저자: TomLee · 외국인
요약 보기
Tom Lee는 올해 말쯤 시장 조정 가능성을 언급하지만 향후 12개월에는 여전히 낙관적이라고 밝힘. AI 투자와 기업 펀더멘털은 양호하다고 평가. 인플레이션은 PCE가 CPI보다 높지만 일시적 왜곡(금융서비스·레크리에이션 재화/메모리 가격)이 원인이라 연준이 조금 더 기다려야 한다고 주장. 하이일드 스프레드는 신용 악화 신호가 없다고 봄. 비트코인에 대해서는 단기 급락 후 큰 상승 가능성을 언급.
다듬은 글
It's closer to the end of the year, so we're probably already in the part of the year where a market decline is possible. I think this makes investors nervous , and as you know, markets grow through a wall of fear. Overall, I am still very optimistic about the next 12 months, but there are obstacles ahead.
Growth creates both opportunities and risks. Most people focus on risks. If markets were easy and everyone agreed, everything would already be factored into the price and there would be no opportunities. Bitcoin skeptics should take note. Tom Lee has studied disruptive technologies and emerging markets for decades, and he says investors often underestimate the potential of new technologies.
He talked about Bitcoin when it was worth less than $1,000, long before the masses believed in it. Now, as AI and institutional adoption transform markets, Lee's latest thought raises a more serious question. Could Bitcoin's next big surge be much bigger than investors expect? releases. We expected 2026 to be challenging as we were counting on good earnings growth.
But then, as you know, there were many obstacles that were supposed to arise this year. And I think that's how the year is developing. This is a year where fundamentals are good, as stocks depend on stable earnings visibility fueled by AI, as well as a rebound in the ISM index and a broadening expansion.
But of course there are things to worry about, like the amount of debt being issued by AI hyperscalers, the US budget deficit, and of course the Iran war and other political upheavals . So, I think that makes investors nervous , and as you know, markets grow through a wall of fear. Overall, I am still very optimistic about the next 12 months, but there are obstacles ahead.
Oil prices are high again due to these geopolitical fears and war. Did this change anything fundamentally in your outlook for the rest of the year? Well, both yes and no. We started this year expecting certain events to happen sometime near the end of the year. So, we're probably at a point now where a market decline is possible, and, you know, there were a lot of reasons for that, including the midterm elections and the market testing the Fed.
Um, you know, there's a lot of leverage, and I think overall we're going to have to adapt to the sentiment at some point. You know, markets always usually have corrections at some point during the year. And I probably still lean towards that opinion. And as you know, one of the real problems right now is the lack of consensus on inflation, because if you look at the market indicators, the bond market, investors and pundits are very impatient because inflation is not reaching the Fed's target.
It has not met the Fed's target for over 4 years. And, you know, one solution, of course, is for the Fed to start raising interest rates. But I'm also very sympathetic to the argument that, you know, we suffer from a number of distortions in the CPI figures. We don't want this distortion to become the baseline scenario for the consumer.
So, you know, we don't want the consumer to suddenly expect higher inflation, but that has n't really been reflected in the surveys yet. And if that's the case, then I would be willing to give the Fed a little more time, and I think there could be some noticeable progress on inflation by the end of the year.
So, I think there's a lot of tension in the markets, but as you know, if the markets were simple and everyone agreed, everything would already be priced in and there would be no opportunity . We see that stock markets are still actually near their highs. So it seems like there's a lot of talk about fear, but I'm not sure that's reflected in how people manage their money.
Do you see this tension and how do you deal with it? Yes. Well, I just want to make a few points. I believe that investors and bond markets often confuse the growth of the stock market with the need for the Fed to restrain that market. After all, as we know, the Fed's mandate is only employment and inflation.
And there is a very weak relationship between stock market growth and inflation. You know, we could have a booming stock market, like in the 2000s after the global financial crisis, and inflation would n't be rising. Um, but I would also point out that there is actually no clear understanding of the real rate of inflation.
