The Market Crash is Starting.

요약 보기

OPEC+ 대규모 감산으로 유가가 재상승하며 5년 breakeven 인플레 기대가 급등, 이는 연준의 고금리 장기화(higher for longer)로 이어질 수 있다고 진단. 은행위기 우려로 금리인하 기대가 있으나 인플레 재가속 시 되돌림 위험. 시장 포지셔닝은 극단적으로 비관적이며, 모건스탠리 등은 실적 하향과 약세장 가능성 경고. 발언자는 성장주 중 가격결정력(pricing power) 있는 AI·에너지 기업을 선호하고 구글은 검색 매출 의존으로 우려, 유가는 2019년 이후 수요 감소 추세로 장기적 하락 가능성 언급.

다듬은 글

※ AI가 다듬은 글(오탈자·군말 정리)

01. 지금 유가 문제, 그리고 석유 감산이 사실상 인플레이션 기대를 밀어 올리고 있다고 볼 수 있습니다. 그래서 5년 기대 인플레이션율을 보겠습니다. 이건 물가연동국채와 일반 국채 5년물 금리의 차이입니다. 영어로 들으면 조금 어려울 수 있는데, 간단히 말해 이 차트가 높이 올라갈수록 제롬 파월 의장이 더 화가 난다고 보시면 됩니다.

02. 2월에 1월 물가 데이터가 뜨거웠던 이후 이 5년 손익분기 기대인플레이션이 크게 치솟았고, 연준은 상당히 공격적으로 나올 수밖에 없었습니다. 연준 인사들이 "금리를 더 오랫동안 높게 가져가겠다"는 메시지를 계속 내보냈죠. 12월에 말했던 최종금리 5.1%도 지금 다시 계산하면 훨씬 높게 올려야 할 것이라고 파월 의장이 직접 얘기하기도 했습니다. 물가 지표 중 연준이 가장 중시하는 PCE 손익분기 데이터가 좋게 나왔는데도 이 차트가 계속 오르는 이유가 뭘까요?

03. 지금 이게 올라가는 이유는 OPEC 플러스가 하루 100만 배럴 이상 감산에 나섰기 때문입니다. 브라질, 캐나다, 노르웨이, 미국은 생산을 늘리려고 하고 있지만, 그 증산 규모는 하루 10만 배럴 수준입니다. 반면 OPEC 플러스는 하루 100만 배럴을 줄이려 합니다. 왜일까요? 배럴당 더 많은 돈을 벌기 위해서입니다. OPEC의 목적 자체가 산유국의 이익을 극대화하는 것이니까요. 가격이 너무 떨어지면 함께 감산해서 가격을 다시 끌어올리는 방식이죠. 문제는 이게 상당히 인플레이션을 자극한다는 점입니다.

04. 이번에 감산이 더 빨리 나오지 않았던 이유 중 하나는 그동안 유가가 그렇게 크게 떨어지지 않았기 때문입니다. 푸틴이 우크라이나를 침공했을 때 찍었던 배럴당 120달러대의 거품 같은 정점을 빼면, 유가는 비교적 괜찮은 수준에서 오르내리고 있었습니다. 그런데 지난 분기에 유가가 급락해서, 2020년 4월 이후 최악의 분기를 기록했습니다.

05. Oil fell as much as 7% just last week, which is pretty wild. Let me rephrase that. Oil had its worst quarter since April 2020, but last week it didn't actually fall. We had a bit of a rally, because of the dispute between Iraq and Turkey. Some oil exports from the region were paused, and that pushed oil up 9% already. Now it's climbing another 6% on top of that. If oil production continues, maybe that 9% rally goes away and extinguishes the 6% we're seeing today. But the point is that a lot of news coverage is focused on what OPEC+ is doing, and not necessarily on what's going on between Iraq and Turkey.

06. Why does that matter? Much of oil pricing comes from speculation in the futures market. It's important because if people start believing oil is going to hit $100 a barrel, we'll start seeing that pricing in the market. We might not actually reach $100, but you do tend to see the trend move toward it. Right now Brent is at $84.43 and WTI is at about $80. Brent could move up another $10 to $95 on these OPEC production cuts. The problem is that as oil rises, inflation expectations unfortunately rise with it. That's why we're seeing the spike in breakevens over here.

07. The financial crisis fears have been fading. The banking crisis looked certain to destroy our economy, but this financial crisis seemed to be more of a passing moment. Hopefully the riskiest banks have now gone through their pain, and hopefully there aren't any other Silicon Valley Banks out there. But remember, hope is not an investing strategy, so you should always expect more banking crisis to come. This surge in breakevens today is clearly because of the oil production cuts at OPEC. It is inflationary. In fact, let me show you a chart, because it's pretty neat. It lines up inflation and oil prices, and the relationship is pretty obvious. This is a JP Morgan chart. US CPI, our inflation gauge, is on it along with Brent, the international oil benchmark. Not to be confused with WTI. The chart shows year-over-year gains. In some cases the black line, Brent, goes up first and then inflation follows. Keep in mind this is headline, not core, so energy's obvious role in headline inflation makes sense. The relationship isn't perfectly clear that one leads the other. But many of us will argue that if oil prices go up, inflation will go up too. Oil prices have come down and inflation has come down, which is great. But what happens if these production cuts push inflation back up? Then we're stuck with the higher-for-longer regime from the Federal Reserve, and we may have to undo some of the rate cuts the markets were pricing in.

