Taking The Temperature
发布时间 2023-07-10 21:58:24 来源
摘要
In his latest memo, Howard Marks discusses five market calls he’s made during his career. He argues that investors seeking to take the temperature of the market should focus on understanding prevailing market psychology and the nature of cycles. Just as importantly, they should learn to control their own emotions and have the humility to know when not to make a call.The memo is read by LJ Ganser.You can read the memo here (https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/taking-the-temperature.pdf?sfvrsn=93bb5366_6).
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中英文字稿 
This is the memo by Howard Marks. Taking the Temperature. In preparation for my interview for lunch with EFT last fall, I sent the reporter Harriet Agnew five memos I had written between 2000 and 2020 that contained market calls. First, I felt the memos accurately conveyed my thinking at the key turning points in that 20-year period. And second, my calls turned out to be right.
这是霍华德·马克斯的备忘录《测量温度》。在上个秋季为了我和EFT的午餐采访做准备时，我给记者哈里特·阿格纽发了五份备忘录，这些备忘录是我在2000年到2020年之间写的，其中包含了市场预测。首先，我觉得这些备忘录准确地传达了我在这20年期间关键转折点上的思考。其次，我的预测都被证明是正确的。
Five calls. I've written before about the time in 2017 when I was working on my book Mastering the Market Cycle and batting ideas back and forth with my son Andrew. I said, you know, looking back, I think my market calls have been about right. His response was dead on target as usual. Yeah, Dad, that's because you did it five times in 50 years. It struck me like an epiphany. He was 100% correct. In those five instances, around the publication of the respective memos, the markets were either crazily elevated or massively depressed. And as a result, I was able to recommend becoming more defensive or more aggressive with a good chance of being right.
五次呼叫。我以前曾写过2017年的事情，当时我正在撰写我的书《掌握市场周期》，与我儿子安德鲁互相讨论想法。我说，回顾过去，我认为我的市场预测一直都相当准确。他的回答一如既往地准确。是啊，爸爸，那是因为你在50年的时间里做过五次。这个触动了我，就像领悟一样。他百分之百正确。在那五次中，当相应的备忘录发表时，市场要么异常高涨，要么大幅下跌。因此，我能够建议采取更防守性或更进攻性的策略，并有很大机会做对。
Before I go further, let me make it clear that while hindsight shows that the logic behind those calls was correct, that doesn't mean I made them without great trepidation. To illustrate how one might approach making market calls, I'm going to briefly summarize what led me to make those five calls. I'm not going to go into detail since the contemporaneous memos I cite in each section will supply more than enough for those who are interested.
在我进一步阐述之前，让我明确一点，尽管事后看来这些决策的逻辑是正确的，但这并不意味着我在做出这些决策时没有非常担心。为了说明一个人可能如何对市场进行预测，我将简要概述我做出这五个决策的原因。我不打算详述，因为每个部分中引用的同时备忘录已经足够满足那些感兴趣的人了。
As you listen to the description of each event, look closely at how the forces that contributed to and resulted from each episode led to the next one. You'll be able to appreciate why I've long stressed the role of causality in market cycles.
当你聆听每个事件的描述时，要仔细观察导致并造成每一次事件的力量如何导致下一个事件。你将能够理解我为何长期强调市场周期中因果关系的作用。
January 2000 In the fall of 1999, against the backdrop of the massive gains being achieved in tech, media, and telecom stocks, I read Edward Chancellor's excellent book, Devil Take the Hindmost. I was struck by the similarities between the TMT boom and the historical bubbles that are the subject of that book. The lure of easy profits. The willingness to leave one's day job to cash in. The ability to invest blithely in money-losing companies whose business models one can't explain. All these felt like themes that had rind over the course of financial history, leading to bubbles and their painful bursting. And all of them were visible in investor behavior as 1999 came to an end.
2000年1月 在1999年秋季，科技、媒体和电信股票取得了大幅收益的背景下，我读了爱德华·昌勒的杰出著作《把最后的地位留给魔鬼》。我被TMT繁荣与该书所讲述的历史泡沫之间的相似之处所震撼。轻松获利的诱惑。愿意辞去工作来赚钱的意愿。无视投资正在亏损且无法解释商业模式的公司的能力。所有这些都感觉在金融历史中都有重演的迹象，导致泡沫及其痛苦的破灭。作为1999年接近尾声时，所有这些迹象都能在投资者行为中看到。
While I wasn't involved directly in equities and Oak trees investments had little if any exposure to technology at the time, I observed many market narratives that I thought were too good to be true. Thus, I said so in the memo, bubble.com, which was published as 2000 began. The memo described how tech investors were buying the stocks of young companies at astronomical prices set in many cases as a multiple of current revenues, as the companies often had no profits. In fact, many had no revenues, in which case the price was based on little more than a concept and hope. I defined a bubble as an irrationally elevated opinion of an asset or sector, and the TMT craze of the late 1990s exemplified this definition. Thus, I wrote as follows.
尽管当时我并没有直接参与股票和橡树投资，但我观察到许多市场传闻，觉得它们太好以至于不真实。因此，我在名为“泡沫点com”的备忘录中指出了这一点，该备忘录于2000年开始发表。备忘录描述了科技投资者以天文价格购买初创公司的股票，这些价格通常是当前收入的倍数，因为这些公司往往没有利润。事实上，许多公司甚至没有收入，这种情况下，股票价格仅基于概念和希望。我定义泡沫为对资产或行业的非理性高估，而上世纪90年代末的科技、媒体和通信狂热正是这一定义的典型例子。因此，我如下所写。
In short, I find the evidence of an overheated speculative market in technology, internet, and telecommunications stocks overwhelming, as are the similarities to past manias. To say technology, internet, and telecommunications stocks are too high, and about to decline is comparable today to standing in front of a freight train. To say they have benefited from a boom of colossal proportions and should be examined very skeptically is something I feel I owe you.
简言之，我发现科技、互联网和电信股票市场过热的投机行为证据是压倒性的，与过去的疯狂类似。说科技、互联网和电信股票价格过高，即将下跌，可以类比于站在一辆货车前方。而说它们受益于巨大的繁荣，并且应该持怀疑态度进行审视，这是我觉得我应该向您表达的。
In my opinion, the TMT bubble burst in early 2000 for no reason other than that stock prices had become unsustainably high. The standard and poor's 500 index fell by 46% from its 2000 high to the low in 2002, and the tech heavy NASDAQ composite declined by 80% during this period. Many tech stocks lost much more, and many young companies in fields such as e-commerce ended up becoming worthless, and the word bubble became part of everyday speech for a new generation of investors.
