저자: CathieWood · 외국인
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결론: 캐시 우드는 인플레이션 둔화와 금리 하락을 확신하며, 성장주(ARK 포트폴리오)가 현재 비이성적으로 저평가됐다고 주장한다. 인플레이션·금융시장 신호: 장단기 금리차(2년-10년)가 0.8%p 이상 역전되어 시장이 성장 둔화 또는 인플레이션 하락을 반영 중이라고 봄. 연준 금리 인상 폭이 과거 볼커 시절 2배보다 훨씬 큰 16배라고 언급. 인플레이션이 2% 아래로 내려갈 것으로 예상. 원자재·유가: 유가는 배럴당 130달러 고점에서 70달러대로 약 절반 하락. 원자재 재고 과잉으로 할인 판매가 나타나고 있다고 주장. 유가가 추가 반등하기 어렵다고 봄. S&P 에너지(XLE)는 사상 최고치 근처에 있어 괴리가 있다고 지적. 금리 전망: 연준 최종금리 5% 이상은 가능성 낮다고 봄. 장기채 금리는 3.5%로 하락(10년물은 4.25%에서 하락). 채권시장이 금리 상승이 아닌 하락을 말하고 있다고 해석. 포트폴리오·투자 전략: 금리 하락 시 미래 현금흐름의 현재가치가 올라 포트폴리오에 유리. 포트폴리오 기업들은 유전체·로봇·에너지저장·AI·블록체인 등 대형 시장을 선점하기 위해 R&D·마케팅에 공격적으로 투자 중이라 현재 수익성이 낮을 뿐 잠재 수익성이 크다고 주장. 총이익률이 매우 높다고 강조. 성과 및 리스크: ARK 펀드는 올해 60% 이상 하락했고 3년·5년·2014년 이후 모두 S&P500에 뒤처짐. 장기 투자자 관점을 강조. 시장 비교: 현재 시장을 2008~09년보다 나쁘다고 표현하며, 닷컴 버블과 달리 현재 기술은 준비되어 있고(딥러닝, 클라우드, 게놈 비용 하락) 현재 하락장은 닷컴 버블의 반대편 비합리성이라고 주장. 개별 종목: 텔라닥(Teladoc)은 매출이 14배 증가했고 총이익률 60%대 후반에서 70%대로 상승 전망, 나스닥 평균 43% 대비 우수하며 매출의 약 2배 가격에 거래된다고 언급. 나스닥은 매출 3.25배 수준. 출연자 전망: 금리 하락과 인플레 둔화가 성장주 반등의 촉매가 될 것이라고 봄.
다듬은 글
I do believe that the market has been discounting this for a good part of this year. The market is in a bear market, so the equity market isn't going to be surprised, and even the fixed income market isn't going to be surprised. The yield curve—the difference between the 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields—is over 80 basis points, or 0.8%. This hasn't happened since the early 1980s, when Chairman Volcker was taking a sledgehammer to inflation, an inflation problem that had built up over 15 years. This inflation problem built up over 15 months. Instead of raising interest rates twofold, from 10% to 20%, as Volcker did, Chairman Powell has raised interest rates sixteenfold. We've never seen that before.
I do believe the surprises are going to be on the low side of inflation expectations, dramatically. We believe inflation will drop below the Fed's 2% target sometime next year. The pipeline is telling us that commodity prices and inventories—which are overwhelming and causing all kinds of discounts—are falling. The bond market itself is saying that whenever the yield curve inverts, growth is going to disappoint, or inflation is going to be lower than expected, or both.
So does that mean we won't see a terminal rate of 5% or above from the Fed? I'd be very surprised if we saw anything like that. Oil is one of the most visible commodity prices. Despite a lot of potential support, it can't get going. It peaked at $130 a barrel after Russia invaded Ukraine, and it's now down to $74. Even with China reopening, which is supposed to support oil prices, it just can't rally. I see you're putting up 71.60 here, which would be yet another proof point. And the sales we see when we go Christmas shopping, on a lot of items, are starting to feed through.
