저자: KenFisher · 외국인
요약 보기
전쟁은 파괴 자체보다 글로벌 교역 교란을 통해 경기침체를 유발한다고 설명(호르무즈 해협 예시). 올해 인플레이션은 주요 중앙은행 통화증가율이 유지되는 한 현 수준 유지 전망. 채권 역할 변화에 대해 명확한 견해 없음. 가격가중지수(다우·닛케이)는 오해 소지가 있어 시가총액가중지수가 낫다고 주장. REIT는 부동산이 아닌 경기민감 주식으로 보고 포트폴리오 내 소액 편입 가능하다고 언급.
다듬은 글
War destroying stuff does not end a recession. War creates dislocation in global trade while it's going on, which creates recession. So, every month, people send me various kinds of questions and I try, but I'm largely unable, to answer them briefly. But I call this "the mailbag," and I print them up on a little card so that my aged eyes can read them, and try to whip you through them really fast, because if people send me these questions, you might be interested in them, too.
So, in a past video, you mentioned that a world war will cause a recession because it has a negative effect on global trade. I was taught that World War II ended the Great Depression. Does a world war create a recession or does it end a recession? Well, first, I think we all know that a lot of us were taught things in school that weren't exactly correct.
Once upon a time, they would have taught you in school that the world was flat. And we all know that's not right. The fact of the matter is, there was a view when I was young where a lot of people believed that World War II ended the so-called Great Depression, but in reality, that's not true. It's actually, if you get into the technicals of it, easy to see.
And that perception, for a long time, was just taught, and that's what you must have heard and must have been taught— or maybe you read a book or, I don't really know, but no, war destroying stuff does not end a recession; war creates dislocation in global trade while it's going on, which creates recession.
Now, let me just take a second. It is true that during war, countries get forced, because of what will happen with combat, to do a lot of activities that they otherwise wouldn't really want to do— make a lot more bombs, make a lot more bullets, manufacture a lot more guns, and all that stuff. And mind you, they're doing that for the purpose of the war.
Likewise, at that point in time, a country is paying a lot of people to be soldiers, let's say. In historic wars— less so now for, let's say, the United States, that is not very soldier intensive in the combat in which we engage— but that portion of engaging in the activity heavily so that you can prevail in the war is a temporary activity.
And when the war is over, that activity fades. The fact is, that is often confused with growing GDP. It is not because all those bombs and all those bullets all get used up and destroyed also. It's the dislocation in global trade of a world war, where you can't comfortably put stuff on a ship and send it around the world for fear that it's going to get blown to smithereens.
More so now in a world that's ever more global in trade than 100 years ago, when the world was still more global trade than people think it was. But if you just think about what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz right now, or I don't know, maybe that'll be over by the time you get this video. Ships don't want to take the oil out because of the conflict.
That's the dislocation. The dislocation causes recession. It is always true that world war—the Strait of Hormuz is not enough to cause recession by itself, because there's a lot of workarounds there, and I've written a lot about that, and you can read my writings in the <i>New York Post</i> or otherwise, where I show that that's not as big as people like to make it out to be.
That's not what I want to talk about here. The point being that the Strait of Hormuz is a micro example of what happens on a broader scale in a world war where commerce on a global basis gets decreased because you can't put things on planes and ships and send them to the other side of the world without fear of them being destroyed en route.
What do you think will happen with inflation this year? Increase, decrease or stay about the same? I'd say stay about the same. And the way to know that is what I talked about many, many times before. As long as central banks of the major nations—the big four blocs, US, Euro Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan—keep growing money at the same approximate rate that it has been going at, the rate of inflation will stay about the same as it's been.
Do you believe the role of bonds in portfolios is changing? Now, I'm going to say yes and no to that all at once. Let me take a second. This is one of those beauties in the eyes of the beholder thing. Some people think the role of bonds is this; some other people think the role of bonds in a portfolio is that.
I doubt that any of those people are really changing their minds very much about what the role of bonds in a portfolio is. What is 'price-weighted' mean and is that something investors should pay attention to? Price-weighted is a way to create a stock index, where stocks are ranked by their price per share, totaled up; that gives you a number.
And then, if there's any stock splits, they have a divisor that adjusts it so the index stays consistent over time with the before-split, after-split. The problem with the price-weighted index— and there are two major ones of them that you know of in the world, the Dow Jones Industrials and the Nikkei— the problem with the price-weighted index is that stocks that have a higher price per share actually do have a bigger impact in their movements than prices that have a lower price per share.
And that, of course, has nothing to do with economic reality or the size of the market. So therefore, they can for periods of years, and maybe forever, be somewhat misleading. From the time that I was very young, I was taught to never pay attention seriously to the Dow Jones Industrial Index because it's a price-weighted index, and instead, you should always favor cap-weighted indexes.
There are other index constructions also that are interesting, but price-weighted indexes really don't help you any. And price-weighted indexes are an old, old, old construction, because you could do them in the days before electronics with a hand-crank adding machine and a simple case of division and a pencil, so you could figure them out easily, and that's why the Dow Jones Industrial— and the other two Dow indexes—became so globally accepted.
But in today's world, other index constructions, principally market cap-weighted indexes, are a much better way to go. What are your thoughts on REITs? Are they a sound investment option? Yes, they're a sound investment option, but the fact of the matter, it's a stock. It's not real estate, so I don't think of it as real estate.
It's a stock that acts a particular way. It acts a lot like cyclicals. It acts a lot like cyclicals, like industrials and heavy manufacturing of consumer durable product that's got a lot of volatility to it. There's a place for it in the portfolio. It's not a huge weight, it's a little. People often buy it in their mind as a replacement for real estate, which it is not.
It does not correlate with real estate— and therefore, you need to think of it as a stock. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't quite act the way a lot of people try to treat it. Thank you for listening to my answer. Some of them I could get off pretty quickly and some of them I was simply unable to.
But thank you for listening to me. Send more questions. I'll try to answer them next month. Take care. Have a great .
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