在我看来，2000年初TMT泡沫破裂的原因只是股价变得不可持续地过高。标准普尔500指数从2000年的高点下跌了46%，到2002年的低点，而科技股-heavy的纳斯达克综合指数在这一时期下跌了80%。很多科技股损失更大，许多电子商务等领域的年轻公司最终变得一文不值，而“泡沫”一词成为了新一代投资者的日常用语之一。
8. 2004 to mid-2007 The aftermath of the TMT bubble led to an environment in the mid-aughts that felt to me like a slow developing train wreck with an emphasis on slow developing. I started complaining too soon. Or maybe my timing was reasonable, but the negative consequences just took longer to develop than they should have. In summary, the Federal Reserve was engaging in accommodative monetary policy, taking the Fed funds rate to new lows to battle the potential ramifications of the TMT bubbles bursting.
2004年至2007年中期，TMT泡沫破灭后的后果导致了一个在中期时期对我来说感觉像是一场慢慢发展的灾难，强调的是慢慢发展。我开始抱怨得太早了。或许我的时间选择是合理的，但是负面后果的发展比预期的要慢。总的来说，美联储采取了宽松的货币政策，将联邦基金利率降至新低，以应对TMT泡沫破裂可能带来的影响。
Thus, in my memo, risk and return today from late 2004, I observed that A, prospective returns on most asset classes were unusually low, and B, risk seeking on the part of investors looking to improve on those low returns had led them to embrace higher risk and alternative investments.
因此，在我2004年后的备忘录中，我观察到以下两点：A. 多数资产类别的潜在回报率异常低；B. 投资者追求较低回报的风险，导致他们选择了更高风险和替代性投资。
I identified some of these alternatives in the memo, there they go again, May 2005, spending most of my time discussing residential real estate, as that was where investors were embracing the most glaring fallacy. They believed that home prices only go up. I also discussed the tendency of investors to A, ignore the lessons of past cycles, B, fall for new developments, and C, pile into risky investments guided by time-honored platitudes such as, it's different this time, higher risk means higher returns, or if it stops working, I'll just get out. Many of these logical errors were being committed by investors in the housing market.
我在2005年5月的备忘录中识别了一些替代选择，当时我大部分时间都在讨论住宅房地产，因为投资者们在这个领域中犯下了最明显的谬误。他们认为房价只会上涨。我还讨论了投资者的倾向，即A、忽视过去周期的教训，B、对新发展入迷，以及C、根据老生常谈的古训进入风险投资，比如，这次不一样了、高风险意味着高回报，或者如果停止工作，我就会走开。这些逻辑错误中有很多都是房地产市场的投资者所犯下的。
The driving force behind Oak Tree's behavior in that period wasn't any of the above. Rather, it was the fact that my Oak Tree co-founder, Bruce Karsh, and I were spending much of each day trudging to each other's offices to complain about the crazy deals, characterized by low returns, high risk for investors, and a lot of optionality for issuers that were easily being brought to market. If deals like this can get done, we agreed, there's something wrong with the market.
在那个时期，驱动橡树行为的动力并不是上述任何一个因素。相反，原因是我的橡树共同创始人布鲁斯·卡尔什和我每天都要费力地互相走动到对方的办公室抱怨关于那些低回报、高风险的疯狂交易，以及为发行方提供许多选择权的交易的市场问题。如果能够完成这样的交易，我们达成共识，市场肯定存在问题。
Few people we thought were demonstrating prudence, discipline, value consciousness, or the ability to resist the fear of missing out. Investors are supposed to act as disciplinarians, preventing undeserving securities from being issued. But in those days, they weren't performing that function. This signaled a worrisome state of affairs. These observations, along with an awareness of the generally high prices and low prospective returns that prevailed at the time, convinced us to dramatically increase our usual emphasis on defensiveness.
我们曾以为只有少数人在表现出审慎、自律、重视价值或抵制恐错过机会的能力。投资者应该充当自律者的角色，防止不值得发行的证券出现。但在那些日子里，他们并没有履行这个职责。这预示着一种令人担忧的状况。这些观察，加上我们意识到当时普遍高的价格和低的预期回报率，使我们决定大幅度增加我们对防御性投资的重视。
In response, we sold off large amounts of assets, liquidated large funds, organized small funds, or none at all, in certain strategies, and significantly raised the bar against which potential new investments would be evaluated. In July 2007, I published the memo, It's All Good, in which I was more emphatic, and had better timing. Where do we stand in the cycle? In my opinion, there's little mystery. I see low levels of skepticism, fear, and risk aversion. Most people are willing to undertake risky investments, often because the promised returns from traditional, safe investments seem so meager. This is true even though the lack of interest in safe investments and the acceptance of risky investments have rendered the slope of the risk return line quite flat. Risk premiums are generally the skimpiest I've ever seen, but few people are responding by refusing to accept incremental risk.
作为回应，我们大量出售资产，清算大笔资金，组织小额资金，或者干脆不进行任何投资策略，在其中大幅提高了对潜在新投资的评估标准。在2007年7月，我发表了备忘录《一切都好》(It's All Good)，在备忘录中我更加强调并且时间更加准确。我们目前处于周期的什么位置?在我看来，这没有什么可疑的。我看到怀疑、恐惧和风险规避的程度都很低。大多数人愿意进行风险投资，往往是因为传统安全投资的回报看起来微不足道。尽管人们对安全投资的兴趣缺乏，接受了风险投资，使得风险回报曲线的斜率变得相当平坦。风险溢价普遍是我见过的最低的，但很少有人因此而拒绝接受增量风险。
Eight months after I wrote It's All Good, Bear Stearns melted down under the weight of funds that had invested in subprime mortgages. Then, in mid-September we saw, in rapid succession, The Rescue of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and the bailout of AIG. The S&P 500 index fell to a low of $7.35 in February 2009 down 53% from its high of $15.49, reached in 2007, and down 39% from its level around the time I put out the way too early, risk and return today.