08. After the banking crisis, markets started pricing in that the Fed will cut rates as soon as June because of it. By December they'd have cut a cumulative 100 basis points, which is one full percent, starting with a 25 bp cut potentially in June and more after that. That's been heavily priced in because of the banking crisis. But if the banking crisis turns out to be a nothing burger, and we go back to worrying about inflation, which gets accelerated by oil production cuts, then we end up with bigger problems. We're not in the kind of market right now where we want bigger problems.

09. So far, even though oil prices are largely speculative in futures pricing, markets aren't reacting too terribly. Some tech stocks are down a bit more than you'd expect. Tesla is down, and the Nasdaq is down about 0.6%, even after Tesla smashed its delivery expectations, which we'll talk about separately. I think the fear now is: banking crisis gone means maybe a lower chance of a Fed cut, maybe time to sell. But positioning in the stock market is already terribly low. Consider the data we talked about yesterday. Bank of America told us positioning in the stock market is at an 18-month low, and that cash positions for individuals are at a three-year high. Goldman Sachs says people haven't been this underallocated to stocks since the early 2000s. That's potentially a 20-year low allocation to stocks. Goldman's surveys suggest 85% of their clients are either bearish or neutral on stocks, which has them asking, where are the bulls?

10. On one hand, this would seem like bad news if we get more inflationary pressure and have to undo the rate cuts we're pricing in. Stocks should fall. But if stocks have so little allocation and people are already so bearish, is it possible the market can hold up? Bitcoin might be a somewhat leading indicator here, and it doesn't seem to care that much. What's remarkable about Bitcoin is that it's been sitting at the $28,200 level, one of its Fibonacci retracement lines off the low of $15,400. That's a fantastic sign that the fears of an oil price disaster may be a little overblown. I'm not entirely sure, but it's a good potential indicator if you believe Bitcoin pricing reflects market pricing. Bitcoin has an open order book 24/7, while the stock market, even with pre- and after-market trading, has so little liquidity that sometimes Bitcoin can be a good indicator. This wouldn't be a sign of fear, though.

11. Larry Summers says there's a 50% chance of repeating the banking crisis. That could lead to fears that alongside a new banking crisis we end up with sticky inflation. We could even be in an environment where the Fed is still doing quantitative tightening while cutting interest rates. You wonder which will be worse, and it's possible quantitative tightening could be worse. You could have low rates and a tightening cycle, which would confuse markets, because even the Fed itself doesn't know what quantitative tightening will end up doing to the economy. When there's confusion in the stock market, stocks tend to go down, so that will be quite interesting.

12. At the same time, the European Central Bank is warning. We have inflation concerns that could turn out sticky, we have some financial woes, and on top of that the real estate fund market in Europe has tripled over the last 10 years. It's a $1.1 trillion market. If there's a surge in redemption requests, which we've already been seeing in America, you could see housing and commercial real estate inventory rise, leading to real estate pain. As Robert Shiller told us, it's not actually stocks going down that affect people's spending. It's real estate spending, or real estate net worth, that affects people's willingness to spend. That's scary, because if that's true, the real pain is still ahead.

13. If that real estate pain comes to fruition, we get the real EPS pain. Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson has been pounding the table about this for months, suggesting we're probably going down once company earnings forecasts come in accurately, based on the spending we expect, and people have run through their excess savings. That's been Morgan Stanley's view, and it's not only him. Another Morgan Stanley piece came out this morning. Given the events of the past few weeks, they think guidance looks more and more unrealistic, and equity markets are at greater risk of pricing in much lower earnings estimates ahead. They say this is typically how bear markets end: P/E multiples fall precipitously and unexpectedly, catching many investors off guard. The recent underperformance of small caps and low-quality stocks suggests this could be imminent. So now Morgan Stanley is basically saying a massive stock market crash is imminent. Oil price cuts and inflation fears are starting that, along with uncertainty about whether we'll get more of a banking crisis. And there are too many indicators lining up for Morgan Stanley to be comfortable. The inverted yield curve has never been wrong before, so why would it be wrong now? JP Morgan reiterates this too. Their inverted yield curve chart shows the consensus view for a soft landing, but the yield curve so far has never been wrong. The question then is whether a soft landing could just be a shallow recession, a little baby recession. But will a baby recession be enough to bring inflation down? That's the big question, because if you can't get rid of inflation, you end up with higher for way longer, and nobody's looking forward to that.

