저자: HowardMarks · 외국인
요약 보기
결론: 저수익 환경에서 고수익을 얻는 현실적 방법은 없고, 레버리지나 위험 확대는 신중해야 하며, 시장은 아직 회복 초기로 보인다. [시장 사이클 위치] 현재 경기 회복은 약 4~5개월 된 초기 단계로, 경제는 2회차 정도이며 주식시장은 6~7회차에 해당한다고 보았다. 시장은 사상 최고치지만 펀더멘털은 보통 수준이고, 주식시장은 경제보다 앞서 간다고 평가했다. 이번 침체는 팬데믹이라는 외생 충격이라 정상 사이클과 다르므로 회복 기간을 단정하기 어렵다고 했다. [자산 가격과 금리] 연준이 무위험금리를 끌어내리면서 자산배분 선(자본시장선)이 아래로 내려갔고, 모든 자산군의 기대수익률이 낮아졌다. 연금 등 기관은 대체투자로 이동했으며, 채권·주식 모두 수익률이 매우 낮은 수준이다. [저수익 환경의 대응 5가지] 첫째, 기존 방식 유지(수익률 저하 수용). 둘째, 위험 축소(수익률 더 하락). 셋째, 전량 현금화(수익 0). 넷째, 위험 확대(불확실성 속 고위험). 다섯째, 특별한 틈새나 뛰어난 인재 발굴(알파). 다섯째가 가장 좋지만 찾기 어렵다고 했다. [레버리지] 2008년 금융위기는 레버리지 효과의 대표 사례였다. 레버리지는 수익과 손실을 같은 비율로 키울 뿐 비대칭을 만들지 못하며, 버틸 능력을 떨어뜨린다. 좋은 투자는 잘되면 크게 벌고 못되면 적게 잃는 비대칭을 추구해야 한다고 강조했다. [분산과 알파] 레버리지나 집중투자는 결과가 좋으면 도움이 되지만 나쁘면 해가 되는 양날의 검이다. 진짜 알파(뛰어난 실력과 통찰)만이 좋을 때와 나쁠 때 모두 도움이 된다. [리스크] 지정학·정치적 불확실성, 펀더멘털 불확실성, 정부 지원 중단 우려, 회복이 기대에 못 미칠 가능성. [출연자 전망] 현재 시장은 회복 초기 또는 중반으로 보며 단기 방향은 단정하지 않는다. 장기적으로는 저수익 환경이 이어질 것으로 본다.
다듬은 글
Or, fifth, you can try looking for exceptions. What I call special niches, special people who can hopefully provide good returns with security in a low- return world. But these people are truly exceptional and not easy to find. What inning do you think our current cycle is in? And have we started a new game?
The first person to ask this question in this cycle. Eh, I have n't really thought about it . You know, it's, it's, it's extremely difficult, uh , to answer this question today. Uh, we usually think that the market has certain ebbs and flows, and uh, and that the cycles, uh, vary in detail, vary in duration, amplitude, speed, but certain things tend to repeat themselves or at least rhyme , as Mark Twain said.
Uh, and you know, what usually happens is that we have, uh, a growth cycle. We have increasing optimism, increasing risk tolerance, increasing positive feelings because the growth cycle is so beneficial, and prices are increasing , and eventually overvaluation, and the same thing happens in the economy.
We have overexpansion, overhiring, and overuse of debt, etc. Then everything changes, and we get a downward movement, and we get, uh, falling prices, and, uh , worse corporate results, and a deterioration in psychology, and, uh, a shift from greed to fear, and, uh, we also get an economic deterioration.
This is a normal cycle. And that's, I think, the best way to think about the economic cycle and the market cycle, the surpluses and corrections, the surpluses and corrections, and, uh, a lot of the change is endogenous. They occur in the economy and within the market. It is unique because it is exogenous.