八个月之后，我写完《一切都好》后，贝尔斯登在投资次级抵押贷款的基金的压力下崩溃了。然后，九月中旬，我们相继目睹了美国银行拯救美林证券、雷曼兄弟破产以及美国国际集团的紧急援助。标准普尔500指数在2009年2月跌至7.35美元的低点，较其2007年的15.49美元的高点下跌了53%，较我发布时期的风险和回报水平下降了39%。
Importantly, Oaktree had essentially no involvement with subprime mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. Moreover, those assets were traded in a relatively remote corner of the investment world, and we had little appreciation for what was taking place there. In other words, our cautious conclusions weren't reached on the basis of subject matter expertise, but rather on an unusually good example of what I call taking the temperature of the market.
重要的是，橡树基本上没有参与次级抵押贷款或抵押支持证券。此外，这些资产在投资界的一个相对较远的角落进行交易，我们对那里正在发生的情况知之甚少。换句话说，我们谨慎的结论并非基于对此类专业知识的熟悉，而是基于我所说的一种异常良好的市场观察方法。
In 2008, the world seemed relatively tranquil as September 2008 began, but then Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing just mentioned took place mid-month. The markets promptly fell apart, based on an apocalyptic view that Lehman's failure was part of a logical progression that had started when Bear Stearns ceased to exist as an independent entity and could eventually lead to a meltdown of the worldwide financial system. Complacency gave way to panic, and the global financial crisis, in capital letters, was upon us.
在2008年，当9月份开始时，世界似乎相对安宁，但随后乐富兄弟公司的破产申请在中旬发生了。市场迅速崩溃，这是基于一个世界金融系统崩溃的逻辑进程的末端，而该进程从贝尔斯登公司作为一个独立实体的消失开始。从安于现状转变为恐慌，全球金融危机以大写的形式降临到了我们身上。
Anticipating that the reckless behavior we were witnessing would ultimately create significant buying opportunities for our distressed debt strategy, Oaktree organized an $11 billion reserve fund for distressed debt between January 2007 and March 2008. The fund was created to give us capital to invest if things reached crisis proportions, which by mid 2008 they had not. Because its predecessor fund had only just become fully invested, we started to slowly invest the reserve fund prior to Lehman's bankruptcy.
预计我们目睹的鲁莽行为最终会为我们的困惑债务策略创造重要的购买机会，奥克树在2007年1月至2008年3月间组建了一个110亿美元的困惑债务储备基金。这个基金的设立是为了在事态发展到危机程度时给我们提供投资资金，到2008年中期为止，情况还没有那么糟糕。由于我们之前的基金刚刚完成全面投资，所以我们开始在雷曼兄弟破产前缓慢地投资这个储备基金。
In the market panic that followed Lehman's collapse, our first job was to figure out how best to proceed. Should we continue to invest the fund's capital, or hold it in reserve? Or should we step on the gas? Was this the bottom? How could we determine what lay ahead? There was no history of financial sector meltdowns to rely on, and no informed way to approach these questions given the uniqueness of the circumstances and the many unknowns. With the future unknowable, we applied the only analytical framework we could think of. Realistic though it was. I think the outlook has to be viewed as binary. Will the world end or won't it? If you can't say yes, you have to say no and act accordingly. In particular, saying it will end would lead to inaction, while saying it's not going to will permit us to do the things that always have worked in the past.
在雷曼倒闭之后的市场恐慌中，我们的第一项任务是弄清楚如何最好地继续前进。我们应该继续投资基金的资本，还是将其保留起来？或者我们应该加速前进吗？这是底部了吗？我们如何确定未来的走向？由于没有金融行业崩溃的历史可依赖，也没有可靠的方法来解决这些问题，鉴于情况的独特性和众多未知因素。面对未知的未来，我们采用了唯一能够想到的分析框架。尽管现实如此。我认为前景必须被视为二元的。世界会灭亡还是不会？如果你不能说是，你就必须说不，并相应地采取行动。特别是，说它会灭亡会导致无所作为，而说它不会灭亡将使我们能够做过去总是成功的事情。
We will invest on the assumption that it will go on, that companies will make money, that they'll have value, and that buying claims on them at low prices will work in the long run. What alternative is there? No one seems able to imagine how the current vicious circle will be interrupted, but I think we must assume it will be. It must be noted that just like two years ago, people are accepting as true something that has never held true before. It was the proposition that massively levered balance sheets had been rendered safe by the miracle of financial engineering. Today, it's the non-viability of the essential financial sector and its greatest institutions.
我们将基于以下假设进行投资：市场将持续存在，企业将赚钱，它们会产生价值，以低价购买对它们的所有权在长期来看是有效的。还有其他选择吗？似乎没有人能够想象目前这个恶性循环将如何被打破，但我认为我们必须假设它会被打破。值得注意的是，就像两年前一样，人们接受了一个之前从未被证明为真实的观点，那就是通过金融工程的奇迹，大规模杠杆的资产负债表已经变得安全。而今天，我们所面临的是金融行业及其最重要机构的不可持续性。
Nobody knows September 19th, 2008. The reasoning just discussed led us to conclude that if we invested and the financial world melted down, it wouldn't matter what we had done. But if we didn't invest and it didn't melt down, we wouldn't have done our job. So, we made the unsupportable assumption that the financial world would continue to exist and concluded that this meant we should invest aggressively. Bruce Carson's team plunged in, investing an average of $400 million a week from September 18, 2008 through year-end, a total of $6 billion in, essentially, a single quarter. purchases by the rest of Oaktree brought the total invested over that period to $7.5 billion. We rented to very few people outside Oaktree who were putting money to work or willing to grant that we might be doing the right thing. I told a reporter friend we were buying and he said, incredulously, you are? Around the same time, I met with the CIO of a client institution as part of our efforts to raise equity to deliver a fund that was perilously close to receiving a margin call. And although I had good responses to all the increasingly negative scenarios she posited, we never got to a point where she would grant that it can't be that bad. This demonstration of unbridled pessimism, which appeared to be widespread at the time, convinced me that little optimism was embodied in the prices of the assets we were buying and thus that there was little chance of losing money. Here's how I put it in a memo I wrote that day.
