저자: CathieWood · 외국인
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인플레이션은 실질적으로 2% 미만이며 금 랠리는 펀더멘털보다 지정학적 불안 때문. 감세·규제완화·감가상각 혜택으로 미국 투하자본수익률이 상승하고 레이건 시대를 능가하는 생산성 호황 진입. AI 버블 우려는 부정적이며 데이터센터 투자가 2배 이상 늘어날 것으로 봄. 달러 강세 가능성을 언급하며 이는 금 가격 하락 요인으로 봄. 자동화 실업 우려는 과도하다고 봄.
다듬은 글
We realize around the world that President Trump's um uh behavior and certainly uh what he's proposing about Greenland, what has happened in Venezuela and so forth that is causing great concern and so uh gold is a refuge. We're looking forward to a very good year this year for the markets. We like the fact that the wall of worry is still intact and that a lot of geopolitical disturbances are uh are um continuing that wall of worry.
Uh but we think the resolution is going to be uh for a very good year. Kathy Wood lays out one of her most optimistic macro and market outlooks in years. She argues that the global economy is entering a productivity-driven boom characterized by surprisingly low underlying inflation, a surge in capital investment, and the early stages of what she calls a historic technology revolution.
According to Wood, investors are misinterpreting many of today's signals, especially gold's rally and fears of an AI bubble while underestimating the profound impact of deregulation, tax reform, and five converging innovation platforms: , blockchain, and multiomic sequencing. Her core thesis is that the United States is on the cusp of a powerful growth phase resembling and potentially exceeding the Reagan era expansion turbocharged by technological change and pro-investment polic.
Thanks and enjoy the video. This year's is the best. This idea of a productivitydriven boom in activity evolving this year. surprisingly low inflation and we got a true inflation reading today of 1.5%. Uh we really do believe that inflation is already in an underlying sense is already below 2%. Oil prices, home prices, rents, uh productivity, uh and unit labor costs, unit labor costs are up only 1.2% 2% now on a year-over-year basis.
Uh now in the 60s and 70s there was something called cost push inflation and we saw wage demands uh go up dramatically as inflation went up. Um well the demands may be there today but they're not getting through. So we're seeing 2% increase in productivity and uh compensation per manh hour is not rising uh uh above the sort of 3% 3 12% rate where it has been uh for the last few years.
Uh so there's no cost push inflation. I think that's getting through to the Fed now. The gold price has been ripping of course and many people are trying to understand what that is all about if not inflation. Gold relative to M2 going back to the 1920s. Gold relative to M2 uh has been higher only once in history in that more than or roughly hundredyear history.
uh and that was during the great depression when the gold price was fixed at $2067 but money growth collapsed collapsed by 30%. Uh now certainly we are not in that situation today. This is different. Uh the last peak was [snorts] in the early8s uh and we have just surpassed that peak. That peak was all about doubledigit inflation and gold being one of the best hedges.
We're not there either. I think what's going on is uh we are climbing a wall of worry. There's a barbell strategy out there, it seems, where investors, if they're moving into the equity market, uh, they'll balance it out with gold and or if they're moving into the bond market, balance with gold, especially given the geopolitical situation.
We realize around the world that President Trump's um uh behavior and certainly uh what he's proposing about Greenland, what has happened in Venezuela and so forth that is causing great concern and so uh gold is a refuge and we think that's um an important part of what's going on as well as central banks uh diversifying into gold and may be away from uh US Treasury bills and the dollar.
uh we believe that uh gold is overextended. If you take a look at that chart and if you look at what happened to gold in the 80s when we were in um regonomics uh which we believe today is not just an echo of re regonomics but perhaps regonomics turbocharged with deregulation, tax cuts. the tariffs are are passing through and and we're going to get rid of uh that source of inflation and that tax we believe uh as it washes through the system.
Uh so we are also looking at um what we believe will turn into peace through strength the defense buildup around the world. It's not just the US anymore. Uh and so we think that uh we're going to move into um a bigger productivity boom and uh that the return on investment in the United States is going to increase relative to that in the rest of the world.
In the 80s that drove the dollar up. It went up almost twofold in a very short period of time. So we would not be surprised to see the dollar go up. And you know, gold is priced in dollars. Uh we think that will take the gold price down. We're looking forward to a very good year this year for the markets.
We like the fact that the wall of worry is still intact and that a lot of geopolitical disturbances are uh are um continuing that wall of worry. Uh but we think the resolution is going to be uh for a very good year uh because as we started out uh saying in the letter there are a lot of coiled springs uh waiting to be released this year uh especially housing and manufacturing which has been negative for 3 years and capital spending.
So this idea that we're in an AI hype cycle, we don't think so. And you'll see in the letter how capital spending as measured by non-defense capital goods orders X aircraft uh that it peaked regularly at a given level. I think it was $70 billion. That's a monthly rate uh over the various cycles since the tech and telecom bubble.
and it has just broken out of that and we think it's just begun. Wood directly addresses concerns about job losses due to automation and AI. Her position is clear. Technology is historically a net job creator. She cites the early 1990s when developers building the internet could not have imagined companies like Uber or Airbnb.
Entire industries and job categories emerged that no one predicted. She believes the same will happen with AI. She argues that immutable digital property rights could be one of the most powerful poverty reduction tools in history, bringing secure ownership into the digital realm for the first time. While she acknowledges a troubling rise in unemployment among 16 to 24 year olds, now around 12%, she views this as a transitional issue rather than a structural end state.
