如果暂时撇开美国不谈，您会发现中国正经历一场强大的反弹行情，其背后动力源自一揽子经济刺激政策。尽管外界对于这些提振措施的长期有效性持怀疑态度，但它们已经引发了内地和香港股市史无前例的大涨。今天，彭博社报道了香港交易日中股票经纪人接收到大量买入指令的情况，特别是中国上市公司的股价。
在大陆市场因假期闭市一周的情况下，行情转至香港，尤其是中国在港上市的企业表现尤为亮眼。地产开发商的股份一度暴涨近50%，而证券公司内部涨幅更是达到35%峰值。尽管这可能与之前一系列不利消息之后的情感修正有关，但一年来恒生中国企业指数的走势图足以说明问题，股价已接近比年初低点恢复了60%。
即便面临近期波折，中国经济仍是全球最大的经济体之一。因此，在全球经济习惯了中国增速放缓以及资产市场财富效应不足的背景下，中国政府的刺激措施无疑带来正面影响，即使它可能不会在经济结构上产生持久变革。
虽然中国经济刺激对美国经济的影响有限，但它是全球增长趋势的一部分，这有助于避免衰退的可能性。相比之下，美国政府的角色更为关键，在过去的一财年中，联邦政府据国会预算办公室估计已向私营部门注入1.8万亿美元资金——每一美元支出相当于增加私有部门总金融资产。
考虑到美国政府的债务水平和财政政策，与中国和欧洲其他国家相比显得更为关键。在过去一年里，美国经济的扩张速度明显快于预期，这得益于巨额财政刺激措施，而这一增长速度远超其实际GDP增长率。
再看看货币政策层面——美联储通过降低利率来缓解金融条件。此举实际上意味着计划让借贷者更加轻松地偿还现有债务，并能够进一步增加借款。在市场在夏天前就预测到美联储的行动之前，汽车贷款违约率一直在上升；同时，一些由私募股权支持的企业正面临严重的偿债难题。尽管如此，在低利率环境下，并不能解决商业地产领域的全部问题。但是它能减轻相关压力，并有助于更多商业实体通过重新融资减少债务负担。此外，随着房贷利率下调，我们已开始看到按揭贷款再融资活动增加，这进一步增强了美国家庭的财务实力。
将中国的刺激措施、美国的货币宽松以及所谓“MMT”大师们所指的“大手笔赤字支出”结合起来，我们可以预见到全球经济正迎来一次繁荣周期。然而，最显著的负面因素出现在欧洲尤其是德国。
我每天都会听一档荷兰语播客《NRC Vandaag》，该节目挑选当下最重要的话题进行探讨。在其中一期节目中，《恐慌笼罩大众汽车：德国经济面临危险》引发了我对德国乃至整个欧洲经济现状的关注点。尽管标题让人以为是关于德国汽车产业的讨论，实质上它揭示了作为昔日经济增长引擎、目前却面临着多方面的去工业化问题。德国经济可能已经陷入衰退这一事实，解释了为何如今欧盟通胀水平已低于2%目标。这也将促使欧洲央行采取进一步降息措施。
然而，这种刺激并不足以克服德国制造业困境或政府支出的减少。到2024年时，德国的赤字水平仅为GDP的1.8%，仅相当于美国和中国政策力度的大约三分之一。即便将德国的赤字率提高至欧盟规定的3%红线上限，可能仍不足以避免经济衰退。
综上所述，尽管德国在欧洲国家中实行相对紧缩财政政策，但作为欧洲最大经济体，其经济增长放缓的影响是全球性的。与法国、意大利等其他财政更为宽松的国家相比，这种动态并不足以对全球经济产生显著提振作用。当前阶段，美国和中国的刺激举措似乎正在主导全球增长方向。
至于国际评级机构对于美国长期债务评级可能下调的警告，并非全然重要。由于主权货币发行国的长期利率走势通常由对未来短期利率的预期决定，在日本这样一个典型例子中，尽管国债水平居高不下，但由于央行将隔夜贷款利率保持在低位，长期利率仍然相对较低。
在这种最坏情况下，美国政府的债务支出可能会引发经济过热，迫使美联储上调利率。但这种对经济增长的影响主要来自过度借贷而非信用评级下调的风险。英国2022年迷你预算提案导致的混乱是一个典型的案例研究，在这个案例中，这种情况确实有可能发生，并且是由于美元作为全球储备货币的地位所影响。
同时我们可以看到，目前的经济表现平稳向好。美联储已实现了软着陆的目标，并预计将继续降息以维持增长态势。在这个背景下，我们似乎正处于一个新的繁荣周期之中。
在讨论美国债务问题是否会引发信用评级下调时，我们可以回顾15年前全球经济金融危机后的情形：当时，美国政府迅速清理了金融体系，而欧洲则遭遇了主权债务危机；此外，美国科技巨头的崛起促使市场对其表现表现出更强的上行趋势。而在疫情肆虐期间，虽然欧洲采取了一系列行动以恢复经济，但它却减少了财政支持力度。
因此，美国具有高度倾斜的技术密集型经济增长和财政刺激驱动的增长模式导致其股票表现持续领先。鉴于全球刺激政策的方向和规模，至少在未来几个月内，专注于美国资产的投资策略似乎不会改变。
同时我们也不必过于担心美国的债务问题会引发信用评级下调。虽然高负债水平可能会促使投资者更加谨慎对待国债市场，但长期利率走势主要由对未来短期利率预期所决定，并且往往反映为债券市场的稳定而非评级变化带来的直接影响。例如，日本政府债务水平全球最高，但因其央行将隔夜借款利率维持在低位导致长期利率同样较低。
总之，在当前经济环境中，我们有理由相信美国资产将继续获得超额收益。即便面临信用评级下调的担忧，由于美国拥有世界储备货币的地位，这种潜在的影响可能被其巨大的财政刺激规模所抵消。然而，对于未来几年政策制定者如何管理财政与货币政策的平衡策略以及可能出现的变局，我们将拭目以待。
目前看来，全球经济似乎正处于稳定增长的阶段，这得益于美联储采取的温和加息策略以及通胀率的稳步下降。因此，在短期内可以预期经济将继续繁荣发展，并在一定程度上为市场提供支撑动力。
新闻来源：www.bloomberg.com
原文地址：China Stimulus Sparks Big Rally That Also Helps US
新闻日期：2024-10-02
原文摘要：
If you look away from the US for a moment, you realize there’s a monster rally happening in China, fueled by a powerful package of economic stimulus. While it’s not clear if the policy measures behind the rally are enough to build a sustainable return to prodigious growth in China, they add another level of support to US-focused investors. After all, US markets and the economy are already reaping the benefits of other stimulus in the form of massive peacetime government spending and front-loaded monetary easing. Combine that with the moves in China — a major trading partner and driver of global growth — and I’d be shocked if that wasn’t enough to keep the US chugging along, at least for the next several months.The takeaway: Worries about a US recession, while legitimate, are probably overblown. It’s actually Europe where the growth dynamics stink. And