2008年9月19日，没有人知道发生了什么。刚才讨论的理由让我们得出结论，如果我们投资了，金融世界崩溃了，那我们所做的一切都无关紧要。但如果我们不投资，而且没有发生崩溃，那我们就没有履行我们的职责。因此，我们做出了不可支持的假设，即金融世界将继续存在，并得出结论我们应该积极投资。布鲁斯·卡森的团队投资了平均每周4亿美元，从2008年9月18日到年底，总计投资了60亿美元，基本上是一个季度的时间。普通Oaktree的其他购买使这一时期的总投资额达到了75亿美元。我们与很少数愿意投资或者认为我们可能在做正确事情的Oaktree之外的人进行了交谈。我告诉一位记者朋友我们正在购买，他惊讶地说，真的吗？大约在同一时间，我与一家客户机构的首席投资官会面，作为我们筹集资金的努力的一部分，以解决一个危险临近追缴保证金的基金。尽管我对她提出的越来越消极的情景都有很好的回应，但我们没有达到她会承认事情不可能那么糟糕的地步。这种显然在当时普遍存在的无节制的悲观主义表明，我们购买的资产价格中几乎没有蕴含乐观情绪，因此我们几乎没有失去钱的机会。以下是我在当天写的备忘录中的表述方式。
Skepticism and pessimism aren't synonymous. Skepticism calls for pessimism when optimism is excessive, but it also calls for optimism when pessimism is excessive. In the third stage of a bear market, everyone agrees things can only get worse. The risk in that, in terms of opportunity costs or foregone profits, is equally clear. There's no doubt in my mind that the bear market reached the third stage last week. That doesn't mean it can't decline further or that a bull market's about to start, but it does mean the negatives are on the table. Optimism is thoroughly lacking and the greater long-term risk probably lies in not investing. The excesses, mistakes and foolishness of the 2003-2007 upward leg of the cycle were the greatest I've ever witnessed. So has been the resulting panic. The damage that's been done to security prices may be enough to correct for those excesses, or too much or too little. But certainly, it's a good time to pick among the rubble.
怀疑论和悲观主义并不完全相同。当乐观过度时，怀疑论呼吁悲观主义，但也会在悲观主义过度时呼吁乐观主义。在熊市的第三阶段，每个人都认为情况只会变得更糟。从机会成本或放弃利润的角度来看，其中的风险也是显而易见的。在我看来，毫无疑问的是，熊市上周达到了第三阶段。这并不意味着它不能进一步下跌，或者牛市即将开始，但这确实意味着负面因素摆在了台面上。乐观已经完全缺失，更长期的风险可能更多地存在于不进行投资中。2003-2007年周期上升阶段中的过度、错误和愚蠢是我见过的最大的。而随之而来的恐慌也是如此。对证券价格造成的损害可能足以弥补那些过度，也可能过大或过小。但毫无疑问，现在是在废墟中选择的好时机。
The limits to negativism, October 15, 2008. Importantly, our confidence in investing the reserve funds capital was enhanced by the fact that A, we were buying the senior most debt of high-quality companies that had been the subject of recent buyouts and B, we were buying at prices solo that our debt holdings would do fine, even if the companies ended up being worth only one quarter or one-third of what the buyout funds had just paid for them.
对于消极主义的限制，2008年10月15日。重要的是，我们对于投资储备资金的信心得到了增强。首先，我们购买的是高质量公司的最高级债务，这些公司最近被收购。其次，我们以非常低的价格购买，因此，即使这些公司最终只有收购基金支付价格的四分之一或三分之一，我们的债务仍能受益良多。
Episodes like the visit with the apprehensive CIO told me the post-leman temperature of the market was too low. There was too much fear and too little greed, too much pessimism and too little optimism and too much risk aversion and too little risk tolerance. Negative possibilities were being accepted as fact.
像是与担忧的首席信息官的会谈这样的情节告诉我，雷曼危机之后的市场热情太低。过于担心，贪婪心态太少；过于悲观，乐观心态太少；过于回避风险，承受风险的能力太少。负面可能性被当作了事实来接受。
When these things are true, it stands to reason that A, investor expectations are low, B, asset prices probably aren't excessive, C, there's little possibility of investors being disappointed and D, thus there's little likelihood of lasting loss and a good chance prices will work their way higher. In other words, this was the epitome of a buying opportunity.
当这些条件属实时，很容易推断出以下情况：A、投资者的预期较低；B、资产价格可能并不过高；C、很少有投资者会失望；D、因此，持续亏损的可能性很小，而且价格有很大机会上升。换句话说，这是一个购买机会的典范。
March 2012 After the TMT bubble burst in mid-2000, the S&P 500 dropped in 2000, 2001 and 2002, the first three-year stretch of negative returns since 1939. These declines caused many investors to lose interest in equities. Just a few years earlier, there had been widespread faith that stocks could never perform poorly for a meaningful period. Now, all of a sudden, such a time seemed to be at hand. Markets delivered disillusionment, which can be one of the strongest forces in markets, and investors turned against them.
2012年3月，在互联网泡沫破灭之后，标普500指数在2000年、2001年和2002年持续下跌，这是自1939年以来首次连续三年出现负收益的时期。这些跌幅导致许多投资者对股票失去了兴趣。就在几年前，人们普遍相信股票在相当的一段时间内不会表现不佳。现在，突然间，这样的时刻似乎已经来临。市场给人带来了失望，这可能是市场上最强大的力量之一，投资者也对市场产生了反感。
During the first few years of the aughts, the lack of appetite for equities and for bonds, given how low the Fed had driven yields, caused many investors to conclude they couldn't earn their targeted returns through traditional asset classes. This in turn caused capital to flow to alternative investments, first hedge funds and then private equity. Soon investors were confronted by the global financial crisis and the fear of financial sector meltdown described above, which added to their negativity. These developments weighed heavily on investor psychology, and as a result, the S&P 500 was essentially flat from 2000 through 2011, returning an average of only 0.55% a year for the 12 years.
在本世纪初的头几年，由于美联储将收益率压得很低，投资者对股票和债券的兴趣不高，导致许多投资者得出结论，无法通过传统资产类别获得目标回报。这反过来导致资金流向了另类投资，首先是对冲基金，然后是私募股权。很快，投资者面临全球金融危机以及上述金融部门崩溃的恐慌，这加剧了他们的消极情绪。这些发展严重影响了投资者的心态，因此标普500指数从2000年到2011年基本上呈平盘状态，为期12年的平均年回报率仅为0.55%。
This is how things stood in March 2012 when I wrote the memo Deja Vu all over again. My inspiration arrived when, sleepless, while on a business trip in Chile, I reached into my oak tree bag for something to read and came up with an old article I had wanted to revisit because I was sensing parallels between the current environment and the one the article described. It was The Death of Equities, one of the most important magazine articles on investing of all time. It had appeared in Business Week on August 13, 1979, following years of raging inflation, dreary economic news and poor stock market performance. In short, the article's theme was that no one would ever invest in stocks again because they had done so badly for so long.