These were not the excesses of markets and economies. It was a pandemic. We had a recovery. It was, in essence, a healthy recovery. It was a slow gradual recovery, the longest in history, but the slowest in post-war history. And, uh, and not too much surplus in the economy or even in the market. Uh, but then we had a pandemic, and the pandemic required us to shut down the economy to keep people apart and control the spread, and we had the worst quarter in history.
The second quarter was down 33 % year-over-year , eh. So it's very difficult to say which inning we are in. Uh, since this is not a routine game, I would say...Uh, we're at the beginning, we know we're only about four to five months into the economic recovery. We believe that the recovery will last at least as long as it takes to return the economy to 2019 GDP levels.
Uh, there are now some doubts about Washington's inability to provide support payments. Uh, there are some doubts about whether the recovery will live up to everyone's expectations. But I think we are in the process of recovery. But you know, the interesting thing is that we've never had a normal recession.
We had an artificially induced recession. Are we still dealing with a normal recession, or, uh, has the whole cycle reset, and since it's only five months old, we still have years ahead of us? I don't think anyone can say, uh, and you know, how much, uh, the Fed, the Treasury, and the recovery will restore people's liquidity and their, uh, uh, willingness to consume , uh, and how much, uh, life will go back to the way it always was, is very uncertain.
So, I, uh, you know, I think we're, uh, in the second inning, uh, relative to the economy. Of course, the market is at an all-time high, uh, despite negative fundamentals, uh, or, I would say, modest fundamentals. Uh, this comparison makes me think more, and I would say the market growth will happen in the sixth or seventh inning.
But who can say whether if the economy is, uh, favorable for the next, uh, 5 years in an upward trend, the market will feel pretty good. Although I think the recovery from the historic lows , uh, in March was very dramatic. And it seems to me that most of us, like the market, are ahead of the economy.
Yes. Howard, uh, to follow up on that , uh, it was an extremely interesting and diverse restoration, uh, across different styles and classes. One of the things you read about in the memorandum is risk-adjusted returns. Er, which, of course, in a sense brings us back to the academic notion of the rate of sharp profit.
Of course, the sharp profit ratio cannot be " eaten", right? And you can't spend the steep profit margin, right? We need, we need a requirement to achieve the required rate of return. There are a small number of ways to achieve this. Uh, what are your thoughts on whether we are being paid correctly at the right level today, and I like how you mention the capital market line in the memorandum , so it fits nicely into my lecture notes.
So thank you for that. This is great. But then there's one thing that goes into this, which is the dispersion across sectors, which is really unusual, uh , with growth, for example, in large- cap stocks that are thriving, but there's still, uh, a large number of industries and sectors that are in deep trouble.
Well, uh, Chris, this is a reference to the capital market line. Uh, if you imagine a graph with return on the vertical axis and risk on the horizontal axis, we have a point on the left where, at zero risk, you have the risk-free rate. And these are usually 30-day bills that have no credit risk and no inflation risk.
And that's the lowest return you can get on anything . As you move up from this level of risk, the expected return should increase. People should not invest in riskier assets unless they are expected to yield higher returns than safe assets. So , the line goes at an angle to the left, it goes up and to the right.
Uh, we call this a positive correlation, a positive relationship between risk and expected return. Um, and you know that it's when this line is moving up and to the right at a reasonable rate that we say the market is in equilibrium. And if all asset classes are on the line, we say they are in equilibrium because they are in reasonable correlation with each other in terms of risk-adjusted returns.
As risk increases, so does profitability, and this is the only right thing to do. Nothing else would make sense. The problem today is that the Fed has taken this risk-free rate, which is here. This is the point where all yields start and end, and they pulled it down. And when you drag the risk-free bet down the left axis, the line also drops.
Sometimes it does not fall parallel. Sometimes different parts of the line fall more than others. This slope can increase or decrease. Here the slope of the line is the risk premium. Uh, and, uh, but the point is, I think that, uh, most asset classes, uh, seem to be in balance with each other. Risk-free rates seem, uh, proportional.
