the potential losses if inflation fails to materialize), they may consider increasing their investment in the following areas:</p><p>● Floating-rate bonds;</p><p>● Those companies with largely fixed costs, or the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and 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>From the perspective of the present, there are always ways to prepare for a high-inflation environment. I believe it is entirely reasonable for investors to be concerned about the possibility of high inflation. However, they should not make drastic changes to their asset allocation because of macroeconomic 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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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 lengthy article by the founder of Oaktree Capital! Discussing inflation, Federal Reserve policy, and US 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>Oaktree Capital founder Marks said that Federal Reserve rate hike is by no means unimaginable, whether they are doing it to ensure the economy does not overheat, because high inflation demands higher interest rates, or both, it is very possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly falling asset prices) would make everyone uneasy, in his view, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational by reference to interest rates.</i><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f7e627a03ee5b704af2439f58218d555\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"720\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Howard Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital, is arguably the world's leading investment philosopher, with $153 billion in assets under management. Since 1990, he has written and published more than 130 memos, each of which is considered a classic. Here is the full text of its latest memo:</p><p>A desirable piece of information must meet two conditions: it must be important and knowable at the same time. —Warren Buffett</p><p>As long-time readers of my memo know, Oaktree Capital and my own investment philosophy are highly skeptical of macroeconomic expectations. In fact, one of Oaktree Capital's six investment philosophies is simply that we do not make investment decisions based on macro forecasts. Our own companies do not employ economists, and we rarely invite outside economists to share their views with us.</p><p>The reason for doing this is actually very simple: to paraphrase Buffett's famous quote, we firmly believe that the macroeconomic future is unknowable. Or you could say that macroeconomic forecasting is a different field, just like investing itself—it's very easy to be as accurate as the public, but extremely difficult to be more accurate. So-called consensus expectations do not give you any advantage. Investors who want to obtain above-average returns must have a knowledge advantage and be more accurate than others.</p><p>Many investors believe that, given this, they must make their own macroeconomic forecasts and invest accordingly. Successful stock pickers, or real estate investors, also frequently make statements related to macroeconomic expectations, even if people find little evidence to suggest a link between their investment success and their accurate macroeconomic expectations. Nevertheless, the enormous impact of changes in the macroeconomic situation has convinced many investors that ignoring the macroeconomic situation when investing is absolutely irresponsible. However...</p><p>● Most macroeconomic expectations can actually be divided into two categories: either consistent expectations that are of little help, or different expectations that are rarely correct.</p><p>● Among the investors I've encountered, I can count them on one hand who can make successful investment decisions based on macroeconomic expectations. Most others use a bottom-up research approach, evaluating only one specific investment objective at a time. Simply put, they buy when they think they've found a discount and sell when they think it's overvalued, basically without caring about the macro outlook.</p><p>● Admittedly, it is not easy to convince yourself, or even others, that you actually have little understanding of the macro future, but in these areas full of significant variables, agnosticism is probably always better than self-deception.</p><p>Do you think this is just my opinion? So let's hear what the authorities have to say.</p><p>The thought that you might not understand something is scary, but overall, it's even scarier if the world is controlled by a group of people who have their own beliefs and know exactly what's going on.</p><p>—Amos Tversky</p><p>\"What really gets you into trouble is often not the things you don't understand, but the things you firmly believe you know but don't actually understand.\"</p><p>—Mark Twain</p><p>At this point, I am reminded of a topic about the prophets' performance records, or rather, their lack of performance records. Back in the 1970s, an elder once told me, \"A so-called economist is actually a portfolio manager who never focuses on the market.\" This definition still seems so vivid today. When an economist or macroeconomic strategist declares, \"I think a recession will happen soon,\" he does not specify what percentage of his previous recession expectations came true within a year. It is well known that investment managers must provide their historical performance records at all times, otherwise investors will not consider them at all. Why, then, should we trust macroeconomic prophets who never disclose their performance records?</p><p>Finally, I would like to point out that the same comments actually apply to most investors. We rarely hear these people say they have no idea about the macro future or are unwilling to express their views. One of the crucial conditions for becoming a successful investor is to understand self-assessment. Where are your strengths and weaknesses? If you invest based on your own macro judgments, how much help can these judgments provide overall? Should you continue to invest based on them, or should you abandon this approach?</p><p>These are my personal thoughts on the so-called flaws of expectations. In the remainder of this memo, I will talk about my thoughts on the future. Why am I even talking about this topic? This can be understood by reversing Warren Buffett's famous quote at the beginning of the article—although the macroeconomic future may be unknowable, it is undoubtedly very important.</p><p>Looking back at the years before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, I found that market movements were primarily a reaction to events surrounding certain companies and stocks. However, after the bubble burst in 2000, the market appeared to be dominated primarily by macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and major international events, a point that became even clearer after the 2008 global financial crisis. That's why I'm writing this memo on a topic I rarely touch on.</p><p>Below, I will attempt to list some significant macroeconomic issues, discuss them, and make prospects. Finally, I will offer some related suggestions. Here, I also need to reiterate my belief that we all have our own views on the future, but as Oaktree Capital's principles state; “It’s one thing to have our own ideas, but it’s another thing to assume that they are correct and bet heavily on them. In fact, Oaktree Capital never does such things.”</p><p><b>inflation</b></p><p>At the moment this article is written, the most concerning macroeconomic issue in the United States is undoubtedly inflation. Over the past sixteen months, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress have been turning on the money supply to support, subsidize, and stimulate workers, businesses, state and local governments, and even the overall economy and financial markets. This resulted in three consequences; First, people are full of confidence in the prospects for a strong economic recovery; Second, asset prices have skyrocketed; Third, concerns about inflation are growing day by day.</p><p>Historical records indicate that these policies, as described earlier, are likely to result in the following series of reactions:</p><p>● A stronger-than-normal economy;</p><p>● Higher corporate profits;</p><p>● A tighter labor market, and the resulting higher wages;</p><p>● More funds are chasing goods with limited supply;</p><p>● The rate of increase in commodity prices (i.e., inflation) is accelerating;</p><p>● Monetary policy tightened to control inflation, leading to higher interest rates.</p><p>Although there are still many variables and uncertainties in the operation of the economy, the orthodox view holds that the above general process model is highly reliable. However, I would like to devote a little more space to emphasizing the important variables inherent in thinking about inflation.</p><p>● Early in my career, one of the factors that determined who I am today was that I invested in an environment of 5% to 15% annual inflation, which remained high in the United States from the 1970s until 1982. The two chief economists dubbed \"Dr. Doom” and \"Dr. Dark” (I can't remember which title belongs to whom), Henry Kaufman of Salomon Brothers and Al Wojnilower of First Boston, often gave depressing speeches declaring that they didn't know what was causing the terrible inflation, much less how to control it. Everyone was helpless against inflation until Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker finally solved the problem through massive rate hike, which led to the severe double-digit recession in the United States from 1980 to 1982.</p><p>● So, what has our experience been like in recent years? For years, central bankers from the United States to Europe to Japan have set their sights on a healthy 2% inflation rate, but no one has been able to achieve it. Although the economy continues to grow, the budget deficit is substantial, the money supply expands rapidly through quantitative easing, and interest rates are at historically low levels—all of which, from a traditional perspective, are extremely inflationary—the latter has been consistently absent.</p><p>● Finally, over the past six decades or so, economists have increasingly relied on the so-called Phillips curve, which assumes a negative correlation between unemployment and inflation—the lower the unemployment rate, the tighter the labor market, the more capital workers have when bargaining with employers, the faster wages rise, and the greater the increase in consumer prices. However, the reality in the United States is that the unemployment rate has continued to decline over the past decade, eventually reaching its lowest point in half a century, while inflation has still not made substantial progress. 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 attributable to changes in the methods used to compile the consumer price index over the past few decades, but the real crucial truth is that we know very little about inflation, its causes, and how to deal with it. I've used the word \"incredible\" to describe inflation, so it seems to me that we must place even lower trust in inflation-related expectations compared to other areas. Of course, this will make investors more uneasy today, since inflation and its impact on interest rates are the most important variable at present.</p><p><b>Current inflation expectations</b></p><p>Too many people have already discussed the outlook for inflation, and I certainly can't copy everything, but I can provide a brief summary. Here is a general background;</p><p>● With the economy forced to shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress took dramatic action to support the economy and its participants, preventing the Great Global Economic Slowdown from eventually turning into a second Great Depression.</p><p>● Through welfare spending on individuals, loans and guarantees to businesses and local governments, federal unemployment benefits, and massive bond purchases, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity into the economic system. In my opinion, 2020 was a year when you could hear the word \"trillion\" every day.</p><p>● Thanks to unemployment benefits, many people earned more in 2020 than in 2019. In 2020, income exceeded the trend line while expenses fell below it, since travel, dining out, sports competitions, concerts, and weddings had all disappeared. The end result of all this progress is an estimated $2 trillion in additional cash on American consumers' balance sheets.</p><p>● With the joint action of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, the financial markets were flooded with funds, causing prices to rise sharply and the capital markets to reopen. Against the backdrop of trillions of dollars in stock market value inflation and a surge in home prices, a clear wealth effect has emerged. Compared to this effect, the aforementioned improvement in consumer balance sheets brought about by high income and low spending seems insignificant.