I mean, people often give a lot of statistics. For example, someone will point to PCE and say it's 3.3%. Um, and then they'll look at the diffusion rates and say there are quite a few components above 3%. However, it is important to remember the Fed's two percent target. When the core CPI for August comes out on Friday, it will likely fall to 2.3% year-on-year .
And PCE is actually almost 100 basis points higher—3.3%. I think the analysis of why the CPI and the underlying index do not match was done very poorly. This is one of the biggest rifts between them in history. And we at Fundstrat wrote about this. More than 60% of this difference, or 0.6 percent, is due to two articles.
Financial services, which have a large weight in the PCE and a very small weight in the CPI. Financial services are actually the cost of portfolio management fees . Mhm. That's the reality . The average American doesn't think there is inflation just because the stock market has gone up and he has to pay more to his advisor.
In fact, as you know, the percentage of Americans who use advisors and pay commissions is quite small. So that shouldn't be in the PCE, and the Fed has recognized that. Waller pointed this out in his recent conversation with Reuters. Mhm. But the second thing I haven't seen published about, and this is a very important distinction, is that PCE has an article called "recreational services." This is, in fact, a third of all excess inflation .
In fact, compared to the CPI, this is about 40% excess inflation . Recreational goods include items such as memory and computer accessories. Mhm. In May, the Fed wrote an article about this. Flash memory prices have increased, and this is reflected in the PCE, but not in the CPI. This is an increase of nine standard deviations.
But here's another question. Does the average American say that inflation has increased because flash memory prices have skyrocketed? The answer, of course, is no. No one really cares that flash memory has become more expensive. I mean, the iPhone has become more expensive, but that's already taken into account as a CPI item.
So the reality is that core PCE is higher due to the stock market and flash memory compared to the CPI. And if people took that and looked at the core CPI at 2.3 versus 2, I think Waller is right. This is not that far from the Fed's target, and the indicator is moving in the right direction . And by the way, Volcker cut rates when inflation was around 4%, not when it was at two.
So, it seems you think it would be a mistake if they did that. They need more time. I think people...as Winston Churchill said, the War Department is always fighting last year's wars, and I think economists are fighting last year's wars. I think most people are terrible growth investors. You know, that's why...if everyone were good growth investors, growth stocks wouldn't work.
I've been a growth investor, basically, from the beginning, because I started in the early 90s as a technology analyst. And I can assure you that investing in growth is difficult because the most important thing to do is…well, you have to have a baseline forecast. They call it the total addressable market or whatever you want , TAM.
And then someone might be very limited in their thinking because they'll say, " Hey, the company's capabilities are to replace what the whole world is doing today." So, that's all that can be achieved." Let's say when someone looked at Amazon, they said, "Okay, they're a book seller. So the most they can do is sell books.
"I mean, Amazon is overvalued because they only sell books." What they don't…what you have to do as a growth investor is understand that there's a huge uncertainty going on right now because it's…it's deterministic, right? When a new technology comes along , it creates speculation, which people worry about, but then it creates innovation.
I don't think most people are good at innovating. If they could , everyone would have patents . So I think if people understood that growth creates opportunities and risks, most people would focus on the risk, and I think that's why they're not good growth investors. And I can talk about this because I've been a growth investor for a long time, and we...
you know, wrote about a lot of things years before they happened. We wrote about Bitcoin for more than 10 years , when it was less than a thousand. People thought it was a stupid idea on our part, and now Bitcoin is worth about 80,000. So, um, do I think people who are skeptical about new technologies are right?
Yes, they are right in some ways. I mean, of course, nobody wants to see AI companies borrowing huge amounts of money. After all, we already know what risks any company with balance sheet risks carries, right? This reduces your flexibility. But if anyone says this is a sign that the AI bubble is going to end badly, I think they don't know history very well, because every industry, every branch of growth since the creation of the world has never been financed solely by equity.
Perhaps the most provocative part of Lee's argument is his view on AI and jobs. Many worry that AI, robotics, and autonomous agents will destroy large numbers of jobs and ultimately reduce tax revenues and consumer incomes. Lee believes the outcome could be very different. He argues that robots and AI systems can themselves become productive , tax-generating units.