that means the “overweight US assets” play still has legs.I’ll try and dive a bit deeper into the following points as I make that case:You’ve probably heard that a gaggle of measures designed to boost its ailing economy. And while economists have sounded skeptical about the likely long-term efficacy of the stimulus, it has ignited a breathtaking rally in equity markets in both mainland China and Hong Kong. Just today, Bloomberg was describing how brokers were swamped by buy orders in .With mainland Chinese markets shut for a week’s holiday, the action moved to Hong Kong on Wednesday, with Chinese shares listed there . Shares of beaten-down property developers were up by nearly 50% at one point. Brokerage shares advanced by 35% intraday.A lot of this is probably just a sentiment shift after so much bad news. Still, the one-year chart of the Hang Seng Chinese Enterprise Index says everything with the near vertical line showing shares some 60% off the lows early this year.Despite its recent road bumps, China’s economy remains the in the world. So what happens there matters. And in the context of a world economy that has grown accustomed to slowing Chinese growth and a lack of any wealth effect from Chinese asset markets, this stimulus has to be a net positive — even if it yields few long-lasting changes in the economy there.Chinese stimulus may have only tangential benefits for the US economy, but it’s reflective of the global tide that promises to keep recession at bay. What the US government does is far more relevant, though.In the fiscal year ended on Monday, the US federal government by the Congressional Budget Office to have injected $1.8 trillion of money into the private sector by spending more than it taxed. Every dollar the US government spends without taxing is stimulus because the difference represents a net increase in total financial assets of the private sector. In the past 12 months, the deficit stimulus was 5.8%, well more than the growth rate of the US economy and orders of magnitude more important than the Chinese actions. What the difference between GDP growth and the deficit tells you is that, if the US government hadn’t spent the way it did, the economy would be in recession. It’s as simple as that.But then there’s the Fed. By lowering interest rates, it promises to ease financial conditions, which is just a fancy way of saying it plans to make it easier for people and businesses to pay back the debt they have and take on even more. That’s significant, because before the market anticipated the Fed’s moves this summer, auto-loan delinquencies had been rising. And some private equity-backed companies had run into serious problems repaying loans. Meanwhile, lower rates won’t erase the problems besetting commercial real estate. But the ability to refinance debt means fewer problems in that arena, too. Finally, we are already seeing a pickup in mortgage refinancing as home-loan rates have eased. And that, too, will add to the financial firepower of US households.You add the China stimulus to US monetary easing to what MMT grandee “drunken sailor” levels of deficits and you have a booming global economy.The big negative is Europe. And I am thinking about Germany more than anything. I listen to a daily Dutch-language podcast