</p><p>The following signs suggest that we may be heading towards a major cycle of higher inflation:</p><p>● According to normal logic, all of the above will lead to an accelerated rise in the inflation rate.</p><p>Concerns about high inflation will be the most significant topic of discussion in the coming years. Initially, people's anxieties mainly stemmed from economic theories, but in 2021, these concerns began to be supported by concrete evidence:</p><p>● Used car prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of imported auto parts.</p><p>● Housing prices soared.</p><p>● The prices of raw materials and components have skyrocketed, such as copper, timber, and semiconductors.</p><p>● There is a shortage of smartphones.</p><p>● Labor shortages in some industries and sectors have increased the threat of price increases.</p><p>● The year-on-year increase in the consumer price index was 4.2% in April, 5.0% in May, and 5.4% in June, setting new records for the highest readings since September 2008.</p><p>● Higher prices may not only stem from the supply and demand imbalance caused by rising input costs (cost inflation) and more dollars chasing limited goods (demand inflation), but also from the fact that excessive money printing may have weakened demand for dollars, lowered the real value of the dollar, and led to higher prices for imported goods.</p><p>● What is particularly worrying is that a climate has recently developed in Washington where trillions of dollars in spending can be carried out indiscriminately without a reliable mechanism to pay the bills. At the same time, the influence of modern monetary theory (MMT), which essentially holds that deficits and debt are not to be feared, is growing. What if these ideas are ultimately proven to be untenable?</p><p>On the other hand, many people have tried to explain why high inflation may only be \"temporary\" (this is practically the most popular word at the moment).</p><p>● Many of the shortages that lead to high input costs for manufactured goods and manufacturing, ultimately leading to price increases, can be understood as natural consequences of economic restarts, especially products of the restart of global supply chains. It is clearly unrealistic to expect all components of the global economy to return to efficient operation immediately, and the absence of any one component can lead to serious failures, making it difficult to complete manufactured goods. Since these factors are all caused by the restart, they are naturally only short-term.</p><p>● Everyone must understand that the prices of raw materials or manufactured goods are not determined solely by the current economic development in a direct and mechanical way. This means that prices do not necessarily have to be \"correct\" or in line with the current environment—the same principle applies to stock prices. In fact, just like the stock market, commodity prices are determined more by the psychology of economic participants, which can be both excessive and insufficient. As John Mauldin wrote in his article \"The Fed's Folly\" on July 23 this year, \"The rise in commodity prices that leads to increased inflationary pressures is actually a product of the future expectations of producers and consumers.\" In other words, current prices are not only a result of the current supply and demand situation, but also reveal people's judgments about future price trends. In this regard, timber prices are an example. From the low point in April 2020 when almost no one felt they needed new homes, to the peak in May 2021 when almost no one believed that housing supply could keep up with demand, the price of this essential construction commodity rose by about 540%. Now, in just two months, timber prices have fallen by more than 60%, and their impact on inflation is no longer what it was not long ago.</p><p>● Clearly, a large part of the inflation experienced by people in the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the arrival of pandemic relief funds and the resulting increase in savings and wealth. This can only be temporary, of course; a limited total pool of funds is unlikely to lead to sustained high spending.</p><p>● Additional federal unemployment benefits will expire in September, bringing more workers back into the labor market and easing the pressure on wages and commodity prices from labor shortages.</p><p>● After 2021 or 2022, economic growth will undoubtedly slow down again, and by then, the pent-up consumer demand from 2020 will have been basically released.</p><p>● Many people still believe that as the economy continues to expand, the intensity of recent stimulus, deficit spending, and money printing will decrease (at least the growth rate will slow down), which means that the proportion of these factors relative to the size of the economy will decrease.</p><p>● Technological advances, automation, and globalization are expected to continue to have significant de-inflationary effects.</p><p>Whether current inflation will be permanent or temporary remains a hotly debated issue. This debate is significant because higher inflation will undoubtedly lead to higher interest rates and lower asset prices. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for us to know the real answer. (As mentioned earlier, it is important but unknowable.) Both sides of the argument are well-educated and talented, but I still firmly believe that none of them are truly prophets.</p><p><b>Does the Fed know the answer?</b></p><p>One of the Fed's responsibilities is to ensure that inflation remains under control. However, Fed leaders also admit that they are not entirely sure about their expectations. For example, at a press conference on June 16, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this:</p><p>\"Therefore, I cannot give exact numbers or a precise timeframe. I can only say that we do expect inflation to decline. Look at my and my colleagues' forecasts for 2022 and 2023, and you will find that everyone expects inflation to decline significantly toward our target.\" I believe that the overall inflation expectation range for 2023 is 2% to 2.3%, which is consistent with our target.</p><p>Around the same time, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard also mentioned in his speech that variables still exist. Media reports on June 18 wrote:</p><p>\"Bullard... stated that the U.S. economy is 'in a highly volatile environment, making it impossible to see whether any path anyone predicts will ultimately become a reality.'\"</p><p>This is exactly the frankness we need. However, from the above quotes, it is clear that the Federal Reserve cannot make a statement that \"we have the answer\" to the inflation issue—in fact, it can 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, which, in my opinion, was completely irrational. So I wrote a memo (Visiting a Psychiatrist, January 14, 2016). The next day, when I appeared on a television program discussing the contents of the memo, people discussed whether the stock market decline was a precursor to some extreme event in the future, and I gave a resounding negative answer. I emphasized 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 19, 2016), I published another article, \"What the Market Knows\". So, what lessons do these have 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 stock market declines to inflation fears. For example, in the ten trading days ending June 18, the S&P 500 experienced a very limited decline, and the following day, June 19, the media wrote:</p><p>\"U.S. stocks fell on Friday as traders closely watched the Federal Reserve for clues about the next steps in monetary policy.\"</p><p>\"The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst weekly performance since the week of October 30. The blue-chip index fell 1.6% on Friday, or 533.37 points, to close at 33,290.08, down 3.45% for the week.\"</p><p>The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday, or 55.41 points, to close at 4,166.45, down 1.9% for the week. This ended a three-week upward trend. Along with big tech stocks also declining, the Nasdaq fell 0.9%, or 130.97 points, to close at 14,030.38, down 0.3% for the week.</p><p>\"Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they expect to begin a rate hike in the second half of 2023, earlier than previously expected. Market sentiment was dampened again on Friday after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC that he expects the first rate hike to occur as early as the second half of 2022.\"</p><p>“ThinkMarkets analyst Fawad Razaqzada said the decline in U.S. stocks was not unexpected. The stock market has been rising continuously since last year, hitting new highs, and is well ahead of the economic recovery process. Now that traders are witnessing the Federal Reserve slowly shifting its monetary policy stance, it is natural to start repricing the ‘reinflation trade.’”</p><p>\"'The day has finally arrived,' he commented. 'Because the market got ahead too much, this sell-off was bound to happen sooner or later.'\"</p><p>\"The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, the so-called Wall Street 'fear indicator,' has climbed to its highest point in several weeks.\"</p><p>\"Derek Halpenny, head of global market research at Mitsubishi UFJ Europe, pointed out: 'If a rate hike really starts in 2022, the market will be even more shocked because it will inevitably mean that the Federal Reserve will also taper at the same time.'\"</p><p>At any given time, media commentators seem always well-prepared to offer a logical explanation of what is happening in the markets and why (I'm always curious where they get that explanation). They are always happy to tell us what these things mean for the future—without exception, of course, by extrapolation.</p><p>In any case, the biggest theme of 2021 so far has been high inflation. As a result, people repeatedly explain most of the changes in the market by inflation and the resulting fear of high interest rates. For example, the latest economic data shows that inflation is rising rapidly, and investor sentiment has turned negative as a result.</p><p>So far, these arguments seem to make sense. You could argue that the stock market effectively reflects the development of the current situation and expectations for the future. However, the views of the bond market seem to be quite different from those of the stock market. Allison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary published in Bloomberg on June 18:</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 fallen for five consecutive weeks.\"</p><p>\"Consumer prices for urban residents in the United States rose at an annualized rate of over 7% in May, compared to over 9% in April. If this rate continues throughout the year, the United States will experience its highest inflation rate since the 1980s. However, some investors, including the Federal Reserve, claim that there is no need to be afraid, while the bond market does not appear to be worried.\" Although bond yields rose somewhat due to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's speech on Wednesday, they still showed an overall downward trend last week and remain at a historically low level. Since the market isn't worried, perhaps we don't need to worry unnecessarily.</p><p>In other words, the stock market is currently afraid of higher inflation and higher interest rates, but the bond market, which mainly depends on the outlook for interest rates, is showing higher prices and lower interest rates, seemingly unconcerned about inflation.</p><p>This reminds me of gold, which has been considered a target for inflationary surges throughout history. Although signs of inflation are everywhere, the gold market also seems to agree with the bond market's judgment that the inflation outlook is actually still moderate. The media wrote on June 19:</p><p>\"Gold futures prices fell 0.3% on Friday, extending Thursday's losses and now experiencing their biggest drop in more than ten months. For the week, gold prices fell 5.8%, marking their worst weekly performance since March 13, 2020.\"</p><p>On August 6, 2020, gold prices surged to an all-time high of $2,067 per ounce, likely because the Federal Reserve was injecting a staggering amount of money into the economy and markets. From then until June 18, 2021, although fears of inflation seemed to be growing, gold prices fell to $1,773, a 14% drop from their high ten months earlier.</p><p>Thus, in June, we witnessed a strange combination: weak stock markets, reportedly the product of inflation fears, and rising bond prices (falling yields), which seemed to indicate that bond market participants were convinced that economic weakness could ensure that inflation remained under control. Then there's gold, a classic inflation-hedging tool, whose price is also falling as stock market investors are described as increasingly concerned about inflation. These markets not only don't know what the future holds, but their specific performance itself is often meaningless in the long run.</p><p>In my 2016 book, \"What the Market Knows,\" I concluded that \"the market doesn't actually make any contribution when it comes to when to buy and sell securities.