If this scenario is correct, and inflation comes down more sharply than anticipated, and the Fed slows or even stops raising rates earlier than expected, what does that mean for where you invest? Look at what has outperformed over the last year or so: the beneficiaries of inflation have outperformed. Oil has come down from $130 to the low $70s, almost cut in half, yet the S&P energy sector index is not that far from all-time highs. There's a disconnect there.
As inflation unravels and interest rates come down, the present value of future cash flows rises. That environment benefits our portfolio. We hold companies that will be extremely profitable in the next five years. Right now they may not look profitable, because they're investing aggressively to capitalize on amazing opportunities in genomics, robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. They're investing now because many of these will be winner-take-most markets, and they're huge. There's latent profitability here. The gross margins in our portfolio are very high. What they spend on R&D, sales and marketing, and stock-based compensation to attract talent in these early days is really important to their future success.
So as interest rates come down, the present value of cash flows five years out increases.
Do you think interest rates will actually come down, given the scenario you described and the incredible increase in rates we've already seen? Even if the Fed doesn't get to 5%, even if it gets to 4.5% and stays there, won't that continue to be a headwind for some growth companies that rely on debt to fund the investing you're talking about?
I think a change in rhetoric will get the market going. The market is trying to figure out how high is high. Some economists think it could be 6% or 7%, so the market is holding back and saying, "We need evidence." I think the evidence is becoming very strong, because long bond yields are down to 3.5%. The long bond market doesn't lie. If interest rates were heading to 5% or 6%, it wouldn't be moving the other way. The 10-year Treasury got up to 4.25%, and now we're down to 3.5%. The bond market is speaking pretty loudly, and the part most sensitive to rising rates is moving in the other direction.
Let's get to your performance, because the equity market is speaking too. Your benchmark fund is down more than 60% this year. You're a longer-term investor, but over three years you've underperformed the S&P 500, and over five years you've underperformed too. Going back to 2014, when you started the ARK fund, it still underperforms the market. What catalysts can investors look for to turn that around? Is it going to be the interest rate scenario you're describing?
Yes. We've never seen a market like this. It's worse than 2008 and 2009. Many technicians took a chart of the tech and telecom bubble and its bust and said, "That's what's going to happen." That has happened to us, and more. This is worse than the tech and telecom bust.
The difference between the two periods is that in the late '90s we entered an irrational market. Investors piled into technology stocks, trying to outcompete indexes and each other, and they ended up with 40% of the index in technology. But the technologies weren't ready. We didn't get cloud until 2006. We didn't get breakthroughs in deep learning until 2012. Not only were the technologies not ready, the costs were far too high. Sequencing the first whole human genome cost $2.7 billion. In 2003, one person's genome cost that much. Today it's around $500. The technologies are ready and the costs are low enough. The seeds of what we're investing in now were planted during the 20 years that ended in the tech and telecom bubble, which was irrational. I think we're on the flip side of that bubble now, and what's going on is irrational. Many of our stocks are below their lows from 2020, when COVID hit. Some are back to 2017 levels.
Take a company like Teladoc. Its revenues are up 14-fold since its IPO, and its gross margins are in the high 60s, moving toward the 70s. That compares with the Nasdaq's gross margin of 43%. That's the latent profitability I mentioned. The company has much more room to spend on building what will become the backbone of healthcare. It still loses money today. I'm getting back to this point: high-60s to low-70s gross margins. We believe this company's ultimate profitability will be superior, because it can become the healthcare information backbone of the United States, if not elsewhere. Compare its high-60s to low-70s gross margins with the Nasdaq's 43%. Yet I believe the stock sells for around two times revenue, while the Nasdaq trades at 3.25 times. That's as irrational on the downside as the upside was in the late '90s.
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