called NRC Vandaag that picks big issues to highlight daily. On Tuesday, they had one titled “Panic at Volkswagen: Is the German Economy in Danger?” And while the title makes you think this was about the German car industry, it was really an expose on the de-industrialization of Europe’s onetime economic engine on multiple fronts. With , the country is likely in a recession.This is a big reason that European inflation has now fallen below 2%. And it’s also why we should expect more rate cuts from the ECB. But that stimulus won’t be nearly enough to overcome Germany’s manufacturing woes or the receding tide of fiscal policy. With a deficit of just 1.8% of GDP of 2024, Germany is running federal stimulus only one-third as large as the US. Even if the country increased its deficit to the European Union’s 3% red line, it would probably be enough to escape recession.Bottom line: Germany may be more fiscally conservative than many EU countries. But as the largest economy in Europe, its moribund economy ripples across the globe as a drag on global growth. And other less fiscally austere countries like France and Italy have their own problems. So Europe isn’t significantly adding to the tide of global stimulus. With the US, and now China, giving the world a boost, it probably doesn’t matter. But it does mean European-based equity investments will lag behind for the foreseeable future.I see this as confirmation of the patterns that emerged after the Global Financial Crisis a decade and a half ago. The US cleaned up its banks quicker while Europe had a sovereign debt crisis. Meanwhile, the US tech giants helped markets there outperform. While Europe did whatever it took to overcome the pandemic, it has dialed back fiscal support. And so, US economic outperformance from its tech-heavy skew and deficit-fueled growth has led to yet more outperformance by US shares.Given how the tide of global stimulus is set up, this tilt toward US-centric investing won’t change for at least a few months, if not much longer.We did the US a week ago that if deficits keep piling up, the ratings company will be forced to downgrade the country’s credit rating.Does it really matter though? I would argue it doesn’t. Interest rates for sovereign currency issuers like the US see their long-term interest rates determined mostly by expectations for future shorter-term rates. Look at Japan as an example. The Japanese government has the highest debt load in the G-7. And yet, because the country’s central bank has kept overnight lending rates so low, long-term rates have been low too.In a worst-case scenario, US deficit spending could cause the economy to overheat, forcing the Fed to raise interest rates. And that would be the way the deficits hurt the economy, not a debt downgrade. I think the fiasco with the UK’s 2022 mini-budget proposal is a textbook case of how things could unravel in such a worst-case scenario. That’s unlikely because of the US’s reserve currency status. But let’s see what the next US administration proposes in 2025.Meanwhile, it’s steady as she goes. It really does look like the Fed has achieved a soft landing. And with inflation coming down, we can expect it to cut rates even more going forward, a recipe for a continued boom.Explore all newsletters at .