\" I believe the same conclusion applies to the prospects for various macroeconomic events in the future. To understand the market's thought process, perhaps this old cartoon can provide the greatest help; I also included it in \"Seeing a Psychologist\" back then.</p><p>The market operates like highly sensitive instruments that perceive events and react accordingly, whether bullish or bearish. Although markets are often excellent \"observers,\" capable of reacting extremely quickly and effectively to current changes, sometimes, as shown in the cartoon, they also seem to wear positive or negative tinted glasses when observing events (and jump back and forth between the two). Furthermore, the market has never been a good \"forecaster\" and often knows nothing about what is about to happen.</p><p>Because the market often overreacts to short-term changes, its judgment of the positive or negative degree of some events is often greatly exaggerated. However, the fact that the market can emphasize the fact that the present cannot predict the future does not mean that we can completely ignore the market's attitude. In particular, when a security's price performance differs from what we predict based on our own judgment, we must first consider whether the market has sensed something sufficient to overturn our previous judgments and expectations. (Does the market occasionally have exceptions, moments of foresight? Let's look back at the 68% gain in the S&P 500 from March 23, 2020, to the end of the year. At the beginning of the rally, \"no one\" decided it made sense. Clearly, the market has done a better job than most commentators in recognizing the potential impact of Fed/Treasury actions.)</p><p><b>What do the prophets know?</b></p><p>Although the following predictions and statistics are actually more about stock market returns than inflation, I still really hope to share them with everyone. I am able to learn this thanks to my long-time partner, Sheldon Stone, with whom I have worked for thirty-eight years. Last December, he recommended a New York Times article from December 18th to me, titled \"After Guessing Completely 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 would rise 2.7% in 2020. Given the actual increase of 18.4%, Wall Street's expectation was a full 16 percentage points lower, which is outrageous. However, what's even more outrageous is that in April 2020, after the pandemic had swept across the United States (and after the initial action plans of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress had been announced and implemented), Wall Street's consensus expectation was further lowered to -11%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the final result.\"</p><p>Of course, in the special year of 2020, it is obviously unreasonable for a strategist to predict the outbreak of the epidemic. The same principle applies to expecting him to predict the great success of the response policies or the specific timing and intensity of the subsequent market rebound. Crucially, the article goes on to list a series of data provided by Paul Hickey, one of the founders of Bespoke Investment Group, which is far more significant. Below, I will give a general introduction based on the original text:</p><p>● \"Since 2000, analysts have projected a median annual return of 9.5% for the S&P 500, while the actual return has been 6.0%. Some might say, 'That's not bad, the difference is only 3.5 percentage points,' but others might say, 'That's terrible—the forecasters exaggerated the average return by 58%.'\"</p><p>● \"Every December since 2000, there has never been a negative number in the median return expectations, that is, a prediction of a decline.\" However, the fact is that the US 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 predicted that the market would rise by 7.5%, a gap of 14.4 percentage points. In 2002, the prophets predicted that the market would rise by 12.5%, but in reality it fell by 23.3%, a gap of nearly 36 percentage points.\"</p><p>● \"In summary, if all these differences are taken into account, from 2000 to 2020, the gap between Wall Street's median expectations and reality averaged 12.9 percentage points annually, which is equivalent to twice the stock market's real average annual return of 6.0% during this period. Year after year, the overall accuracy of these prophets is roughly equivalent to a weatherman who reports sunny days every day in a city where it rains and snows 30% of the time.\" This is called prediction!” (Why is the average error initially said to be 3.5 percentage points, and later said to be 12.9 percentage points? I estimate the latter is the average from the 'absolute value' of the error. Specifically, for example, if the first year is 3 percentage points higher than reality, and the second year is 2 percentage points lower than reality, then the absolute value of the error is 5, not 1 percentage point.)</p><p>The conclusion is that while hundreds or even thousands of people make a living doing professional market forecasting, the reality is that their median forecasts are worthless, their average forecasts are wrong, they are bullish in both good and bad years, and they are always completely wrong in the years when accurate forecasts can really make a lot of money.</p><p><b>The role of the Federal Reserve</b></p><p>A large part of the current debate about the macroeconomic outlook revolves around the Federal Reserve, its policies, and its actions. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate range to 0% to 0.25%, kicking off a recovery that has lasted to this day. They also introduced various loan and guarantee programs and made large purchases of bonds. Overall, these operations have been a great success, creating a strong economic and financial market recovery. However, these same actions have also contributed to the current threat of persistently high inflation.</p><p>The Federal Reserve has two main responsibilities: to ensure sufficient economic growth to create jobs and achieve full employment, and to keep inflation under control. To some extent, these two responsibilities actually conflict. Strong economic growth means the risk of overheating and inflation. Higher inflation leads 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 thanks to policies from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and was later strongly supported by vaccine development and vaccination. In summary, we are currently experiencing strong economic growth, with real GDP growing at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, and high growth is expected to continue throughout the remainder of 2021 and into 2022. However, under these circumstances, the Federal Reserve maintained its established interest rate and continued its monthly bond purchases of $120 billion. Why continue stimulus when the economy is already performing well, and risk pushing up inflation?</p><p>In fact, the Fed seems relatively unconcerned about inflation. Initially, they said they did not believe high inflation would occur, but this assertion has certainly been refuted by recent data. Next, they said, if inflation is high, it will only be temporary. The Fed has also repeatedly emphasized that even if they find that inflation may be long-term, they have enough tools to solve the problem.</p><p>In fact, maintaining such a strong easing policy indicates that the Fed is more concerned about potential trouble for economic growth than about inflation. One well-informed observer told me that the Fed's thinking was that if economic growth returned to its normal rate of 2% or even lower in recent years under such strong stimulus, then the risk of stagflation was 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 stagnant expansion\"; Second, although the economic recovery from 2009 to 2019 set a record for the longest period in history, its actual pace was also the slowest since the end of World War II.</p><p>Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's recent testimony to Congress also demonstrates that this is still his top priority now that the recovery has been ongoing for several months. A Reuters press release on July 14 wrote:</p><p>\"On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pledged to 'strongly support' the completion of the U.S. economic recovery process from the pandemic.\"</p><p>\"During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he was convinced that the recent upward momentum in prices was mainly due to the country's post-pandemic restart and would eventually fade, and that the Fed would continue to focus on getting as many people back to work as possible.\"</p><p>Powell stated that given the current job losses caused by the pandemic, which still amount to as much as 7.5 million, weakening economic support, such as reducing the Federal Reserve's $120 billion monthly bond-buying operations, is \"still a very long way off.\"</p><p>However, even if a setback in economic growth is indeed a greater risk—and no one dares to argue with the Fed that this risk does not exist—the risk of inflation, and the various consequences of this risk, remains highly real. I am convinced that we are more willing to accept the possibility that the Fed's stimulus policies will be too strong than insufficient. I also believe that while these Fed policies have the potential to have negative side effects, they are indeed doing the right thing. However, we must also have a full understanding of these side effects.</p><p>● Higher inflation will force investors to demand higher real yields, leading to higher interest rates. On the other hand, controlling inflation requires tightening monetary policy and rate hike.</p><p>● Higher interest rates will have a negative impact on the economy.</p><p>● Higher interest rates lead investors to demand higher returns, causing financial asset prices to fall and possibly even crash (as evidenced by the history between 1972 and 1982).</p><p>● Under high inflation, low-income American families will be the hardest hit, as most of their income is invested in various necessities, while millions of retirees and other people who rely on fixed incomes will also be severely impacted.</p><p>● Higher inflation will increase Treasury Bond’s repayment costs, leading to a further widening of the annual fiscal deficit (and a further increase in Treasury Bond).</p><p>● A larger deficit will lead lenders (and foreign buyers) to further demand higher interest rates from the US Treasury Bond, ultimately causing a vicious circle.</p><p>● If we continue to print enough dollars to pay interest and cover deficits, it will eventually cause the dollar to depreciate, and even its status as the world's reserve currency will be questioned.</p><p>● As history has shown, rapidly rising prices can cause inflationary expectations to be implanted in the American psyche, eventually snowballing into a self-fulfilling situation, at which point the situation becomes difficult to rectify.</p><p>Furthermore, the loose monetary policy itself has a series of negative impacts that deserve our attention:</p><p>● The Fed's generosity will be seen as evidence that the so-called \"Fed response\" does exist, leading people to believe that they will always come to the rescue at any time in the future. This can lead to a series of consequences, such as a moral crisis (investors believe they can take risks freely without having to bear the consequences), and a failure of market risk aversion mechanisms, threatening the safety of the market.</p><p>● In the environment described above, businesses and investors will be more inclined to use leverage, which will amplify the destructive power of the economy once it slows down.</p><p>● As the experience of the past sixteen months has demonstrated, the Federal Reserve cannot stimulate the economy without increasing its size. So, whose pockets do these extra benefits end up in? The answer is those who own the economy (those who own stocks, businesses, real estate, etc.). This means that the stimulus and the resulting asset price increases have actually exacerbated the problem of wealth inequality, a point that is now attracting more and more attention.</p><p>● If the Fed maintains its current easing—including keeping interest rates near zero—then when the economy slows again in the future and needs more stimulus, they will have relatively few policy tools at their disposal. For example, interest rate cuts were one of the key elements in last year's rescue policy package, but if interest rates were already zero, the Fed would have little room to maneuver in this regard.</p><p>Some believe that the Fed may be able to replicate last year's miracle, creating long-term prosperity and avoiding or minimizing a recession. Some people hope that low interest rates will keep the market rising forever. Some argue that the Treasury can issue as much Treasury Bond as it wants because the Fed will enter the market and play the role of ultimate buyer. Clearly, there are many in the federal government who feel they can spend as much as they want without the ever-increasing deficit and debt having any adverse effects.