这是关于“似曾相识”的备忘录的发表的情况。我写这篇备忘录时是在2012年3月，事情发生之时就是如此。当时我在智利公干期间失眠，我从我的橡树袋里拿出一些东西来读，拿出了一篇旧文章，我一直想再次阅读它，因为我感觉到当前环境与文章描述的环境之间存在一些相似之处。这篇文章叫做《股市的死亡》，是有史以来关于投资最重要的杂志文章之一。它于1979年8月13日出现在《商业周刊》上，跟随着多年的猛烈通货膨胀、沉闷的经济消息和糟糕的股市表现。简而言之，这篇文章的主题是，再也没有人会投资股票，因为它们长期以来表现不佳。
Here are a few of the article's observations. Whatever caused it, the institutionalization of inflation, along with structural changes in communications and psychology, have killed the U.S. equity market for millions of investors. For investors, low stock prices remain a disincentive to buy. For better or for worse then, the U.S. economy probably has to regard The Death of Equities as a near permanent condition, reversible someday but not soon. It would take a sustained bull market for a couple of years to attract broad-based investor interest and restore confidence.
以下是文章的几点观察。无论是什么原因，通胀的制度化以及通信和心理结构的结构性变化，使得美国股市对于千百万投资者来说已经死亡。对于投资者来说，低股价仍然是购买的一个不利因素。因此，无论好坏，美国经济可能必须视股市消亡为一种近乎永久的状况，虽然有可能在将来某个时候逆转，但不会很快。需要持续的几年牛市才能吸引广泛的投资者兴趣并恢复信心。
In other words, poor performance had led to investor disinterest and disinterest had perpetuated the poor performance, creating one of the supposedly unstoppable vicious cycles we see in the markets from time to time. In the author's view, this negative state was likely to prevail for years. Like many arguments in the world of investing the assertions in The Death of Equities may have seemed sensible on the surface. But if you're drilled down a bit, and in particular if you thought like a contrarian, the logical flaws became readily apparent.
换句话说，糟糕的表现导致了投资者的不感兴趣，而不感兴趣则使糟糕的表现持续下去，从而形成了我们偶尔在市场上看到的一种被认为是无法阻止的恶性循环之一。在作者看来，这种负面状态可能会持续多年。像投资领域的许多论点一样，《股票之死》中的论述可能在表面上看起来很合理。但是如果你深入思考一下，特别是如果你像一个逆向思考者一样思考，逻辑上的缺陷就会显而易见。
One if the lows in optimism and enthusiasm for equities meant things couldn't get any worse. Wouldn't that mean they could only get better? And in that case, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that low stock prices presaged future gains not continued stagnation? These statements capture in brief the difference between the thinking of the average investor and what I call second-level thinking. The latter doesn't rely on first impressions. Rather, it's deeper, more complex, and more nuanced.
乐观和热情对于股票市场的低迷让人们认为情况不可能再变得更糟了。那难道不是意味着只能变得更好吗？在这种情况下，认为股票价格低迷预示着未来的收益而非持续停滞是合理的吗？这些观点简明地体现了普通投资者和我所称之为二级思考的差异。后者不依赖于第一印象，而是更深入、更复杂、更细致的思考。
In particular, second-level thinkers understand that the convictions of the masses shape the market. But if those convictions are based on emotion, instead of sober analysis, they should often be bet against, not backed.
特别是，二级思考者明白群众的信念塑造市场的情况。但如果这些信念是基于情绪而不是冷静分析的话，通常应该押反而不是支持它们。
Here's how I put it in Deja Vu all over again. The negative factors are clear to the average investor, and from there he draws negative conclusions. But the person who applies logic and insight, rather than superficial views and emotion, see something very different.
以下是我将它表述为又一次重蹈覆辙的方式。普通投资者能够清楚看到负面因素，并由此得出负面结论。然而，那些运用逻辑和洞察力，而不仅仅凭表面观点和情感来思考的人，却能看到完全不同的东西。
Thus, it would not have come as a surprise to the more sophisticated investor that, the death of equities, perhaps the most sweepingly dour article ever written about the stock market, preceded one of, if not the, most positive periods in market history. In the 21 years from 1979, when the article was written through 1999, just before the TMT bubble burst, the S&P 500's average annual return was 17.9%. That was nearly double its long-term average and enough to turn $1 in 1979 into $32 in 1999.
因此，对于那些更为精明的投资者来说，并不意外，关于股市的那篇极度悲观的《股票死亡》文章，预示着市场历史上最积极的时期之一，即使不是最积极的时期也是如此。在从1979年开始撰写该文章的21年里，一直到1999年TMT泡沫破裂之前，标普500指数的年平均回报率为17.9%。这几乎是长期平均水平的两倍，足以将1979年的1美元增长为1999年的32美元。
Once more from Deja Vu all over again. Importantly, the stage had been set for this rise in 1979 by the accumulation and excessively pessimistic discounting of negatives. The extrapolator threw in the towel on stocks, just as the time was right for the contrarian to turn optimistic. And it will always be so.
再次从似曾相识的感觉开始。在1979年，积累和过度悲观地低估了负面因素，为这次崛起奠定了舞台。就在逆向投资者开始乐观之际，那些继续推论下跌的人放弃了股票。而这种情况将永远如此。
The great irony here is that the extrapolator actually thinks he's being respectful of history. He's assuming continuation of a trend that has been underway. But the history that deserves his attention isn't the recent rise or fall of an asset's price, but rather the fact that most things eventually proved to be cyclical and tend to swing back from the extreme toward the mean.
这里的伟大讽刺是，外推者实际上认为自己在尊重历史。他假设了一个正在进行中的趋势延续。然而，值得他关注的历史并不是资产价格的近期上升或下降，而是大多数事物最终被证明是循环的，并且往往会从极端回归到平均水平。
Rereading the death of equities in 2012 allowed me to immediately see parallels between the then-present day and the environment in which that article was written. When Devance had been highly negative, performance had been poor, and investor sentiment was depressed. That was enough to allow me, benefiting from the lessons of history, to adopt a positive stance. The story in 2012 isn't as hopeless as it was in 1979, but it is uniformly negative. Thus, while I don't expect an equity rally anything like what followed on the heels of the death of equities, I don't find it hard to conjure up positive scenarios.