If a significant portion of economic activity eventually comes from AI and robotics, governments could potentially tax these activities directly. I think it looks really good. Now I'm going to point out something that has been a very good indicator of recessions, much more accurate in timing than the yield curve.
You know, people refer to the yield curve as if when it inverts, it's a great predictor of a recession. But as we know, it " predicted," if you measure intraday, it seems, 24 of the last nine recessions, okay? This is not the best indicator, but high yield spreads or option-adjusted spreads (OAS) are really telling.
So, to me, there is a little bit of concern because rates are going up, inflation is up, we have a big deficit, but the market that feels the pain very well—the high- yield market—is not suggesting that corporate credit or credit quality is deteriorating significantly . This is interesting. What is driving this growth?
Does it depend a lot on the development of AI? I mean, that... That explains part of it. I think the audience should remember the period after the global financial crisis, so I'll rewind time 18 years ago, you know? Business confidence has fallen. And that's because many people and experts have been talking about a "new normal" and that growth will be very slow.
And you know what? When economists, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan say the economy will grow slowly, boards of directors are not set for expansion. So, private investment as a percentage of GDP has actually been lower than depreciation for over a decade. In other words, capital in the United States was being depleted.
We can all notice it. You probably notice how buildings have become very old, roads have become old, or companies have, as they say, "squeezed all the juices" out of their equipment. Yes. And, of course, this made production labor-intensive. That is why labor productivity did not increase, because without capital investment there is no productivity.
And then COVID happened, there were incentives that distorted the situation somewhat, as there were government investment spending . But this was essentially the construction of the necessary infrastructure. And this is happening at a time when labor force growth is actually slowing down worldwide. This is not just in the US, it is happening all over the world.
So artificial intelligence is actually filling many vacant jobs, or it will help fill this shortage of personnel. For me, AI is certainly an important factor, but we have to remember the period before it, when investment spending was quite weak. Well, yes, I think you phrased it correctly. It's just someone's opinion.
I mean, I should rewind a little bit, do you remember how many economists made predictions about the internet? Some said it was just a fad, others didn't think it would make a difference, or more importantly, if we go back to the era before the advent of quick freezing, when 38 % of Americans were farmers.
But shock freezing was a huge innovation in the supply chain, and it reduced agricultural employment from 38% to 5%. I'm sure if there was a CNBC channel in 1929, many people there would have predicted: " Look, when farmers lose their jobs and this figure drops from 38% to 5%, the economy will collapse , because what will happen to all these people?" Well, what do you think?
The economy simply went in a different direction. I think it's too early to know how things will play out, but I will ask: what are the arguments against losing tax revenue or wages? First, I think robots, agents, and agent-based AI will pay taxes. They will become tax-generating units. Really? 100%.
Especially if these payments are made via blockchain, it will all be traceable. I would say that if robots and AI make up 50 % of economic activity, then half of the tax revenue will come from there. Perhaps even at a higher rate, as a "tax on human labor." And secondly, we don't know the real full cost of AI.
If AI were profitable, hyperscalers wouldn't have to borrow money. So you have to divide the costs among real users, and the price may be much higher. I don't know. And third, of course, what is the real value of human labor? There are many studies— Asana, Hubstaff, McKinsey. There are numerous studies , and in some of our works we have published data that confirm two facts.
First: up to 75% of all work today is not productive work at all. It's work for the sake of work. In other words, most positions are just titles. They don't actually do anything. And second: if you look at employees in organizations, only 20-25% of their workweek is spent on actual work. The rest of the time is spent on preparation, correspondence, and physiological needs .
So can AI replace a significant portion of labor while still preserving jobs? The answer is probably yes. Ultimately, you have to be intellectually honest. None of us actually work a full 40 hours. There are moments of inspiration, and there are moments of not. So if AI fills these gaps, everyone will still have a job.
Tom Lee's message ultimately boils down to one important distinction. Risks do not automatically mean that the bull market is over. A correction may occur. Inflation may remain a complex issue. Oil and geopolitical tensions can cause volatility. Investments in AI can lead to excesses. And investors may continue to argue whether valuations have become overvalued, but none of these factors cancel out the overall growth story.
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