</p><p>Forgive my foolishness for not being able to prove their logic, but in my opinion, these assumptions are far too wishful thinking. This logic seems like a perpetual motion machine, or a credit card with no limit and no repayments. I can't tell you exactly what loopholes are hidden in this logic, but I believe that loopholes definitely exist. Or you could put it this way: if you're going to bet me that there's definitely a lot of loopholes here, I absolutely won't bet with 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 known as \"Keynesianism\". Of course, deficit spending is by no means without costs. Even Keynes himself believed that while deficits were a reasonable option for reviving the economy, governments must be able to generate fiscal surpluses during booms to offset deficits caused by downturns. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, concepts such as fiscal discipline, budget surpluses, and debt repayment seem to have been thrown into the dustbin of history.</p><p>For more than two decades, the United States has had a huge and ever-increasing deficit, a trend that seems increasingly difficult to reverse. Traditional economics believes this will cause inflation, but as mentioned earlier in the article, a full decade of deficits in the second decade of the new century did not lead to any substantial progress in inflation. Perhaps these deficits simply helped prop up a faltering economy—without the help of deficit spending, the economy's real performance could only have been worse.</p><p>In any case, we are now entering a veritable testing cycle. As I mentioned earlier, in 2020 we witnessed a trillion-dollar increase in welfare benefits, the Federal Reserve's bond-buying operations, and a rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, federal fiscal deficit, and U.S. Treasury Bond. All of these proportions relative to the total size of the U.S. economy are rising rapidly. What will be the consequences? The future will inevitably unfold before our eyes.</p><p>In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan began to gradually transform the Federal Reserve into a highly active market player (the term \"Greenspan strategy\" emerged and eventually evolved into the \"Fed strategy\" it is today), which is how he responded to three consecutive economic crises since the beginning of the new century. It needs to be reiterated that the Fed's rescue operations were necessary and appropriate, but I want to emphasize that, in my view, they should not be permanent. I would prefer to see a Fed that is no longer constantly preoccupied with fine-tuning, but rather sits on the sidelines most of the time, only taking measures to stimulate or restrict the economy when it reaches an extreme.</p><p>I believe that my readers all believe in the free market, especially its power as the best means of allocating resources. In a free market, Adam Smith's so-called \"invisible hand\" drives the allocation of various resources, such as labor and capital, to where they can be most efficient. However, we no longer have free capital markets, not since the 2008 global financial crisis. The Fed reduced Federal Funds rate to zero in 2009 and has maintained it almost ever since. They also tried rate hike, but each time the market responded with turmoil, forcing them to stop.</p><p>I must clarify that I have never felt more intelligent than anyone at the Fed. However, overall, I would prefer to see economic stimulus policies introduced less frequently and less continuously. Perhaps, due to policy, our economic growth rate will increase further in the coming years, but I do not believe that monetary and fiscal policies can permanently increase the long-term economic growth rate without any risk of negative consequences.</p><p>For the sake of a healthier allocation of capital, I still hope to see a free money market, which in my view means that interest rates should \"happen naturally\". Artificially lowering interest rates can only distort capital markets, punish savers, subsidize borrowers, push up asset prices, and encourage risk-taking and excessive leverage. To reiterate, I would like to see a Fed that is unwilling to intervene unless absolutely necessary.</p><p>In my first memo during the pandemic era, I offered the following interpretation of the pandemic;</p><p>\"Because it's the first time it's happened, no one really knows. As Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch pointed out in a webcast, we can only first grasp the facts, then make reasonable inferences based on comparisons with other virus transmission situations, and ultimately form opinions or speculations.\" Scientists are trying to make sensible inferences. To date, I believe the pandemic-related data is still insufficient to allow them to translate their inferences into facts. (God Knows II, March 3, 2020)</p><p>If we replace \"scientists\" with \"economists\" and \"inflation\" with \"pandemic,\" I believe this argument still holds true today. When we think about the causes of inflation, we have few facts to base our inferences on, except for our own experiences with American inflation in our own lives. Therefore, I believe that anyone's statements today about the inflation trend in the next few years are actually what Lipsic calls \"opinions or speculations\"... I personally prefer to be more direct and call it \"speculation\".</p><p>As I've written before, I often come across important materials near the end of a memo. This time, I would like to quote a passage related to Lipsich's views. This text comes from a second-quarter market letter released on July 9 by Bill Miller, a legendary investor with an impressive track record:</p><p>\"No one has the magic of foresight. Most of the time, the market's expectations for the future are no more accurate than tossing a coin. Of course, we can find similar environments to the current one from past records and use analogy to make predictions, but the success or failure of this approach actually depends on how similar the future will be to the past and whether the methods we invoke have real dominance.\" Judging from the performance records of these predictions, it's a mixed bag of successes and failures; ultimately, it's just a coin toss.</p><p>The following quote, from former GE executive Ian Wilson, perfectly summarizes the challenges of decision-making in situations like this one:</p><p>\"No matter how sophisticated you are, you cannot change the most fundamental fact that everything you know is about the past, and everything you decide is about the future.\"</p><p>Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible for people to express strong opinions about 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 macroeconomic future, their corresponding word is 'caution.' Followers of this school believe that people cannot predict the future, so the only appropriate goal is to do their best in investing without this understanding.\" (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 stay with us for a long time, are investors at a loss? The answer is actually in the title of a 2001 memo—\"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 indeed the case, the consequences will be very significant. Therefore, I will briefly reiterate some of my observations regarding market exposure when looking back on 2020.</p><p>In my January memo, \"The Thing About Value,\" I talked about my own personality traits, my early life, and my experience successfully discovering unsustainable financial innovations and market gaps that made me a subconscious skeptic. This is what my son Andrew discovered and told me last year when our whole family lived together, and it resonated with me deeply.</p><p>In the past, I might have kept a close eye on today's high valuations and examples of various high-risk behaviors, issuing warnings of a market bubble and an impending consolidation. However, when I look at the problem through a new lens, my conclusion is that while all of the following is objective, it is not enough to justify a significant reduction in 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, we should continue to invest fully unless the opposing views are absolutely convincing.</p><p>Finally, I would like to briefly talk about the current market level. In the four or five years leading up to 2020, I was often asked if we had encountered a high-yield bond bubble. My answer is; \"No, what we are actually experiencing is an overall bond market bubble.\" The pricing of high-yield bonds relative to other bonds is not exaggerated. The key is that due to extremely low interest rates, all bonds are overpriced.</p><p>Today, we hear again about the so-called \"bubble of everything\". As I did then, I believed that most assets were relatively reasonably priced if they were only referenced against each other. However, given the powerful role interest rates play in determining these prices, and the reality that interest rates are at historic lows, doesn't it make sense that these asset prices are at unprecedented highs? For example, the P/E of the S&P 500 index is currently in the early 20s, which means that the \"earnings return\" (an indicator formed by P/E inversion) is around 4% to 5%. In my opinion, this is relatively reasonable compared to the 10-year Treasury Bond yield of about 1.25%. If P/E shrinks to the long-term average of 16 levels since World War II, the earnings yield will reach 6.7%, which is far too high compared to the ten-year Treasury Bond. This is sufficient to demonstrate 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 to say that ultra-low interest rates will continue to be maintained and high prices will continue to be maintained or even rise further. The latter will pull us back to the era of hyperinflation. In fact, 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 demands higher interest rates, or both, it is quite possible. Although the possibility of rising interest rates (and correspondingly lower asset prices) is unsettling for everyone, in my opinion, at least for now, asset prices are definitely not irrational in terms of interest rates.</p><p>Although the media always hopes that I can say simple and clear words like \"buy\" or \"sell\", \"enter\" or \"exit\", my current view is actually just a combination of two different attitudes: aggressive and defensive, in an appropriate proportion. Given the aforementioned complexities, Oaktree Capital is currently maintaining a roughly balanced approach, which is in line with our normal stance (we were highly defensive at the beginning of 2020).</p><p>That said, some fine-tuning is certainly justified based on the risk of inflation. If investors are more risk-averse or more concerned about a temporary market downturn (and less worried about the potential losses if inflation fails to materialize), they may consider increasing their investment in the following areas:</p><p>● Floating-rate bonds;</p><p>● Those companies with largely fixed costs, or the ability to transmit cost pressures downstream, and 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>From the perspective of the present, there are always ways to prepare for a high-inflation environment. I believe it is entirely reasonable for investors to be concerned about the possibility of high inflation. However, they should not make drastic changes to their asset allocation because of macroeconomic 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":4683,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9069381210,"gmtCreate":1651236787767,"gmtModify":1676534875379,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","idStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"<a href=\"https://ttm.financial/S/DOGZ\">$多尼斯(DOGZ)$</a>👍","listText":"<a href=\"https://ttm.financial/S/DOGZ\">$多尼斯(DOGZ)$</a>👍","text":"$多尼斯(DOGZ)$👍","images":[{"img":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/198aca3d6e0b040b631bd73d5d30b388","width":"1125","height":"3750"}],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9069381210","isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":4425,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":1,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":595450722297240,"gmtCreate":1786400403050,"gmtModify":1786400405608,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","idStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"<a href=\"https://ttm.financial/S/42C.SI\">$IX生物制药(42C.SI)$</a>&nbsp;","listText":"<a href=\"https://ttm.financial/S/42C.SI\">$IX生物制药(42C.SI)$</a>&nbsp;","text":"$IX生物制药(42C.SI)$","images":[{"img":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/ec9093bb146323062694fe40506e844f","width":"1290","height":"1743"}],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/595450722297240","isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":648,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":1,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":181877946,"gmtCreate":1623387400785,"gmtModify":1704202283128,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","idStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"Good&nbsp;","listText":"Good&nbsp;","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/181877946","repostId":"1155810638","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155810638","kind":"news","weMediaInfo":{"introduction":"追踪全球财经热点，精选影响您财富的资讯，投资理财必备神器！","home_visible":1,"media_name":"华尔街见闻","id":"1084101182","head_image":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/66809d1f5c2e43e2bdf15820c6d6897e"},"pubTimestamp":1623383065,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155810638?