重新阅读2012年关于股市衰败的报道让我立刻看到了当时和那篇文章写作时的环境之间的相似之处。当Devance非常悲观、表现糟糕，投资者情绪低落时，我因为借鉴了历史教训，能够采取积极的立场。2012年的情况并不像1979年那么绝望，但却普遍消极。因此，虽然我不指望股市会像股市衰败之后那样出现猛烈反弹，但我并不难想象出积极的情景。
As a result, from 2012, the year of Deja Vu all over again, through 2021, the S&P 500 returned 16.5% a year. Once again, excessively negative sentiment had resulted in major gains. It's as simple as that.
结果是，从2012年开始，也就是似曾相识的一年，到2021年，标普500指数每年回报率达到16.5%。再一次证明，过度负面的情绪会导致巨大的收益。就是这么简单。
March 2020
2020年3月
The last of the five calls, recent enough for listeners to recall the context, came in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The disease began to enter most people's consciousness in February 2020, and from mid-February to mid-March, the S&P 500 fell by approximately one-third.
最后一次呼叫发生在COVID-19疫情初期，距离此时足够近以使听众能够回忆起当时的背景。这种疾病在2020年2月开始进入大多数人的意识，从2月中旬到3月中旬，标普500指数下跌了约三分之一。
In Nobody Knows 2, March 2020, my first memo during the pandemic, I cited Harvard epidemiologist Mark Lipcich, who said on a podcast that when trying to understand the disease, there were A. Facts, B. Informed extrapolations from analogies to other viruses, and C. Opinion or Speculation. But it was clear to me at the time that there were no facts regarding the pandemic's future course and no history of other viruses of comparable magnitude to extrapolate from. Thus, we were left with Opinion or Speculation.
在2020年3月的《没有人知道2》中，我在大流行期间的第一份备忘录中引用了哈佛大学流行病学家马克·利普齐奇的话。他在一档播客中说，在试图理解这种疾病时，有以下几点：A.事实，B.通过对其他病毒进行类比的明智推断，以及C.意见或猜测。但当时对我来说很明显，关于大流行病的未来走向没有任何事实可言，也没有任何类似规模的其他病毒的历史可以进行推断。因此，我们只能依靠意见或猜测。
The bottom line of those thoughts, simply put, is that we didn't know anything about what the future held. But whereas some people think ignorance regarding the future means they mustn't take any action, someone who thinks the matter through logically and unemotionally should recognize that ignorance doesn't mean the position they're in is necessarily the position they should remain in.
简单来说，这些想法的底线是我们对未来一无所知。但是，有些人认为对未来的无知意味着他们不应采取任何行动，而一个理性和冷静思考问题的人应该意识到，无知并不意味着他们所处的位置就一定是他们应该保持的位置。
This is very much along the lines of Oak Tree's post-Lemon thinking. Two weeks later, on March 19, 2020, I ended my client-only memo, weekly update, March 19, 2020, in a similar vein. I'll sum up my views simply since there's nothing sophisticated to say. The bottom is the day before the recovery begins. Thus, it's absolutely impossible to know when the bottom has been reached.
这非常符合橡树帖子《柠檬》后的思路。两周后，即2020年3月19日，我以类似的方式结束了我的客户备忘录、每周更新备忘录，简而言之：鉴于没有复杂的话可说，我将简单地总结我的观点。市场底部是重启之前的那一天。因此，不可能确定何时达到市场底部。
Ever. Oak Tree explicitly rejects the notion of waiting for the bottom. We buy when we can access value cheap. Even though there's no way to say the bottom is at hand, the conditions that make bargains available certainly are materializing.
Ever. Oak Tree明确拒绝等待底部的观念。我们在能够以较低的价格获得价值时进行购买。尽管无法确定底部是否已经出现，但那些创造出便宜货的条件确实正在出现。
Given the price drops and selling we've seen so far, I believe this is a good time to invest, although of course it may prove not to have been the best time. No one can argue that you should spend all your money today, but equally, no one can argue that you shouldn't spend any.
鉴于我们目前所见到的价格下跌和销售情况，我认为现在是一个好的投资时机，尽管当然有可能证明这并不是最好的时机。没有人能够争辩你应该把所有的钱都花在今天，但同样也没有人能够争辩你不应该花任何钱。
Whereas some of the market calls described earlier relied on knowledge of history and or logical analysis. This recommendation was based primarily on acknowledgement of ignorance. All we knew for sure was that A, there was a pandemic underway and B, the US stock market was down one third.
而之前提到的一些市场预测基于对历史的了解或逻辑分析，而这个建议主要基于对无知的认可。我们唯一确定的是，一是有一场流行病正在进行中，而二是美国股市下跌了三分之一。
Doesn't it stand to reason though that however much money long-term investors had in stocks when the S&P 500 peaked at $33.86 in February, they should have considered adding to their positions when it hit $22.37 roughly a month later. That was the essence of my reasoning. Here's how I built up to the conclusion just cited.
难道不是合理的吗？尽管长期投资者在2月份标普500指数达到33.86美元时所持有的股票价值有多少，但他们应该在大约一个月后再次考虑增加持股量，当时标普500指数降至22.37美元。这是我的推理要点。以下是我推导出这个结论的过程。
It's easy to say that something approaching panic is present in the markets. We've seen record percentage declines several times within the last month, exceeded since 1940 only by Black Monday. October 19, 1987, when the S&P 500 declined by 20.4% in a day. This week and last included down days as follows. Minus 7.6%, minus 9.5%, minus 12% and minus 5.2% yesterday. These are enormous losses.
可以说市场上出现了接近恐慌的情绪是很容易的。在过去的一个月内，我们已经多次见证了百分比创纪录的下跌，这种下跌仅次于1940年的黑色星期一——1987年10月19日，当天标普500指数下跌了20.4%。本周和上周也一直是下跌的日子，具体如下：减少了7.6%，减少了9.5%，减少了12%，昨天减少了5.2%。这些都是巨大的损失。
There has been a rush to cash. With long positions and short positions have been closed out, a sure sign of chaos and uncertainty. Cash in money market funds has increased substantially. This doesn't tell us anything about fundamentals, but the outlook for eventual market performance is improved. The more people have sold, the less they have left to sell and the more cash they have with which to buy when they turn less pessimistic.