14. So how do we reconcile all this? I've been pretty heavily of the mindset that the best way through this is with pricing-power stocks. A Goldman Sachs analyst made an interesting point in a bull case for tech. If growth becomes scarce, meaning overall market growth slows and companies in staples, defensives like real estate, health care and utilities, and even some discretionary names slow down, and we end up with a growth scare where many S&P 500 stocks start to suffer, then what does well in a low-growth environment? Goldman goes as far as suggesting tech will be the survivor. When growth is lacking everywhere, investors go back to growth stocks, which are mostly tech right now. I'd refine that further: I suggest you want pricing-power tech, and that's where I like to invest, in what I'd call the miners of pricing power, AI, which to me are high free cash flow companies potentially getting big government checks, whether that's energy like an endphase, autonomy plays, or AI plays like Nvidia. I think these are great opportunities and have pricing power.

15. Some people say, "Kevin, what about Google?" But I get really worried about Google, as we talked about in the course member livestream last week. You can get lifetime access to those livestreams, linked below. Google gets 69% of its revenue from search. How on earth can Google do well from AI if 69% of its revenue vanishes? Yes, they could grow AI income, but you're starting from zero, whereas the bulk of your income is search-based advertising. If AI replaces 50% of search, you've lost about 34 to 35% of your revenue. If AI replaces the need to ever use a search engine, you've lost 69% of your revenue, and good luck growing from there. Suddenly you go from looking cheap, a value play on your multiples, to being a value trap, where people are actually paying five times the multiple they think they're paying today. Those are scary things to keep in mind. Fundamental analysis is a lot more than plugging data into an app, looking at the outcome, and saying the P/E ratio looks good, so I've advised this stock. The story has to make sense too, and right now it doesn't for Google. That's not to say Google can't float up with the rest of the equity market. But all in all, these things create nervousness. Personally, I think most of the inflation concerns will mean we need more patience, but that we continue in a downtrend, and that fluctuations in oil prices will be offset by the fact that oil and natural gas demand has been declining since 2019.

16. 2019년에 석유 수요가 정점을 찍었고, 지금 우리는 생산을 늘리려고 노력하고 있습니다. 하지만 OPEC+만큼 생산을 늘릴 수는 없어서 완전히 상쇄하지는 못합니다. 그래서 어느 정도 가격 상승은 있겠지만, 문제는 그중 얼마가 순수한 투기인가 하는 겁니다. 만약 얕은 경기침체라도 오면 유가는 훨씬 더 떨어질 수 있습니다.

17. 참고로 올해 초 유가가 부진했던 이유 중 하나는, 2020년 4월 이후 가장 나쁜 분기를 기록했기 때문입니다. 2020년 4월은 한 달이었고 이번에는 분기 단위로 비교하는 거지만, 그때의 하락폭은 정말 미친 수준이었습니다. 요점은 이번 1분기가 유가에게 꽤 나빴다는 겁니다. 한동안 이렇게 나쁜 적이 없었어요.

18. 그 이유 중 하나는 중국 경기 재개가 유가와 원자재 가격을 급등시킬 거라는 투기였습니다. 제가 12월에 테이블을 치면서 "그건 말도 안 된다, 일어나지 않을 거다"라고 말했었는데, 역시나 일어나지 않았습니다.

19. 이제는 OPEC이 감산을 하든 말든 언젠가는 OPEC이 무의미해질 거라는 투기가 있습니다. 물론 단기적으로는 여전히 아주 중요하죠. 그래서 헤드라인 인플레이션을 자극하는 요인이 분명히 있고, 그 상당 부분은 유가 투기에 기반한 것이라고 봅니다. 따라서 이것은 하방 리스크입니다. 다만 일시적이기를 바랍니다. 이 말은 별로 쓰고 싶지 않지만, 유가가 100달러까지 간다는 투기가 단기 랠리로 이어지고, 그다음 사람들이 1월에 그랬어야 했던 것처럼 차익실현을 하기 시작할 가능성도 충분합니다. 1월에 이 분기가 시작되기 전에 유가가 고점을 찍었던 것처럼요. 두고 봐야 합니다.

20. 이 기회에 다시 한 번 알려드립니다. 밋케빈 닷컴에 가입하시거나 meetkevin.com에 오시면 제가 하는 모든 것을 보실 수 있습니다. 제휴 링크, 제가 운용하는 ETF, 부동산이나 주식, 심리에 관한 강의도 있습니다. 저는 제 전략을 굳건히 지키고 있습니다. 말한 대로 실천해서, 제 돈을 모두 PP, 즉 가격 결정력(pricing power) 주식에 넣어두었습니다. 앞으로도 잘 되리라 생각합니다. 두고 보죠. 저는 낙관적입니다. 여러분도 그러시길 바라고, 우리가 맞기를 바랍니다. 감사합니다.