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-06-11 11:44","market":"us","language":"zh","title":"Soros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155810638","media":"华尔街见闻","summary":"有“华尔街天才”之称的Stanley Druckenmiller，又一次炮轰了美联储。","content":"<p>Author: Zeng Xinyi</p><p>Stanley Druckenmiller, known as the \"Wall Street genius,\" has once again criticized the Federal Reserve.</p><p>On Thursday, June 10, Druckenmiller stated in an email,<b>The Federal Reserve's continued loose monetary policy has distorted asset prices and lulled investors into a false sense of security, but the market has not yet made a statement on U.S. inflation in May.</b></p><p>He also stated that<b>Until the Federal Reserve stops eliminating market signals, market participants will continue to ignore risks such as emerging inflation.</b></p><p>Recently, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly emphasized that with the economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, inflation is only rising temporarily. This means that the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy in response to the pandemic crisis may continue for the foreseeable future.</p><p>However, Druckenmiller was quite dissatisfied with this and had previously issued warnings several times.</p><p>Last month, he said in an interview that the Federal Reserve's policies aimed at maintaining market and economic stability during the COVID-19 pandemic could ultimately threaten the long-term health of the dollar.</p><p>Furthermore, the Federal Reserve's continued commitment to keeping interest rates low and purchasing trillions of dollars in bonds despite market and economic prosperity poses a long-term risk.</p><p>In the long run, the Federal Reserve's continued policies, along with the heavy debt and fiscal deficits they support, will also threaten the dollar's status as a global reserve.</p><p>He even published a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled \"The Federal Reserve is 'Playing with Fire,'\" criticizing the Federal Reserve.</p><p>He saw that under the Biden administration, two-thirds of unemployment benefits were distributed to people after vaccines proved effective and the recovery accelerated. In addition to the abundance of liquidity, the inflation rate has also reached the historical average.</p><p>Druckenmiller believes that the Federal Reserve's independence should act as a check and balance, rather than driving up asset prices. It is precisely because of this \"lenient policy\" that excessive behavior in the financial market has been fueled. Therefore, policies should be adjusted immediately to minimize risks.</p><p>Furthermore, the article also states that the Federal Reserve's focus on inflation expectations is very narrow, since the short-term risk of the economy braking due to tightening policies in 2022 is nothing compared to the long-term risks of asset bubbles and fiscal excesses!</p><p>For decades, Druckenmiller has been considered one of the world's most successful macro hedge fund managers. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved an average annual compound growth rate of 30% and maintained a record of zero negative returns in his investment career.</p><p>Druckenmiller was once a \"close comrade\" of Soros. In 1988, at the invitation of Soros, Druckenmiller officially joined Quantum Fund Company. In 1992, Druckenmiller accurately predicted that the exchange rate of the pound sterling against the German mark would fall. At the time, he helped Soros \"snipe the pound\" and won a great victory in the contest against the Bank of England.</p>","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>Soros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"</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\">\nSoros's close comrades: The Federal Reserve has given investors a \"false sense of security\"\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<a class=\"head\" href=\"https://laohu8.com/wemedia/1084101182\">\n\n<div class=\"h-thumb\" style=\"background-image:url(https://static.tigerbbs.com/66809d1f5c2e43e2bdf15820c6d6897e);background-size:cover;\"></div>\n\n<div class=\"h-content\">\n<p class=\"h-name\">华尔街见闻 </p>\n<p class=\"h-time smaller\">2021-06-11 11:44</p>\n</div>\n</a>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p>Author: Zeng Xinyi</p><p>Stanley Druckenmiller, known as the \"Wall Street genius,\" has once again criticized the Federal Reserve.</p><p>On Thursday, June 10, Druckenmiller stated in an email,<b>The Federal Reserve's continued loose monetary policy has distorted asset prices and lulled investors into a false sense of security, but the market has not yet made a statement on U.S. inflation in May.</b></p><p>He also stated that<b>Until the Federal Reserve stops eliminating market signals, market participants will continue to ignore risks such as emerging inflation.</b></p><p>Recently, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly emphasized that with the economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, inflation is only rising temporarily. This means that the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy in response to the pandemic crisis may continue for the foreseeable future.</p><p>However, Druckenmiller was quite dissatisfied with this and had previously issued warnings several times.</p><p>Last month, he said in an interview that the Federal Reserve's policies aimed at maintaining market and economic stability during the COVID-19 pandemic could ultimately threaten the long-term health of the dollar.</p><p>Furthermore, the Federal Reserve's continued commitment to keeping interest rates low and purchasing trillions of dollars in bonds despite market and economic prosperity poses a long-term risk.</p><p>In the long run, the Federal Reserve's continued policies, along with the heavy debt and fiscal deficits they support, will also threaten the dollar's status as a global reserve.</p><p>He even published a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled \"The Federal Reserve is 'Playing with Fire,'\" criticizing the Federal Reserve.</p><p>He saw that under the Biden administration, two-thirds of unemployment benefits were distributed to people after vaccines proved effective and the recovery accelerated. In addition to the abundance of liquidity, the inflation rate has also reached the historical average.</p><p>Druckenmiller believes that the Federal Reserve's independence should act as a check and balance, rather than driving up asset prices. It is precisely because of this \"lenient policy\" that excessive behavior in the financial market has been fueled. Therefore, policies should be adjusted immediately to minimize risks.</p><p>Furthermore, the article also states that the Federal Reserve's focus on inflation expectations is very narrow, since the short-term risk of the economy braking due to tightening policies in 2022 is nothing compared to the long-term risks of asset bubbles and fiscal excesses!</p><p>For decades, Druckenmiller has been considered one of the world's most successful macro hedge fund managers. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved an average annual compound growth rate of 30% and maintained a record of zero negative returns in his investment career.</p><p>Druckenmiller was once a \"close comrade\" of Soros. In 1988, at the invitation of Soros, Druckenmiller officially joined Quantum Fund Company. In 1992, Druckenmiller accurately predicted that the exchange rate of the pound sterling against the German mark would fall. At the time, he helped Soros \"snipe the pound\" and won a great victory in the contest against the Bank of England.</p>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d2f6bcea082d3702b693c2ed87aa0bab","relate_stocks":{"SPY":"标普500ETF",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"is_english":false,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1155810638","content_text":"作者：曾心怡\n有“华尔街天才”之称的Stanley Druckenmiller，又一次炮轰了美联储。\n6月10日周四，Druckenmiller在一封邮件中表示，美联储持续的宽松货币政策扭曲了资产价格，并诱使投资者产生一种虚假的安全感，只是市场现在尚未就美国5月通胀作出表态。\n他还称，直到美联储停止消除市场信号为止，市场参与者都将继续忽视开始冒头的通胀等风险。\n近来，美联储反复强调，伴随着后疫情时代的经济复苏，通胀只是暂时走高。这也就意味着，美联储为应对疫情危机而实施的宽松货币政策或将在可见的未来继续下去。\n但是，Druckenmiller对此相当不满，此前就已发声警告过好几次。\n上月，他曾在接受采访时称，美联储在新冠肺炎疫情期间旨在维持市场和经济稳定的政策，最终可能会威胁美元的长期健康。\n此外，美联储在市场和经济繁荣的情况下仍然坚持压低利率，并买入数万亿美元的债券是一个长期风险。\n从长远来看，美联储继续推行其政策，以及它们所支持的沉重债务和财政赤字还将威胁到美元的全球储备地位。\n他甚至还曾《华尔街日报》发表题为《美联储在“玩火”》的专栏文章，将美联储骂了一顿。\n他看到在拜登政府麾下，三分之二的失业救济金是在疫苗被证明有效并且复苏加速之后发放给民众的。除了泛滥的流动性，通货膨胀率也达到了历史平均水平。\nDruckenmiller认为，美联储的独立性应该起到制衡作用，应该平衡而不是推高资产价格。正因为这种“怀柔政策”，助长了金融市场的过度行为。因此应该立马调整政策，将风险降至最低。\n此外，文章还称美联储对通胀预期的关注是非常狭隘的，毕竟2022年因为收紧政策带来的经济踩刹车的短期风险与资产泡沫和财政泛滥带来的长期风险相比，根本不是事儿！\n几十年来，Druckenmiller被认为是全球最成功的宏观对冲基金经理之一。30年里，他创造了年均复合增长率30%的业绩，并且保持着投资生涯无负收益年份的记录。\nDruckenmiller曾是索罗斯的“亲密战友”。1988年受索罗斯邀请，Druckenmiller正式进入量子基金公司。1992年，Druckenmiller准确预测英镑对德国马克汇率将下跌。当时他帮助索罗斯“狙击英镑”，在与英国央行的较量中大获全胜。","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{"SPY":0.9,".DJI":0.9,".IXIC":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":5063,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":181873981,"gmtCreate":1623387072743,"gmtModify":1704202273840,"author":{"id":"3567313446080368","authorId":"3567313446080368","name":"蚂蚁窝","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f5f80d27281149fa0102ec920d99e622","crmLevel":12,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"followedFlag":false,"authorIdStr":"3567313446080368","idStr":"3567313446080368"},"themes":[],"title":"","htmlText":"Good&nbsp;","listText":"Good&nbsp;","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/181873981","repostId":"1183013437","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1183013437","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1623384910,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1183013437?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-06-11 12:15","market":"hk","language":"zh","title":"Meituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1183013437","media":" 中欧商业评论","summary":"自2018年上市以来，在美团的市值一路上涨的同时，是美团作为本地生活数字经济平台在组织生态上的不断进化。\nCBR精华抢先看：\n01.“Food + Platform”战略下，美团的年度营收在2020年","content":"<p>Since its listing in 2018, while Meituan's market value has been rising steadily, it has also been the continuous evolution of Meituan's organizational ecosystem as a local life digital economy platform.</p><p><b>A sneak peek at the highlights of CBR:</b></p><p>01. Under the \"Food + Platform\" strategy, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2020, with more than half of it coming from the Food delivery business. The in-store hotel and travel business contributed the highest profit margin to Meituan, while emerging businesses contributed the highest revenue growth.</p><p>02. Meituan's success stems from multiple aspects, including the management team's entrepreneurial experience and industry knowledge in the Internet field, advanced technical capabilities, efficient operation and management system, scientific and continuously evolving organizational structure, and emphasis on talent cultivation.</p><p>03. Entering the \"second half\" of the Internet, with the gradual implementation of regulations and the gradual standardization of the market competition environment, Meituan has entered a new stage of innovation-driven growth. It needs to continuously expand the boundaries of its digital economy platform, strengthen the digital empowerment of the industrial chain, and create a more open ecosystem.</p><p>As of June 7, 2021, despite its stock price having fallen by nearly 35% from its peak this year, Meituan, the local O2O giant, still had a market capitalization of HK$1.83 trillion on the Hong Kong stock market, ranking second only to Meituan among China's listed internet companies in terms of market capitalization.<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/00700\">Tencent</a>and<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/BABA\">Alibaba</a>。</p><p><b>New economy giants still expanding</b></p><p>As a digital Platform connecting consumers and merchants, Meituan defines its mission as \"helping everyone eat better and live better,\" and its strategy as \"Food + Platform.\" Through innovation and better services, it helps merchants improve operational efficiency, provides consumers with more convenient and reasonably priced high-quality products and services, and makes good use of technology to create more value for society.