By: GZ on Lunedì 06 Giugno 2005 23:36
per quanto riguarda il quadro generale delle borse e dell'economia suggerisco di leggere David Malpass, da un decennio capo economista di Bear Stearns
(l'unica casa di Wall Street che non ha mai avuto problemi nemmeno con il crac di Long Term Capital negli ultimi 10 anni, non so se avete notato ma Morgan, Goldman e Merril non hanno fatto molto bene come trading di recente, Bear Stearns resta la migliore )
ogni singolo argomento dei pessimisti (la Bolla del Debito ! del Credito ! il Deficit! la crisi del Dollaro !) ^viene esaminato e confutato#http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_malpass/malpass200505130836.asp^
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Assertion: Consumption has risen to over 70 percent of GDP, so people are using up their savings.
Response: The rise in consumption per GDP is a long-standing trend for the U.S. economy. There are several reasons for this. 1) Investments are increasingly in the form of education and research, which show up in consumption. 2) For tax and other reasons, people seek capital gains rather than ordinary income. The proceeds show up in savings and consumption but not in GDP, distorting the ratios.
Assertion: The U.S. is a low-saving nation if you don’t count houses.
Response: This is incorrect. Including all the mortgage debt and none of the houses, the U.S. household sector is the world’s biggest net creditor ($37 trillion of financial assets versus $11 trillion of household debt) with one of the world’s fastest growing pools of liquid (non-house) savings (up $1.5 trillion in 2004). The personal-savings-rate statistic does not reflect or attempt to reflect actual changes in savings or the annual additions to savings, both of which have been large.
Assertion: The deficit is going to sink us. “We are approaching a trillion-dollar trade deficit,” said Sen. Harry Reid in the May 10 New York Times. “We can’t survive as a viable, strong country doing that.”
Response: I expect the trade deficit to get bigger and the U.S. economy to remain strong and prosperous. U.S. imports grow with the U.S. economy while exports grow with foreign economies. The U.S. trade deficit is being driven by capital inflows related to the demographic gap between the U.S. and other developed countries. With a growing population, the U.S. needs more capital than other countries do and benefits more from adding it. Conversely, with an older population, foreigners want to buy bonds even at today’s low yields, allowing the U.S. to capture the spread between the cost of foreign capital and the return on investments in the U.S. The U.S. trade deficit will likely grow until Japan and Europe undertake pro-growth structural reforms, developing economies get substantially bigger, or the demographic gap narrows.
Assertion: Higher interest rates will slow the economy.
Response: Real interest rates are very low and haven’t risen much. Interest rates rose in 2004 and didn’t cause a slowdown. I think the Fed’s measured rate hikes have been acting as an accelerant to the economy, maintaining low real interest rates, giving assurance against faster rate hikes, allowing longer-term yields to stay low, and encouraging a “get it while you can” reaction.
Assertion: Money supply growth has slowed, pointing to a slowdown.
Response: I don’t think money growth is well correlated to GDP growth when exchange rates are unstable and money velocity is as variable as it has been since the 1971 departure from the gold standard. Growth of the M2 money supply (currency, checking accounts, and savings accounts) slowed with the pace of mortgage refinancings after the jumps in bond yields in June 2003, April 2004, and March 2005, yet GDP growth didn’t slow. Growth of M0 (basically currency outstanding, since U.S. banks now have very little in assets that are subject to reserve requirements) is slow today because interest rates are rising and the dollar weakened in recent years.
Assertion: The yield curve has flattened, pointing to a slowdown. “Shrinking disparity between long and short (Treasury) notes waves caution flag on economy,” went the Wall Street Journal headline of May 9.
Response: Longer-term bond yields have stayed low in part due to unusually accommodative and restrained monetary policy. Rather than indicating a slowdown, low long-term bond yields have, at least in 2003 and 2004, preceded a surge in economic growth. I don’t think bond yields, inflation-protected TIPS, or the shape of the yield curve are useful economic indicators when exiting a deflationary period by way of an extraordinary monetary policy. I expect bond yields to rise in 2005 in jumps, as in 2004 and 2003, in response to evidence of economic growth, inflation, and continuing Fed rate hikes.
Assertion: Inflation is understated. A May 9 Wall Street Journal headline said, “Critics say U.S. plays down CPI through adjustments for quality, not just price.”
Response: I expect a moderate inflation problem, with core CPI rising above 3 percent year-over-year (it’s now at 2.3 percent). I don’t think the definitional issues (e.g., the difference between the CPI basket and the broader PCE and GDP measures; hedonic quality adjustments) are that important in evaluating monetary policy. The economic and market issue is whether monetary policy weakens or strengthens the value of the dollar. I have been concerned for over a year about the “free lunch” in liquidity and the dollar weakness caused by very low real interest rates, but I think the distortions did not build to a degree where the economy was undermined.
Assertion: Culled from the May 5 Wall Street Journal: “As boomers retire, a debate: will stock prices get crushed?; Prof. Siegel says only Asia can stop a U.S. meltdown; filling a $123 trillion [retirement] gap.”
Response: The value of a stock depends more on company earnings than the number of Americans who own the stock, particularly with international diversification of equity ownership likely to increase. Further, retiring U.S. investors will time their equity sales differently based on their personal financial circumstances. I expect the U.S. retirement age to gradually lengthen, drastically reducing the notional $123 trillion retirement gap.
Assertion: Stock prices haven’t come down enough. “Blue-chip stocks have still posted average annual gains of 13.2% over the last 20 years,” according to the May 8 New York Times. “The 1926-2004 annual average is 10.4%.”
Response: Part of the above-average nominal equity gains in the 1980s and 1990s was an adjustment of equity prices to the weaker dollar that followed the dollar devaluations of the 1970s. Price-earnings multiples are not high now, especially relative to bond yields. I expect solid long-term equity returns as the expansion progresses.
— David Malpass is the chief economist for Bear, Stearns.