저자: MohamedEl-Erian · 외국인
요약 보기
기술주 반등에도 시장 전반은 주춤하며, 연초 기술주 부진과 에너지 강세의 로테이션은 펀더멘털 뒷받침이 부족해 추종에 신중해야 한다고 주장. AI 승자는 소수일 것이며 Google처럼 자금 조달 여력이 있는 기업을 선호. 변동성 확대로 과잉반응이 많아 선별적 접근 필요, 사적신용은 신흥국에서 시장 비효율 기회를 봄. 고용 전망은 -1만~13.5만명으로 불확실, 4% GDP 성장과 노동시장 괴리 지적. 워시 연준은 데이터 의존에서 전방지향으로 전환하고 생산성 증가를 근거로 금리 인하 여지를 열어둘 것으로 봄. 시장은 6월 이후 인상 확률 60%를 반영 중.
다듬은 글
Those tech stocks may be attempting or a comeback, but markets overall are not coming back again today after uh Friday's rebound. I was looking at the year-to- date numbers. Tech stocks the worst performers in the S&P, energy stocks the best performers, and we have seen that rotation here, but as you wrote in a a piece this weekend for Yahoo Finance, um maybe people shouldn't be jumping on that rotation bandwagon.
Why not? So, good morning, Julie. Thank you for having me. Look, we we're coming from a very strong couple of years for tech and rightly so. It was the AI theme. Um there's a sense that this was a little bit overdone. It was too generalized. So people are being recommended to rotate. Go to anti- AI stocks.
That's what you'll hear over and over again. That's why the Dow is having such a good year. That's why non US is having such a good year. I'm just cautious because in order for the rotation trade to work, it needs to be supported by a fundamental theme and not just by a technical theme. And it's hard to find one.
I'd much rather investors exploit structural opportunities. I'd much rather investors exploit tactical opportunities. For example, the AI selloff has been pretty indiscriminate, but there will be a handful of AI winners. Um, so look more into the structural and opportunistic space and be careful of this automatic reaction to simply rotate into something that's not last year.
I I think that um investors are really struggling with where those AI winners and losers are going to be. That's part of maybe part of the reason why we're seeing this indiscriminate selling. Um, and listen, I know that you're not a tech investor per se, Muhammad, but just sort of in terms of criteria, in terms of process, how do people try and figure that out?
So, there are certain names I'm highly confident about. Why? Because they have exactly as you say, certain characteristics. Think of Google. Google both has a vertical stack and horizontal stack. It can self- finance a lot of its investment. It cannot be held hostage by the market. it can monetize its investment easier.
So there are certain names that you can make a very strong fundamental argument for. There are other names that are much more speculative. Open AAI is a much more spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe speculative AI play than Google is. So you can look at these characteristics and ask the question how resilient is my investment?
Is there balance sheet strength? Is there human resilience? And how quickly can this company monetize? What are enormous investment? Last week alone, two companies announced 400 billion of capex this year. These are very large numbers, Julie. They are very large numbers. And you know, a lot of folks come on the show and they say, um, maybe you don't need to make a bet on who's going to win and lose necessarily, but you can invest in what everybody has been calling the picks and shovels, right?
The infrastructure. And some of that is in those places people have been rotating to, right? industrials for example that service um or the grid for example you know various plays on that do you think that's a a way to look as well at this whole situation it is a way to look um but if you do so just make sure you you know what the adoption policy is what the diffusion policy is there's two parts of AI the one we mostly focus on it is the frontier models those working on AI but monetization of these things you talked about is about something else completely.
It's about those working with AI. How will adoption happen? Will it be even? Will it be fast? How inclusive will it be? So if you are in this space, make sure that you know what diffusion phenomenon you are betting on because we may not get the sort of diffusion that a [clears throat] lot of people are assuming when they go and go to all the these opportunities that you're talking about.
And Muhammad, when you talk about also looking for um things that are sort of broken in the market, you gave one um example there, things maybe that have been oversold indiscriminately. Um how do you sort of define broken though more broadly and how people try to look for those opportunities in the market?
So when you have massive volatility and you've been talking about massive single name volatility, we've also had quite a bit of index volatility, but when you have volatility, and that's one of the three themes for this year, what you're going to see is overreactions both on on the way up and the way down.