</p><p>According to Meituan's 2020 annual report, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. Among them, the food delivery business established in 2013 accounted for more than half of Meituan's revenue, making it the largest part of Meituan's revenue and becoming a pillar business of Meituan in recent years. However, in terms of profit margins, in-store and hotel travel businesses are where Meituan truly makes money. More than half of Meituan's revenue comes from food delivery order commissions (similar to brokerage fees) taken by Meituan as the platform provider. Another major source of revenue is marketing expenses paid by merchants to the platform. New businesses and other revenues include self-operated businesses such as Meituan Bike, Meituan Grocery, and Meituan Charging, as well as Meituan Youxuan, Meituan Taxi, Meituan Flash Sale, and B2B business Kuailv (Table 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88f31935c115bff72f1cc57d16f97697\" tg-width=\"1044\" tg-height=\"194\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 1 Meituan's Revenue Composition in 2020</p><p>Source: Meituan Annual Report 2020</p><p>It is worth noting that Meituan's net profit turned from profit to loss in the fourth quarter of 2020. The losses stemmed from investments in new businesses such as community group buying and community e-commerce. According to Meituan's Q1 2021 financial report, although the addition of more than 59 million active buyers in a single quarter set a new historical record for Meituan, Meituan basically completed the user growth of the entire previous year in one quarter. However, the new business suffered a loss of 8 billion yuan in a single quarter, and profitability is yet to come.</p><p>It can be seen that Meituan's operational model for new businesses such as community group buying is somewhat similar to that of its previous food delivery and hotel travel businesses. First, based on data accumulation, it selects specific regions, leverages traffic advantages, rapidly promotes, burns money to expand the market, transforms the supply side, outputs management capabilities, solves the difficulties of supply and demand aggregation for enterprises, subsidizes consumers, makes merchants and consumers dependent on the Meituan platform, seizes the main market share, and then transfers part of the costs to merchants and consumers to achieve profitability under the platform's scale effect (Table 2). But can community group buying replicate its previous success?</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1b2348f8d6f4baafbf2899e8321ab7b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"154\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 2 Meituan's Business Matrix</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p><b>Internet entrepreneurial culture and efficient organization and operation</b></p><p>Meituan.com was founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, Mu Rongjun, Wang Huiwen, and others, with founder Wang Xing at its core. The three were classmates and alumni of Tsinghua University and remain Meituan's three most important executives to this day. Before founding Meituan, the group had co-founded internet social networking websites such as \"Duoduoyou\", \"Xiaonei.com\", \"Fanfou.com\", and \"Hainei.com\" (Table 3). Several rounds of entrepreneurial experience have given the founding team a keen insight into the Internet and rich operation and maintenance experience. Wang Xing's team focuses on efficiency and \"three highs and three lows\"—high quality, high efficiency, high technology, low cost, low price, and low gross profit.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6db4e12bfd0f3d896c802d655f43bece\" tg-width=\"620\" tg-height=\"827\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 3 Meituan Founding and Management Team Information</p><p>Source: Company announcements,<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/600109\">Guojin Securities</a>Institute</p><p>As an O2O company, the founding team led by Wang Xing has mainly started online and has no experience in managing large-scale offline teams. Offline business requires Meituan to have strong organizational capabilities. After joining Meituan in November 2011, Gan Jiawei, a veteran of Alibaba sales, helped Meituan establish an organizational management system and a ground-based marketing system, which has been used to this day.</p><p>Gan Jiawei developed a quantifiable, measurable, traceable, and controllable operational management system for Meituan's offline team. For example, in business management, he set goals, refined execution, and widely adopted the standard operating procedure (SOP) model for management. He broke down the original overall sales process into four steps: A, B, C, and D. By controlling the process, he achieved control over the result E. At the same time, we will improve the incentive system to ensure that employee incentives are highly linked to the company's goals and that employees have a strong grasp of business processes.</p><p>Gan Jiawei emphasizes team management and building at the level of \"using falsehoods to cultivate truth,\" that is, taking data, indicators, and results as \"falsehoods,\" while taking the development and improvement of talent and the organization as \"truth,\" forming a consistency in the behavior and thoughts of members throughout the organization. In this way, even after Gan Jiawei left the company in 2016, this organizational management system and ground marketing system have continued to this day, and the team's combat effectiveness has not been affected. In terms of talent pool, Meituan reserves outstanding business development (BD) candidates at the grassroots level as candidates for city managers, and outstanding city managers as candidates for regional managers. The \"Leadership Echelon Training Program\" was launched at the top level to carry out work such as job rotation, succession planning, and talent inventory, and to establish a complete talent echelon from the grassroots to the top.</p><p><b>Organizational structure serves strategic evolution</b></p><p>Since its launch in March 2010, Meituan has undergone multiple rounds of business expansion (Table 4), and its organizational structure has continuously expanded in accordance with the transformation of its O2O business. When Meituan establishes an independent department for a new business, it quickly adjusts the structure, establishes an independent business unit, and appoints a founding team member as the direct head of the business unit to ensure that the overall culture and approach are upheld in the process of promoting the new business. Wang Huiwen and Chen Liang have played such roles on multiple occasions. By appointing members of the founding team as the heads of new businesses and then handing them over to other senior executives once they mature, Meituan's consistent entrepreneurial culture can be well inherited and played a role in developing new businesses.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0ca7684b0d4c3d14f178c69fd45d8a74\" tg-width=\"626\" tg-height=\"202\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 4 Meituan's Business Changes</p><p>In 2015, Tencent invested in Meituan. After Meituan and Dianping merged to form \"New Meituan-Dianping\", they fully leveraged their operational synergies. Meituan's initial main business, group buying, gradually faded out, truly shedding its early positioning as the \"Chinese version of Groupon\" and beginning to transform into a \"Internet plus\" new economy platform. The business structure has been established into three major business groups: food delivery, hotel and tourism, and in-store business groups, laying the foundation for Meituan's core business to date (Figure 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/734fa189ce296f1c54278290366c4b96\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 1. Meituan's business organizational structure during the \"New Meituan-Dianping\" era</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p>In 2016, Meituan acquired Qiandaibao, a fully licensed payment company, and expanded into digital finance and online payment businesses, implementing a key link in the O2O business closed loop and laying the foundation for a financial middle platform for the construction of its business ecosystem. In the same year, Meituan established the world's first talent development platform, the University of Internet plus (IPU), to coordinate and promote Meituan's internal talent development work.</p><p>Starting in 2017, Meituan's O2O business expanded significantly, and its three major business groups were reorganized (Figure 2):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/681c80f1407a319ca23266dd84e58f88\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"377\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 2. Meituan's business organizational structure during its high-speed expansion period</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>After launching Meituan Taxi in 2017, Meituan established a ride-hailing business unit and subsequently completed the acquisition of Mobike, further enriching Meituan's consumer data collection and traffic conversion channels. Subsequently, Meituan further integrated its business structure, combining the original Meituan platform and Dianping platform (Figure 3):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dfe93a8f2e88d105574844cae1c2641b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"512\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 3. Meituan's business organizational structure after launching its mobility service</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>On October 30, 2018, after completing its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company upgraded its organizational structure in accordance with the \"Food+Platform\" strategy. Over the next two years, several business unit optimizations were carried out, but the basic organizational framework was retained after adjustments in 2018.</p><p>As it continues to explore new businesses, Meituan is integrating its businesses into a platform. The company's organizational structure serves its strategic direction, with its core businesses concentrated in two major business groups: in-store and home delivery. It then uses the Meituan platform and the smart transportation platform to improve the synergy and efficiency of local businesses. With \"food\" as its core, Meituan is building a catering service chain from ingredient supply and IT systems to delivery and marketing. IT focuses on developing various catering service chain products such as Kuailv, Meituan Maicai, and Meituan Youxuan, while other business lines provide support (Figure 4).</p><p>From the changes in Meituan's organizational structure, it can be seen that Meituan's business groups, which were originally mainly divided by business, have been divided by scenario to increase synergy between different businesses and the same scenario, which is conducive to the vertical cultivation of the business. The user platform elevates user traffic to the level of a company for overall operation and management. The user platform is the entrance to Meituan's ecosystem. The platform connects traffic and then directs that traffic to the business units and groups centered on \"food,\" building a multi-level technology service platform for the life services industry from the demand side to the supply side.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fb20239d777df83381537aad6b28aaeb\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"670\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 4. Meituan's business organizational structure under the \"Food+Platform\" strategy</p><p>Source: 36kr, Tencent.com<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/SINA\">Sina</a>Technology, Debon Research Institute</p><p>Meituan's rapid growth from 2015 to 2019 was mainly due to the expansion of its business in various cities, the optimization and upgrading of its online marketing, and the improvement of its delivery network. Having now entered a mature stage, Meituan's key development potential lies in leveraging its data advantages and expanding the network effect of its ecosystem, such as empowering small and medium-sized merchants within the ecosystem and stimulating synergies between different business departments. Back in 2017, Wang Xing recognized that B2B represented future opportunities. The first half of the internet economy's traffic dividend period had ended, and the second half focused on innovation in the supply chain and B2B industry, using efficiency improvement and cost reduction to digitize the supply side of the entire Chinese industry, ultimately returning to the path of sustained growth.</p><p><b>Finding a New Growth Curve: Heavy Focus on Retail Business</b></p><p>After 2015, Meituan's annual revenue soared from 4.019 billion yuan to 114.795 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 95.5%. Behind this is the continuous evolution of Meituan's organization and strategy while obtaining financing and expanding its business. However, it is worth noting that Meituan's revenue growth rate has been declining year by year, falling below 20% in 2020 (Figure 5). Such revenue growth does not meet the high growth expectations placed on Meituan by the capital market.