现在人们争相兑现。随着多头和空头头寸的平仓，这是混乱和不确定的明确迹象。货币市场基金的现金增加了很多。这并没有告诉我们关于基本面的任何信息，但对最终市场表现的预期有所改善。卖出的人越多，他们剩下的可卖股票就越少，而在他们变得不那么悲观时，他们手上的现金就越多，用来购买股票。
In the words of Justin Quaglium, one of our traders, after two days of a basically stalled but stressed bond market, we finally had the rubber band snap. Forced sellers needing to sell for immediate cash flow needs brought the market lower in a hurry. We opened three to five points lower and the street was again hesitant to take risk. We're never happy to have the events that bring on chaos and especially not the ones that are underway today. But it's sentiment like Justin describes that fuels the emotional selling that allows us to access the greatest bargains.
正如我们的交易员贾斯汀·夸格利乌姆所说，经过两天基本停滞但紧张的债券市场，我们终于出现了橡皮筋破裂的情况。由于被迫卖出以满足即时资金流动需求，市场迅速下跌。我们的市场开盘比前一天低了三到五个点，市场再次犹豫不决，不敢承担风险。我们从来不会因为带来混乱的事件而高兴，尤其是今天正在发生的事件。但正是像贾斯汀所描述的情绪卖出，为我们提供了接触最大优惠的机会。
Weekly Update
While neither a historical foundation nor rigorous quantitative analysis was achievable, the above paragraphs indicate that one could still logically determine an appropriate course of action. As I wrote in that same memo, what do we know? Not much other than the fact that asset prices are well down, asset holders' ability to hold Cooley is evaporating and motivated selling is picking up. But that was enough. Paralysis wasn't called for, but rather steps that could help us take advantage of most investors' panic and the resulting dramatic price declines.
每周更新
尽管无法进行历史根据或严格的数量分析，但上述段落表明人们仍然可以合乎逻辑地确定合适的应对措施。就像我在同一备忘录中所写的那样，我们知道什么？除了资产价格大幅下降、资产持有者持有Cooley的能力逐渐消失和出售意愿增加之外，我们并没有太多的了解。不过这已经足够了。我们不需要陷入瘫痪，而是需要采取措施来利用大多数投资者的恐慌和由此造成的剧烈价格下跌。
Sometimes it's as simple as that. When the knee-jerk reaction of most investors is to stand pat or sell a contrarian decision to buy might well be called for. Doing so is never easy, though, and mid-March 2020 was one of the most challenging environments I've ever worked through. But the key, as Rudyard Kipling wrote in the poem IF, is to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. How can you do it?
有时候事情就是如此简单。当大多数投资者的条件反射反应是保持不动或卖出时，可能需要采取一种相反的决策来买入。然而，这样做从来都不容易，而2020年3月中旬是我经历过的最具挑战性的时刻之一。但正如鲁德亚德·吉卜林在诗歌《如果》中所写，关键是在周围的人都在惶恐失措时保持冷静。你如何做到这一点呢？
I described these five calls not for purposes of self-congratulation, but rather to lay the groundwork for a discussion of how one can make useful observations regarding the status of the markets. Hopefully, we learn from our experiences as we go through life. But to really learn from them, we have to step back on occasion, look at an entire string of events and figure out the following. A. What happened? B. Is there a pattern that has repeated? And C. What are the lessons to be learned from the pattern?
我描述这五个电话并不是为了自我夸耀，而是为了为讨论如何对市场状态进行有用观察奠定基础。希望我们在生活中经历了一些经验后能够学到一些东西。但要真正从中学到东西，我们必须偶尔退后一步，看看一系列事件，并弄清以下几点。A. 发生了什么？B. 是否存在重复出现的模式？C. 这个模式有什么教训可供学习？
That's in a while, once or twice a decade, perhaps, markets go so high or so low that the argument for action is compelling and the probability of being right is high. As my son helped me to recognize, I had identified five of those and they paid off. But what if I had tried to make 50 market calls in my 50 years, or 500? By definition, I would have been making judgments about markets that were closer to the middle ground, perhaps a little high or a little low, but not so extreme as to permit dependable conclusions.
有时候，市场会每十年或二十年出现一次的高点或低点，这时我们有充分理由采取行动，而且成功的概率也较高。正如我儿子所帮助我认识到的，我已经找到了其中的五次机会，并且这些行动都取得了成功。但是如果我在过去五十年中尝试做五十次或五百次市场预测呢？根据定义，这样做意味着我要对市场做出更中庸的判断，或者稍稍高估或低估，但不至于极端到可以产生可靠的结论。
Investors at records of success with calls in markets like these are poor, since even if they're right about asset prices being out of line, it's very easy for something that's a little overpriced to go on to become demonstrably more so, and then to turn into a raging bubble and vice versa. In fact, if we could rely on small, mispricings to always correct promptly, they would never go into the manious bubbles and crashes we see from time to time. So one key is to avoid making macro calls too often.
在像这样的市场中，那些以成功的调用记录为傲的投资者往往表现不佳，因为即使他们对资产价格过高有正确的判断，稍微高估的东西很容易变成明显更高估的，然后发展成大规模的泡沫，反之亦然。事实上，如果我们能够依赖小的定价错误总能迅速纠正，那么我们就不会时不时地看到产生巨大泡沫和崩盘。因此，一个关键是避免频繁做出宏观判断。
I wouldn't want to try to make a living predicting the outcome of coin tosses or figuring out whether the favorite will cover the point spread in every football game over the course of a season. You have to pick your spots. As Warren Buffett puts it, wait for a fat pitch. Most of the time you have nothing to lose by abstaining from trying to adroitly get in and out of the markets. You merely participate in their long-term trends, and those have been very favorable.
我不愿意尝试通过预测抛硬币的结果或在每个足球赛季中计算出最喜欢的球队是否能达到分数差来维持生计。你必须选择时机。正如华伦·巴菲特所说，等待一个好机会。大部分时间里，放弃试图灵活进出市场不会有任何损失。你只需参与其中的长期趋势，而这些趋势一直非常有利。
My listeners know I don't think consistently profitable market calls can be manufactured out of macroeconomic forecasts. No more do I believe you can beat the market simply by analyzing company reports. On both subjects, as Andrew puts it, listen to my memo Something of Value, January 2021, readily available quantitative data regarding the past and present can't hold the secret to superior performance since it's available to everyone.
