Obbligazionario in pericolo ? - gz
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By: GZ on Mercoledì 27 Novembre 2002 22:58
Per due anni la borsa ha reso di più al ribasso che al rialzo. Ora tocca all'obbligazionario.
Il reddito fisso per circa 20 anni circa ha goduto del più grande mercato toro della sua storia, grazie al fatto che i tassi americani sono scesi dal 15% al 4% e quelli europei da % anche più alte pure loro al 4%.
Ripeto allora oggi, come ho cominciato a fare in settembre (vedi i post precedenti) : esci dalle obbligazioni a lungo termine, fondi obbligazionari o Btp o altro, perchè se i dati economici continuano a migliorare possono perdere parecchio.
E se speculi vendi bund e bond allo scoperto.
Come speculazione sono anche meglio degli indici in questo momento.
Se vendi short un FIB30 con un margine di 16 mila euro occorre che perda più di 3.000 punti per guadagnare il 100% sul margine.
Oggi i treasury bond futures, che hanno un margine di meno di 2 mila dollari, sono scesi da 111 a 109 cioè di 2 mila dollari cioè l'equivalente di 3mila punti fib30 in un giorno! Anche con il fib30 puoi guadagnare l'equivalente del margine, 3 mila punti, ma occorre un movimento che duri una settimana.
(N.B. questa è anche una pagina pubblicitaria visto che ^ho raccomandato un operazione del genere anche oggi#A:10149^. Ne ho però messa anche una più grossa qui sul forum gratis 10 giorni fa).
Il succo è che è improbabile che dopo quasi 20 anni di mercato toro del reddito fisso questo possa continuare ancora. E in più negli ultimi due anni i fondi e poi il pubblico si sono ammassati nel reddito fisso per difendersi dalla borsa ora si è accumulato un eccesso speculativo, una "bolla" se vogliamo parlare alla moda. (Persino in ottobre i fondi obbligazionari hanno avuto una raccolta record mentre il loro mercato cominciava a franare, ma la gente guarda le azioni e molto meno i bund e treasury bond).
Leggere i post precedenti qui sotto e anche il pezzo su Forbes di Ken Fisher per ulteriori spiegazioni
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Not Bonds, Books
Kenneth L. Fisher, 12.09.02, 12:00 AM ET
If a 20-year stock run-up could lead to the last 3 years, why not ditto with bonds now?
The next bursting bubble? Bonds. Folks have flooded into the Treasury market. They are driven by panic in the stock market, mesmerized by a 21-year bull market in fixed income and misled by the mythology that bonds are safe. They aren't. You can get killed by them.
Until people realize that, bond managers will remain the new heroes. Pimco's Bill Gross, arguably the best bond manager of the last three decades, runs what just became the world's biggest mutual fund. For some reason that suddenly qualifies him as a stock market sage. While claiming that anyone who is bullish on equities is self-serving, Gross himself self-servingly suggests that stocks will be disappointing for years while bonds will be okay (although, to his credit, he says that Treasurys are fairly priced and their big bull market mostly over).
The bond bull market of 1981-2002 was quite extraordinary. Long-term Treasury rates collapsed from 15.8% to 4%. You won't see that again, ever. On the contrary: Interest rates are destined to climb some of the way back up. And why shouldn't bonds get a bear market? If a 20-year stock run-up could lead to the last 3 years, why not ditto with bonds now? How much lower can yields fall while globally central banks print money at 5% to 10% annual rates and economies grow at 2% rates?
Sooner or later bondholders will demand an aftertax coupon exceeding inflation. If the real aftertax return is to be, say, 2%, and if inflation is 4%, and if your tax rate is 25% (it's probably higher), you need an 8% coupon on your long Treasury. That's just about double where long rates are now.
Treasurys are safe? Do the math. If over the next year the yield on long Treasurys climbs four percentage points from where it is now, your total return on such paper will be -40%. That is nearly as much as stocks fell since March 2000. I can't promise you that Treasury yields will double, but I can say the bond market won't be pretty over the next few years. As economies finally pick up some steam in 2003 and 2004, inflation fears will renew and the bubble-bursting will begin. Once the prick starts it will be steady and fast until all the hot air arguing for bond safety is fully dissipated and turned into cold fear.
Do not forget: Inflation is a creature of politics, and politicians never lose their lust to spend money. Yours. You know the old folk etymology of "politics" (Greek scholars, please don't write in with corrections)--that the word comes from "poli," meaning many, and "tics," meaning small blood-sucking creatures. The blood is money, printed by central bank chairmen. Ours, revered as he is, is getting old and has to work hard to get the reappointment he covets. President Bush can stall through summer 2004 his decision to reappoint Greenspan or not. That hinges, despite what you may think, on whether Greenspan motivates our Fed to be adequately accommodating to give Bush a suitable economic backdrop for reelection. I predict that Greenspan will so motivate the Fed.
You will find few five-year periods in Treasury history without a severe uptick in rates somewhere. Yet usually those bond bear markets saw stocks fare pretty well, particularly when they were preceded by a stock bear market. We just had a doozy of a stock correction. What to do? One approach is to take some of your money out of bonds and find stocks with better overall yields. By "yield" here I mean the earnings yield, or earnings divided by price.
Modificato da - gz on 11/27/2002 22:11:44