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e9dcd09ab7e94b0862fbba247f458704\" tg-width=\"977\" tg-height=\"616\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 5. Meituan's rapid revenue growth since 2015</p><p>Source: Company Announcements</p><p>Relying on its traditional core business inevitably leads to a decline in revenue growth. In addition, the low profit margin and fierce competition of the pure food delivery business have forced Meituan to invest in finding new growth curves. The business structure in 2020 shows that Meituan is trying to evolve into a comprehensive digital economy platform spanning local life and physical e-commerce. In community group buying and e-commerce, as China's largest food delivery platform, Meituan has leveraged its mature infrastructure, ample merchant resources, and delivery channel advantages to launch new businesses such as Meituan Maicai, Meituan Youxuan, and Flash Sale (Table 5), in order to further unleash Meituan's economies of scale as a platform.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b82f6a633186f4daecc0bbbf5adbea5c\" tg-width=\"759\" tg-height=\"282\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 5 Meituan's New Battlefield</p><p>Source: Meituan official website, company announcements</p><p>Regarding emerging businesses, Wang Xing said in the earnings call that e-commerce retail is a huge opportunity, and once the infrastructure is completed, there will be an opportunity to reach a massive user base. Once new infrastructure is in place, there will be an opportunity to create a completely new value chain, which will bring new value to the whole society. E-commerce retail is an opportunity to reach the last batch of incremental e-commerce users (hundreds of millions of users in lower-tier markets), so it is necessary to increase investment in retail businesses such as Meituan Youxuan. According to recent media reports, Meituan plans to hire 60,000 new employees in 2021. These 60,000 people are mainly needed for basic positions such as logistics and ground promotion, serving Meituan Youxuan, a community group buying business, and Kuailv, a B2B catering supply chain business. Prior to this, Meituan's number of employees had remained stable at around 50,000 in recent years. Such a large-scale expansion reflects Meituan's huge expectations for its retail business, and Meituan's organizational evolution will continue.</p>","source":"lsy1567750882116","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>Meituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company</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\">\nMeituan: Organizational Evolution of China's Third Largest Internet Listed Company\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"head\">\n<strong class=\"h-name small\"> 中欧商业评论</strong><span class=\"h-time small\">2021-06-11 12:15</span>\n</p>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p>Since its listing in 2018, while Meituan's market value has been rising steadily, it has also been the continuous evolution of Meituan's organizational ecosystem as a local life digital economy platform.</p><p><b>A sneak peek at the highlights of CBR:</b></p><p>01. Under the \"Food + Platform\" strategy, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time in 2020, with more than half of it coming from the Food delivery business. The in-store hotel and travel business contributed the highest profit margin to Meituan, while emerging businesses contributed the highest revenue growth.</p><p>02. Meituan's success stems from multiple aspects, including the management team's entrepreneurial experience and industry knowledge in the Internet field, advanced technical capabilities, efficient operation and management system, scientific and continuously evolving organizational structure, and emphasis on talent cultivation.</p><p>03. Entering the \"second half\" of the Internet, with the gradual implementation of regulations and the gradual standardization of the market competition environment, Meituan has entered a new stage of innovation-driven growth. It needs to continuously expand the boundaries of its digital economy platform, strengthen the digital empowerment of the industrial chain, and create a more open ecosystem.</p><p>As of June 7, 2021, despite its stock price having fallen by nearly 35% from its peak this year, Meituan, the local O2O giant, still had a market capitalization of HK$1.83 trillion on the Hong Kong stock market, ranking second only to Meituan among China's listed internet companies in terms of market capitalization.<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/00700\">Tencent</a>and<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/BABA\">Alibaba</a>。</p><p><b>New economy giants still expanding</b></p><p>As a digital Platform connecting consumers and merchants, Meituan defines its mission as \"helping everyone eat better and live better,\" and its strategy as \"Food + Platform.\" Through innovation and better services, it helps merchants improve operational efficiency, provides consumers with more convenient and reasonably priced high-quality products and services, and makes good use of technology to create more value for society.</p><p>According to Meituan's 2020 annual report, Meituan's annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. Among them, the food delivery business established in 2013 accounted for more than half of Meituan's revenue, making it the largest part of Meituan's revenue and becoming a pillar business of Meituan in recent years. However, in terms of profit margins, in-store and hotel travel businesses are where Meituan truly makes money. More than half of Meituan's revenue comes from food delivery order commissions (similar to brokerage fees) taken by Meituan as the platform provider. Another major source of revenue is marketing expenses paid by merchants to the platform. New businesses and other revenues include self-operated businesses such as Meituan Bike, Meituan Grocery, and Meituan Charging, as well as Meituan Youxuan, Meituan Taxi, Meituan Flash Sale, and B2B business Kuailv (Table 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88f31935c115bff72f1cc57d16f97697\" tg-width=\"1044\" tg-height=\"194\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 1 Meituan's Revenue Composition in 2020</p><p>Source: Meituan Annual Report 2020</p><p>It is worth noting that Meituan's net profit turned from profit to loss in the fourth quarter of 2020. The losses stemmed from investments in new businesses such as community group buying and community e-commerce. According to Meituan's Q1 2021 financial report, although the addition of more than 59 million active buyers in a single quarter set a new historical record for Meituan, Meituan basically completed the user growth of the entire previous year in one quarter. However, the new business suffered a loss of 8 billion yuan in a single quarter, and profitability is yet to come.</p><p>It can be seen that Meituan's operational model for new businesses such as community group buying is somewhat similar to that of its previous food delivery and hotel travel businesses. First, based on data accumulation, it selects specific regions, leverages traffic advantages, rapidly promotes, burns money to expand the market, transforms the supply side, outputs management capabilities, solves the difficulties of supply and demand aggregation for enterprises, subsidizes consumers, makes merchants and consumers dependent on the Meituan platform, seizes the main market share, and then transfers part of the costs to merchants and consumers to achieve profitability under the platform's scale effect (Table 2). But can community group buying replicate its previous success?</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1b2348f8d6f4baafbf2899e8321ab7b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"154\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 2 Meituan's Business Matrix</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p><b>Internet entrepreneurial culture and efficient organization and operation</b></p><p>Meituan.com was founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, Mu Rongjun, Wang Huiwen, and others, with founder Wang Xing at its core. The three were classmates and alumni of Tsinghua University and remain Meituan's three most important executives to this day. Before founding Meituan, the group had co-founded internet social networking websites such as \"Duoduoyou\", \"Xiaonei.com\", \"Fanfou.com\", and \"Hainei.com\" (Table 3). Several rounds of entrepreneurial experience have given the founding team a keen insight into the Internet and rich operation and maintenance experience. Wang Xing's team focuses on efficiency and \"three highs and three lows\"—high quality, high efficiency, high technology, low cost, low price, and low gross profit.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6db4e12bfd0f3d896c802d655f43bece\" tg-width=\"620\" tg-height=\"827\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 3 Meituan Founding and Management Team Information</p><p>Source: Company announcements,<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/600109\">Guojin Securities</a>Institute</p><p>As an O2O company, the founding team led by Wang Xing has mainly started online and has no experience in managing large-scale offline teams. Offline business requires Meituan to have strong organizational capabilities. After joining Meituan in November 2011, Gan Jiawei, a veteran of Alibaba sales, helped Meituan establish an organizational management system and a ground-based marketing system, which has been used to this day.</p><p>Gan Jiawei developed a quantifiable, measurable, traceable, and controllable operational management system for Meituan's offline team. For example, in business management, he set goals, refined execution, and widely adopted the standard operating procedure (SOP) model for management. He broke down the original overall sales process into four steps: A, B, C, and D. By controlling the process, he achieved control over the result E. At the same time, we will improve the incentive system to ensure that employee incentives are highly linked to the company's goals and that employees have a strong grasp of business processes.</p><p>Gan Jiawei emphasizes team management and building at the level of \"using falsehoods to cultivate truth,\" that is, taking data, indicators, and results as \"falsehoods,\" while taking the development and improvement of talent and the organization as \"truth,\" forming a consistency in the behavior and thoughts of members throughout the organization. In this way, even after Gan Jiawei left the company in 2016, this organizational management system and ground marketing system have continued to this day, and the team's combat effectiveness has not been affected. In terms of talent pool, Meituan reserves outstanding business development (BD) candidates at the grassroots level as candidates for city managers, and outstanding city managers as candidates for regional managers. The \"Leadership Echelon Training Program\" was launched at the top level to carry out work such as job rotation, succession planning, and talent inventory, and to establish a complete talent echelon from the grassroots to the top.</p><p><b>Organizational structure serves strategic evolution</b></p><p>Since its launch in March 2010, Meituan has undergone multiple rounds of business expansion (Table 4), and its organizational structure has continuously expanded in accordance with the transformation of its O2O business. When Meituan establishes an independent department for a new business, it quickly adjusts the structure, establishes an independent business unit, and appoints a founding team member as the direct head of the business unit to ensure that the overall culture and approach are upheld in the process of promoting the new business. Wang Huiwen and Chen Liang have played such roles on multiple occasions. By appointing members of the founding team as the heads of new businesses and then handing them over to other senior executives once they mature, Meituan's consistent entrepreneurial culture can be well inherited and played a role in developing new businesses.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0ca7684b0d4c3d14f178c69fd45d8a74\" tg-width=\"626\" tg-height=\"202\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 4 Meituan's Business Changes</p><p>In 2015, Tencent invested in Meituan. After Meituan and Dianping merged to form \"New Meituan-Dianping\", they fully leveraged their operational synergies. Meituan's initial main business, group buying, gradually faded out, truly shedding its early positioning as the \"Chinese version of Groupon\" and beginning to transform into a \"Internet plus\" new economy platform. The business structure has been established into three major business groups: food delivery, hotel and tourism, and in-store business groups, laying the foundation for Meituan's core business to date (Figure 1).