Kathy Wood's message is both bold and internally consistent. the world is standing at the front edge of a productivity-driven economic boom that most investors are not yet prepared to fully appreciate. I think um we we're very focused on uh the deregulation, lower taxes, and what we believe will be lower inflation, much lower inflation and lower interest rates in the US.
uh and we think the the the combination of those is actually going to drive the returns on invested capital in the US up relative to those in the rest of the world. And I think many people are underestimating especially on the corporate tax side that thanks to the new uh depreciation schedules our effective corporate tax rate not not the statutory but the effective uh will drop to one of the lowest in the world at roughly 10%.
Uh certainly near a record low for the US. So do you think Kathy that's not priced in yet to US equities? like have investors not realized that and therefore it's not priced in you know it's it's very interesting maybe a lot of your guests have been talking about the depreciation schedules how uh how massively they are going to encourage uh capital investment here in the United States so we've never had full depreciation in year one of uh manufacturing facilities full depreciation in the first year of service.
Uh that means corporations will get huge tax refunds that they will be able to reinvest uh into innovation because we also equipment domestic R&D and um software those three full depreciation first year of service that has been legislated. Normally we get oh a few years of this uh you know this cut and that cut but that has been legislated.
Now it's all the time. So uh we don't think people understand how profound some of these tax changes are. So what does that mean for something like the AI trade specifically Kathy where I think people are worried about pockets of it with a you know being in a bit of a bubble. um does it benefit everyone who is somehow associated whether it's the chip companies whether it's the energy companies do you see the benefits playing out there and and giving it more uh room to move to the upside absolutely absolutely I mean we're having huge buildouts of data centers and power facilities all of that uh all of those depreciation schedules will apply um to this boom in investment and contribute to it.
So, yes, anything. In fact, Carol Yeah, I was just gonna say many people think we're in a bubble and yes, the data center spending last year was about $500 billion and you can see all of this in our big ideas report. We just released it yesterday and thank you Bloomberg for featuring it. But $500 billion is a two half times increase from where it had been trending for years.
Uh so big increase, no doubt about it. But we think that number needs to go to 1.4 trillion in the next five years to accommodate the AI boom uh that is now underway and is going to drive productivity gains incredibly. I want to get into that in just a moment. I'm really also peaked or interested in in the healthc care aspect of it because I feel like there's a lot going on.
Before we do so, you we also um have your 2026 outlook and what's interesting is you note that this is an important economic historical moment. How so? Well, we are in a technology revolution. Uh and many people thought that the internet was a technology revolution and to some extent it was. Um but today instead of just one major platform evolving we have five.
So robotics, energy storage, AI, blockchain technology and multiomic sequencing in the life science space which might which we believe is the most profound application of AI healthc care. Uh and so this boom, if you look back at the railroad boom, uh the amount of investment uh that that uh that we saw back then was about 6% of GDP at its peak, 5 to 6%.
Uh the internet boom was more like the auto boom in the early 1900s. Uh was more in the 3 to 4% of GDP range. We believe this uh this five platform innovation uh strategy or or or boom uh is going to move to 12% of GDP and we do believe also that uh productivity growth will accelerate to the 4 to 6% range and be sustained there.
Normally we see a cyclical peak around there and and then it falls back. We think it will be sustained and we think that by the end of this decade real GDP growth could be averaging uh more than 7% per year and I know that sounds shocking given that we've been at 3% for 125 years um but it is the history associated with technology revolutions a step change up in GDP growth
the productivity increase the GDP growth that that you are forecasting as a result of these disruptive technologies. To what extent is that the result of fewer people doing more? My question is about job losses as a result of this technology because if everything that investors are betting on when it comes to this AI revolution comes true, it means that companies aren't going to need as many people to do a lot more.
What does that look like? Well, uh GDP growth at 7% plus per year tells you there's going to be a lot of economic activity, more economic activity, uh uh on a from a sustained growth point of view than we've seen in quite some time. The history of technology is it's a net job creator. uh in the early 90s when developers were evolving the internet, we could not have imagined Uber or Airbnb back then.
Uh and I think the same is true now. We cannot imagine the kinds of jobs uh that are going to exist in the future. And the other thing that we're excited about from a job creation point of view uh is we're seeing new worlds being created. And by that I mean most of us think about earth. Uh but now uh we're moving into space.
Even data centers we think Elon uh leading that charge will start moving into space and we won't have the not in my backyard and the bureaucracy associated with data centers. There are going to there's going to be huge job creation around the space exploration and all of the opportunities out there.
And then the other one and you'll find this in uh our digital assets section of big ideas uh is the digital world immutable private property rights. Uh we know from economic history the best way to lift people and countries out of poverty is with private property rights that are immutable. Well, that is now moving into the digital world for the first time thanks to blockchain technology.
So, we're not worried about job creation. But for those who are, because there is something happening uh that I know is concerning to many people, uh the the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds, right, has moved to 12%. 12% big increase. She argues that inflation is already below target, that gold's rally reflects fear rather than fundamentals, and that the US is entering a pro-investment, pro- ininovation phase reminiscent of, but potentially far stronger than the Reagan era.
Far from being an AI bubble, she sees today's surge in capital spending as the first inning of a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure and technology buildout. Combined with unprecedented tax incentives and deregulation, she believes this will dramatically raise returns on invested capital in the United States relative to the rest of the world.
Her long-term vision is extraordinary. sustained productivity growth, structurally higher GDP growth, a renaissance in manufacturing and housing, and a technological transformation touching everything from healthcare to digital property rights. At the same time, she cautions that fear and geopolitical anxiety are still dominating investor psychology.
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