The return seems to be proportional to the risk. But the problem is that all incomes are at a very low level today. And as I said, you know, a pension fund that needs seven has difficulty getting it today in stocks and bonds. And most of them abandoned this and invested heavily in alternative investments due to their illiquidity, dependence on managers, etc.
Now the main question I usually talk about is how do you achieve high returns in a low return world? What to do in a world with low returns? And here I am...I've come up with five possibilities, and I can't think of any more. You can continue to invest as usual and understand that your returns will be lower than ever.
You can worry about asset price levels, reduce your risk to cushion the blow if a correction occurs , but then your returns will be even lower. You can go all the way to cash in for final preparation for a correction, but then your profitability will be zero. And you better get it done quickly, because if you have cash for 2 years and the market is growing, you can look for another job or new clients.
Instead of reducing risk, you can go in the opposite direction. You can increase your risk in pursuit of higher returns. But is now the time to increase risk when there is a lot of uncertainty about fundamentals, geopolitical, political uncertainty in addition to economic? Or, fifth, you can try to look for exceptions: what I call special niches, special people who, hopefully, can provide good returns with security in a world of low returns.
But these people are truly exceptional and not easy to find. Yes. Uh, really, it has to be an alpha in a certain sense. This is hard to find. Uh, what you...we were talking about together when you...we were so lucky to have you on campus about the use of leverage, and, uh , in some cases you were against it, in other cases maybe not.
Uh, with low returns, uh, there might be a temptation to, uh , leverage the portfolio, and of course the theory is that you can move along the capital market line by adding capital structure to the investment, reducing leverage or increasing it. Uh, what is your practical opinion on using leverage today?
Well, after, I mean, the global financial crisis of 2008, it was really, uh, a demonstration of the leverage effect. Because, uh, the world was essentially taking mostly mortgage-backed securities, but also loans, to some extent, uh, corporate loans, and investing them in credit organizations , structured credit organizations , uh, CLOs, cos RMBBS, etc.
And so what they did was they had internal leverage, meaning you could buy a highly leveraged asset at the bottom of the structure with an extremely high leveraged return, or you could buy the top of the structure where , uh, you're not participating in the leverage with a low, safe return, provided by a younger mind.
And, uh, what happened was, you know, when you leverage, you say, "If this happens, I'll be great." If that happens, I'll still be okay . If that happens, I'll probably survive it. And the result in terms of mortgage defaults was a multiple of the worst case that anyone had modeled. And after the global financial crisis, I published a memorandum called "uh, leverage plus volatility equals dynamite." And you know, there have been many, uh, thousands of defaults on mortgage-backed securities, uh, because, uh, because of excessive leverage, uh, and people need to understand that leverage does not make any investment better.
It increases profits if you win and losses if you lose. Uh , and so, you know, I think that in order to make an investment better, you need to increase what I call asymmetry. The goal of active investing should be to seek asymmetry. Situations where if things go well, you will make a lot of money, and if things go badly, you will not lose much.
And if you can find them, that's the holy grail. If you find an investment where, if everything goes well, you make 30% and if it goes badly, you lose 30% . You know, that's not very good. We are looking for this asymmetry. And, uh, leverage doesn't create asymmetry. It creates absolute symmetry. It increases profits if you win and losses if you lose.
But there is another aspect that is not symmetrical , namely that it reduces the likelihood that you will be able to survive difficult times. So I can say that if there is a downward swing, an unleveraged portfolio will get through it, whereas a leveraged portfolio may not. So I think you know that leverage is far from a magic solution.
Um, and most, uh, most of the real, uh, challenges in economic history have come about because of people overestimating their ability to weather hard times with leveraged structures. So live by the sword, and die by the sword. That's right. And actually, if you think about it, Chris, an example of leverage in investing is everything except alpha.
If, if a person truly has alpha, which I define as superior skill and insight, then it will help them in both good and bad times . But other things like leverage, concentration, as opposed to diversification...Uh, those are double- edged swords. They help if the results are good, but they hurt if the results are bad. Hmm , I agree.
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