So good stocks will sell indiscriminately and bad stocks will go up. So you've got to be much more selective. And then there's the opportunity of completing markets. For example, if you are part of the surge into private credit in advanced economies, ask yourself what how am I competing a market? You're not competing a market.
There's so much money going in there. If you want private credit, go into emerging economies where there's much less capital. There's a market failure. The local banks are not able to lend to good companies. You can get a ton of collateral and you can get paid a thousand basis points over the public market equivalent.
So ask yourself the question, what market imperfection am I addressing or what overreaction am I addressing? And I think that you'll see this over it explains why the macro funds have had such a good January is that that is how they are wired. And I think that this year is going to be this year of volatility in which there's going to be a lot of opportunities but a lot of risks on the way up as well.
Um, you mentioned macro and and I you're you're historically a macro guy. So, I do want to ask you about the two big reports this week. Um, one on the job market that is coming on Wednesday, one on consumer inflation that's coming Friday. And there too, do you think that perceptions of the US economy are broken right now or do you think that what do you think the folks are sort of getting wrong as we ramp up for that data?
So on the employment report, it's it's really striking the range of estimates. So the the medium forecast, if you like, is a job creation of 70,000 last month. The range, Julie, is minus 10,000 to 135,000. Wow. So that's an enormous range. And it tells you that we're not quite understanding the labor market.
And there's a good reason for that is that if you step back, Julie, we have this phenomenon of job growth decoupling from GDP growth. So we we are an economy that's growing by 4% a year. That's really good, but we're worried about a weak labor market. That is an issue. So I'm going to be looking at the internals, seeing is it a supply issue in the labor market?
Is it a demand issue? on inflation. It is critical that goods inflation doesn't go up too much as service inflations comes down and that's what I'm going to be looking at in terms of the CPI report on Friday. Um so when we are looking at what the Fed might do this year um you know under Kevin Worsh assuming that he does end up getting confirmed when all is said and done as the next head of the Fed.
Um, how do you think a Worsh Fed is going to be reacting? You know, we were looking at I don't think anybody's expecting, for example, a change in rates at the next meeting or maybe under, you know, under PAL that the PAL Fed is sort of done. What do you think the worst Fed looks like? So, the market doesn't expect a change in rates until June after the new chair comes in if if everything goes well for Kevin Walsh.
And at that point they expect the market is pricing 60% probability of a hike. So that's what the market is saying. Um there are three aspects to focus on on on a new Fed. One is that the mindset is going to change from being excessively data dependent and that's what the Fed has been for the last 3 years after that big mistake in 202122 to being more forwardlooking.
And it seems that the incoming chair is embracing the Greenspan view that if you think productivity is increasing, [clears throat] the safe speed limit for the economy, meaning non-inflationary growth goes up, so rates can be lower. The second element that we would be focusing is on the balance sheet.
Um Kevin Walsh wants a theory of the balance sheet. He doesn't just doesn't want reactions. He wants to know what is the the optimal size. Just like we have some notion what is the neutral interest rates. And then the third thing, the most important thing, Julie, that people aren't talking enough about is reforms to the way the Fed operates, its models, its communication, its compliance culture, its accountability.
These are things that if you look at Kevin Walsh's April speech in Washington in particular, he this is something that he wants to pursue. Yes, most definitely. And I think that's the expectation both on the part of the public and maybe on the part of the White House. Also, Muhammad, while I got you here, it's it's Super Bowl Monday.
You know, we just had the Super Bowl last night. Your beloved Jets weren't playing, but someone who's familiar to Jets fans was on another team and did pretty well. So, just did you watch the game? How'd you feel about it? I watched the game. I worried throughout the game that the Patriots would win, would come back and win because I've seen them do this so many times.
I love today when someone posted on X the let's Jets fan let's be happy that the quarterback we drafted won the Super Bowl. So, you know, at the end of the day, I was quite happy with with the outcome, but mainly because the Patriots lost. Um, if you're a Jets fan and you've been tortured as long as I have by the Patriots, um, the last thing I wanted them to see is win a Super Bowl so quickly after that last one.
Yeah, you can take you take your victories where you can, Muhammad. I guess that's the takeaway from it. Great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Comments 0