</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/734fa189ce296f1c54278290366c4b96\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 1. Meituan's business organizational structure during the \"New Meituan-Dianping\" era</p><p>Source: Compiled from publicly available information</p><p>In 2016, Meituan acquired Qiandaibao, a fully licensed payment company, and expanded into digital finance and online payment businesses, implementing a key link in the O2O business closed loop and laying the foundation for a financial middle platform for the construction of its business ecosystem. In the same year, Meituan established the world's first talent development platform, the University of Internet plus (IPU), to coordinate and promote Meituan's internal talent development work.</p><p>Starting in 2017, Meituan's O2O business expanded significantly, and its three major business groups were reorganized (Figure 2):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/681c80f1407a319ca23266dd84e58f88\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"377\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 2. Meituan's business organizational structure during its high-speed expansion period</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>After launching Meituan Taxi in 2017, Meituan established a ride-hailing business unit and subsequently completed the acquisition of Mobike, further enriching Meituan's consumer data collection and traffic conversion channels. Subsequently, Meituan further integrated its business structure, combining the original Meituan platform and Dianping platform (Figure 3):</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dfe93a8f2e88d105574844cae1c2641b\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"512\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 3. Meituan's business organizational structure after launching its mobility service</p><p>Source: Debon Research Institute</p><p>On October 30, 2018, after completing its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company upgraded its organizational structure in accordance with the \"Food+Platform\" strategy. Over the next two years, several business unit optimizations were carried out, but the basic organizational framework was retained after adjustments in 2018.</p><p>As it continues to explore new businesses, Meituan is integrating its businesses into a platform. The company's organizational structure serves its strategic direction, with its core businesses concentrated in two major business groups: in-store and home delivery. It then uses the Meituan platform and the smart transportation platform to improve the synergy and efficiency of local businesses. With \"food\" as its core, Meituan is building a catering service chain from ingredient supply and IT systems to delivery and marketing. IT focuses on developing various catering service chain products such as Kuailv, Meituan Maicai, and Meituan Youxuan, while other business lines provide support (Figure 4).</p><p>From the changes in Meituan's organizational structure, it can be seen that Meituan's business groups, which were originally mainly divided by business, have been divided by scenario to increase synergy between different businesses and the same scenario, which is conducive to the vertical cultivation of the business. The user platform elevates user traffic to the level of a company for overall operation and management. The user platform is the entrance to Meituan's ecosystem. The platform connects traffic and then directs that traffic to the business units and groups centered on \"food,\" building a multi-level technology service platform for the life services industry from the demand side to the supply side.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fb20239d777df83381537aad6b28aaeb\" tg-width=\"1080\" tg-height=\"670\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 4. Meituan's business organizational structure under the \"Food+Platform\" strategy</p><p>Source: 36kr, Tencent.com<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/SINA\">Sina</a>Technology, Debon Research Institute</p><p>Meituan's rapid growth from 2015 to 2019 was mainly due to the expansion of its business in various cities, the optimization and upgrading of its online marketing, and the improvement of its delivery network. Having now entered a mature stage, Meituan's key development potential lies in leveraging its data advantages and expanding the network effect of its ecosystem, such as empowering small and medium-sized merchants within the ecosystem and stimulating synergies between different business departments. Back in 2017, Wang Xing recognized that B2B represented future opportunities. The first half of the internet economy's traffic dividend period had ended, and the second half focused on innovation in the supply chain and B2B industry, using efficiency improvement and cost reduction to digitize the supply side of the entire Chinese industry, ultimately returning to the path of sustained growth.</p><p><b>Finding a New Growth Curve: Heavy Focus on Retail Business</b></p><p>After 2015, Meituan's annual revenue soared from 4.019 billion yuan to 114.795 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 95.5%. Behind this is the continuous evolution of Meituan's organization and strategy while obtaining financing and expanding its business. However, it is worth noting that Meituan's revenue growth rate has been declining year by year, falling below 20% in 2020 (Figure 5). Such revenue growth does not meet the high growth expectations placed on Meituan by the capital market.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e9dcd09ab7e94b0862fbba247f458704\" tg-width=\"977\" tg-height=\"616\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Figure 5. Meituan's rapid revenue growth since 2015</p><p>Source: Company Announcements</p><p>Relying on its traditional core business inevitably leads to a decline in revenue growth. In addition, the low profit margin and fierce competition of the pure food delivery business have forced Meituan to invest in finding new growth curves. The business structure in 2020 shows that Meituan is trying to evolve into a comprehensive digital economy platform spanning local life and physical e-commerce. In community group buying and e-commerce, as China's largest food delivery platform, Meituan has leveraged its mature infrastructure, ample merchant resources, and delivery channel advantages to launch new businesses such as Meituan Maicai, Meituan Youxuan, and Flash Sale (Table 5), in order to further unleash Meituan's economies of scale as a platform.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b82f6a633186f4daecc0bbbf5adbea5c\" tg-width=\"759\" tg-height=\"282\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p><p>Table 5 Meituan's New Battlefield</p><p>Source: Meituan official website, company announcements</p><p>Regarding emerging businesses, Wang Xing said in the earnings call that e-commerce retail is a huge opportunity, and once the infrastructure is completed, there will be an opportunity to reach a massive user base. Once new infrastructure is in place, there will be an opportunity to create a completely new value chain, which will bring new value to the whole society. E-commerce retail is an opportunity to reach the last batch of incremental e-commerce users (hundreds of millions of users in lower-tier markets), so it is necessary to increase investment in retail businesses such as Meituan Youxuan. According to recent media reports, Meituan plans to hire 60,000 new employees in 2021. These 60,000 people are mainly needed for basic positions such as logistics and ground promotion, serving Meituan Youxuan, a community group buying business, and Kuailv, a B2B catering supply chain business. Prior to this, Meituan's number of employees had remained stable at around 50,000 in recent years. Such a large-scale expansion reflects Meituan's huge expectations for its retail business, and Meituan's organizational evolution will continue.</p>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n<p> source：<a href=\"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZdP1NHQVlcm25Vdb6rW3rQ\"> 中欧商业评论</a></p>\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/65b7dbfaf22c1cfa3c335c257811fa09","relate_stocks":{"160636":"互联网","161025":"移动互联","03690":"美团-W","QNETCN":"纳斯达克中美互联网老虎指数"},"source_url":"https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZdP1NHQVlcm25Vdb6rW3rQ","is_english":false,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1183013437","content_text":"自2018年上市以来，在美团的市值一路上涨的同时，是美团作为本地生活数字经济平台在组织生态上的不断进化。\nCBR精华抢先看：\n01.“Food + Platform”战略下，美团的年度营收在2020年首度超过千亿元，其中超过一半来自餐饮外卖业务，到店酒旅业务则为美团贡献了最高的利润率，而新兴业务则贡献了最高的收入增长。\n02.美团的成功来自于管理团队在互联网领域积累的创业经验和行业认知、先进的技术能力、高效的运营管理体系、科学且持续进化的组织架构和对人才培养的重视等多个方面。\n03.进入互联网“下半场”，随着监管逐渐到位和市场竞争环境逐渐规范，美团进入创新驱动的新增长阶段，需要不断拓展其数字经济平台的边界，加强对产业链的数字化赋能，打造更加开放的生态系统。\n截至2021年6月7日，尽管股价自其今年的高点已下跌了近35%，本地生活O2O巨头美团在港股市场的市值仍高达1.83万亿港元，在中国的上市互联网公司中，市值上仅次于腾讯和阿里巴巴。\n仍处于扩张中的新经济巨头\n作为链接消费者和商户的数字化平台，美团将公司的使命定义为“帮大家吃得更好，生活更好”，战略定义为“Food + Platform”（“餐饮+平台”），通过创新及更优的服务助力商家提升运营效率，为消费者提供更为便利以及价格合理的优质产品和服务，善用科技为社会创造更多价值。\n根据美团2020年年报，美团全年营收首破千亿，其中2013年成立的餐饮外卖占据了美团超过一半的营收，为美团营收中占比最高的部分，已是近年来美团的支柱业务。但在利润率上，到店、酒旅业务才是美团真正赚钱的业务。美团的营收中，超过一半的收入来自于美团作为平台方进行的外卖订单抽佣（类似于中介费），另一大主要收入来源是商家支付给平台的营销费用。新业务及其他的收入则包括了美团单车、美团买菜和美团充电等自营业务，以及美团优选、美团打车、美团闪购、to B业务快驴等（表 1）。\n\n表 1 美团2020年收入构成\n来源：美团2020年年报\n值得注意的是，美团2020年第四季度净利润由盈转亏。亏损来自于对新业务的投入如社区团购、社区电商等。而根据美团的2021年一季度财报：尽管单季度新增5900多万活跃买家创造了美团的历史记录，让美团一个季度就基本完成了去年一整年的用户增量。然而单季度新业务亏损80亿，盈利还有待时日。\n可以看出，美团在社区团购等新业务的运营上，模式和此前的外卖、酒旅有一定相似，先是根据数据积累，选定特定地域，利用流量优势，快速推广，烧钱扩容市场，改造供给端，输出管理能力，解决企业供需聚合的难点，补贴消费者，让商户和消费者对美团平台产生依赖，抢占主要市场份额后再将部分成本转移给商户和消费者，在平台规模效应下实现盈利（表 2），但社区团购还能否复制此前的成功呢？\n\n表 2 美团的业务矩阵\n资料来源：根据公开信息整理\n互联网创业文化和高效组织运营\n美团网于 2010 年由王兴、穆荣均、王慧文等人创立，以创始人王兴为核心。三人曾是清华大学时期的同学及校友，至今也是美团最为主要的三位高管。在创立美团之前，几人曾联合创办过“多多友”、“校内网”、“饭否网”、“海内网”等互联网社交网站（表 3）。几轮创业经历让创始团队具备了对互联网的敏锐洞察能力及丰富的运维经验。王兴团队注重效率和“三高三低”——高质量、高效率、高科技、低成本、低价格、低毛利。\n\n表 3 美团创始及管理团队资料\n资料来源：公司公告，国金证券研究所\n作为O2O公司，以王兴为核心的创始团队的创业经历以线上创业为主，并没有管理大规模线下团队的经验，而线下业务需要美团具备强大的组织能力。阿里巴巴销售元老干嘉伟2011 年11 月加入美团后，帮助美团搭设了组织管理体系和地推营销体系，并沿袭至今。\n干嘉伟为美团的线下团队制定了可量化、可衡量、可追溯、可控制的运营管理体系，例如在业务管理上锚定目标，细化执行，广泛采用标准作业流程SOP模式进行管理，将原来一个整体的销售过程拆分成ABCD四个步骤，通过对过程的管控来实现对结果E的管控；同时改进激励制度体系，让员工激励与公司目标高度挂钩，员工对业务流程具备较强的掌握能力。\n干嘉伟注重“借假修真”层面的团队管理与建设，即以数据、指标、结果为“假”，而以人才和组织的发展和提升为“真”，形成整个组织中成员行为方式和思想的一致性，这样即使在干嘉伟于 2016 年离职后，这套组织管理体系和地推营销体系延续至今，团队的战斗力也未受影响。在人才储备上，美团在基层储备优秀的BD 作为城市经理的候选人，优秀的城市经理为区域经理的候选人；在高层启动“领导梯队培养计划”，进行轮岗锻炼、继任计划、人才盘点等工作，建立起从基层到高层完备的人才梯队。\n组织结构服务于战略演进\n从2010年3月上线以来，美团经历了多轮业务扩张（表 4），组织结构根据O2O业务变革不断拓展。美团为新业务而成立独立部门时，会迅速进行架构调整，建立独立事业部，并指定一名创始团队成员作为事业部直接负责人，确保整体文化和思路在新业务推进过程中的坚守，其中王慧文和陈亮就多次担任此类角色。以创始团队内部成员作为新业务的负责人，待到成熟后转交其他高管，这使得美团一贯的创业文化能够良好传承，在开辟新业务时发挥作用。\n\n表 4 美团的业务变迁\n2015年，腾讯入股美团，美团与大众点评合并组成“新美大”之后，充分发挥了经营协同效应，美团初期的主要业务团购逐渐淡出，真正摆脱了早期“中国版Groupon”的定位，开始转型成为“互联网+”新经济平台。业务架构确立为三大事业群：外卖配送、酒店旅游和到店事业群，奠定了美团到目前为止最为核心的业务（图 1）。\n\n图 1 “新美大”时期美团业务组织结构\n资料来源：根据公开资料整理\n2016年，美团收购了全牌照支付公司钱袋宝，布局了数字金融和网络支付业务，落实了O2O 商业闭环的关键环节，为业务生态的建设奠定了金融中台基础。同年，美团设立了全球首家人才培养平台“互联网+大学”(IPU)，统筹推进美团企业内部人才培养工作。\n2017年起，美团的O2O业务大幅扩张，三大事业群重新整合（图 2）：\n\n图 2 美团高速扩张期业务组织结构\n资料来源：德邦研究所\n在2017年推出美团打车后，美团成立了出行事业部，并随后完成了对摩拜单车的收购，进一步丰富了美团的消费者数据采集渠道和流量转化渠道，随后美团对业务架构进行了进一步整合，将原先的美团平台和大众点评平台进行了整合（图 3）：\n\n图 3 推出出行业务后，美团的业务组织结构\n资料来源：德邦研究所\n2018 年 10 月 30 日，公司在完成港交所上市后，按照 “Food+Platform”战略对组织架构进行了升级。此后两年间陆续进行了几次业务单元的优化，但基本组织框架在 2018 年调整后得到沿用。\n随着不断开拓新业务，美团将业务平台化整合，公司的组织架构服务于战略方向，核心业务集中在到店事业群和到家事业群两大事业群，再通过美团平台和智慧交通平台提高本地业务的协同和效率。美团以‘吃’为核心，打造从食材供应、IT系统到配送及营销的餐饮服务链，着重打造快驴、美团买菜、美团优选等各类餐饮服务链产品，同时其他业务线予以辅助（图 4）。\n从美团的组织架构变化中，可以发现美团的原来按业务划分为主的事业群改为按场景划分，以增加不同业务相同场景间的协同，利于业务的垂直深耕。用户平台将用户流量上升为公司层面整体去经营和管理。用户平台是美团生态的入口，平台接入流量，再导入流量到以“吃”为核心的事业部和事业群，建设成生活服务业从需求侧到供给侧的多层次科技服务平台。\n\n图 4 “Food+Platform”战略下美团的业务组织结构\n资料来源：36kr、腾讯网、新浪科技、德邦研究所\n2015-2019年美团的高速增长主要来自于业务在各个城市的扩张、在线营销的优化和升级、和配送网络的完善。如今已步入成熟期的美团，重点发展空间在于发挥数据优势，扩大生态系统的网络效应，如赋能生态内的中小商户，激发不同业务部门间的协同效应。在2017年，王兴就已经认识到，to B是未来的机会，互联网经济上半场的流量红利期已经结束，下半场的方向是围绕供应链和to B行业的创新，以效率提升、成本降低为方法让整个中国产业的供给侧实现互联网数字化，最终回到持续增长的道路上。\n寻找新的增长曲线：重注零售业务\n2015年之后，美团的年度营收从40.19亿元一路飙升至2020年的1147.95亿元，年复合增长率达到了95.5%，这背后是美团在获得融资、扩张业务的同时，组织和战略的持续进化。但同时值得注意的是，美团的营收增速呈逐年下滑趋势，在2020年已下降至20%以下（图 5）。这样的营收增速并不符合资本市场赋予美团的高增长期望。\n\n图 5 美团营收自2015年以来的高速增长\n资料来源：公司公告\n依赖于传统核心业务，不可避免会迎来营收增速下滑，加上单纯的餐饮外卖业务利润率低，竞争激烈，让美团投入于寻找新的增长曲线。从2020年的业务结构可以看出，美团正试图进化成横跨本地生活和实物电商的综合型数字经济平台。在社区团购和电商上，作为中国最大的外卖配送平台，美团借助自身成熟的基础设施、充足的商家资源，以及配送渠道优势，推出了美团买菜、美团优选、闪购等新业务（表 5），以更进一步释放美团作为平台的规模效应。\n\n表 5 美团的新战场\n资料来源：美团官网、公司公告\n对于新兴业务，王兴在财报电话会上称电商零售是巨大的机遇，一旦基础设施建设完毕，就有机会触及海量的用户群体。而一旦有了新的基础设施，也将有机会创建全新的价值链，这也将会为整个社会带来新的价值，电商零售是一个能触及最后一批电商增量用户（下沉市场数亿用户）的机会，所以必须对美团优选等零售业务加码投入。就在近日，据媒体报道，美团计划在2021年新招6万人。这6万人主要是物流、地推等基础岗位所需，服务于社区团购业务美团优选和B2B餐饮供应链业务快驴。而这之前美团员工近几年数量一直稳定在5万人左右，如此大规模的扩张反映出的是美团对于零售业务的巨大期望，美团的组织进化仍将继续。","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{"160636":0.9,"161025":0.9,"QNETCN":0.9,"03690":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":4552,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"lives":[]}