我的听众们知道，我认为宏观经济预测不能制造出持续盈利的市场预测。我不再相信单靠分析公司报告就能打败市场。关于这两个问题，正如安德鲁所说，你可以听我的备忘录《有价值之物》，2021年1月份，现成的定量数据不能揭示出卓越表现的秘密，因为这些数据对每个人都是可获取的。
When markets are at extreme highs or lows, the essential requirement for achieving a superior view of their future performance lies in understanding what's responsible for the current conditions. Everyone can study economics, finance and accounting and learn how the markets are supposed to work, but superior investment results come from exploiting the differences between how things are supposed to work and how they actually do work in the real world. To do that, the essential inputs aren't economic data or financial statements analysis. The key lies in understanding prevailing investor psychology.
当市场处于极高或极低水平时，获取对未来表现的高屋建瓴的观点的基本要求在于理解当前状况的成因。每个人都可以学习经济学、金融学和会计学，并了解市场应该如何运行，但出色的投资业绩来自于利用事物应该如何运作与现实世界中它们实际如何运作之间的差异。为了做到这一点，必要的输入并不是经济数据或财务报表分析，关键在于理解主导的投资者心理。
For me, the things one must do fall under the general heading of taking the temperature of the market. I'll itemize the most essential components here. Engage in pattern recognition. Study market history in order to better understand the implications of today's events. Ironically, when viewed over the long term, investor psychology and thus market cycles, which seem flighty and unpredictable, fluctuate in ways that approach dependability, if you're willing to overlook their highly variable causality, timing and amplitude.
对我而言，必须要做的事情归结为研究市场的脉搏。我会在这里列举最重要的要素。要进行模式识别。通过研究市场历史，以更好地了解今天事件的影响。具有讽刺意味的是，从长期来看，投资者心理和市场周期似乎变化无常而难以预测，但如果你愿意忽视它们高度可变的因果性、时间和幅度，它们的波动方式则变得相对可靠。
Understand that cycles stem from what I call excesses and corrections, and that a strong movement in one direction is more likely to be followed sooner or later by a correction in the opposite direction than by a trend that grows to the sky. It's for moments when most people are so optimistic that they think things can only get better, an expression that usually serves to justify the dangerous view that there's no price too high. Likewise, recognize when people are so depressed that they conclude things can only get worse, as this often means they think a sale at any price is a good sale. When the herds thinking is either Pollyanna-ish or apocalyptic, the odds increase that the current price level and direction are unsustainable.
理解循环是源自我所称之为“过度和修正”的现象，强烈的单向运动往往比向天空般增长的趋势更有可能被相反方向的修正所紧随其后。这一观点适用于大多数人都极度乐观的时刻，他们认为事情只会变得更好，这种观点往往用来为危险的观点辩护，即认为没有一个价格是过高的。同样地，当人们极度沮丧以至于认为事情只能变得更糟时，他们往往认为任何价格的折扣都是一个好的交易。当群体的思维要么过度乐观，要么极度悲观时，当前价格水平和趋势往往是不可持续的。
Remember that in extreme times, because of what was just mentioned, the secret to making money lies in contrarianism, not conformity. When emotional investors take an extreme view of an asset's future, and as a result take the price to unjustified levels, the easy money is usually made by doing the opposite. This is however very different from simply diverging from the consensus all the time. Indeed, most of the time, the consensus is as close to right as most individuals can get. So, to be successful at contrarianism, you have to understand, A, what the herd is doing, B, why it's doing it, C, what's wrong with it, and D, what should be done instead, and why.
记住，在极端时期，因为刚刚提到的原因，赚钱的秘诀在于违背常规，而不是随波逐流。当情绪化的投资者对某个资产未来持极端看法，并且结果将价格推至不合理水平时，赚钱通常是通过采取相反行动来实现的。然而，这与一直与共识不同。事实上，在大多数时候，共识接近个体能够达到的正确程度。所以，要在逆向投资中取得成功，你必须明白：A. 共识在做什么，B. 为什么这样做，C. 这其中有什么问题，D. 反而应该做什么，以及为什么要这样做。
Bear in mind that much of what happens in economies and markets doesn't result from a mechanical process, but from the to and fro of investors' emotions. Take note of the swings and capitalize whenever possible. Resist your own emotionality. Stand apart from the crowd and its psychology. Don't join in. Be on the lookout for illogical propositions, such as stocks have fallen so far that no one will be interested in them. Can you come across a widely accepted proposition that doesn't make sense, or one you find too good to be true, or too bad to be true? Take appropriate action. See something, do something.
请记住，经济和市场中发生的许多事情并非来自于一个机械的过程，而是来自于投资者情绪的起伏。注意市场的波动，并尽可能利用。抵制自己的情绪化。与人群和心理保持距离。不要参与其中。要警惕那些不合逻辑的主张，比如股票跌得如此之低，没有人会对它们感兴趣。你能找到一个被广泛接受的主张并不合理的例子吗？或者你发现一个太好以至于不真实，或者太糟糕以至于不真实的例子吗？采取适当的行动。看到问题，就要采取行动。
Obviously, there's a lot to grapple with when taking the temperature of the market. In my opinion, it has more to do with clear-eyed observations and assessments of the implications of what you see than with computers, financial data, or calculations. I'll go into additional depth on a couple of points.
显然，当我们评估市场状况时，有许多需要面对的问题。在我看来，这与清醒的观察和评估所看到的意义有更大的关系，而不仅仅是与计算机、金融数据或计算有关。我将详细谈一谈其中的一些要点。
On pattern recognition. You may have noticed that the first of the five calls described just now was made in 2000, when I had already been working in the investment industry for more than 30 years. Does this mean there were no highs and lows to remark on in those earlier years? No, I think it means it took me that long to gain the insight and experience needed to detect the market's excesses. Most notably, whereas I spent the past few minutes describing the profound error in the death of equities, you may have noticed that I didn't say anything about my having called out the article when it appeared in Business Week in 1979.
关于模式识别。你可能注意到，刚才描述的五次呼吁中的第一次是在2000年进行的，而那时我已经在投资行业工作了30多年。这是否意味着在那些早年中没有什么值得注意的高峰和低谷？不，我认为这意味着我花了那么长时间才获得了发现市场过度之处所需要的洞察力和经验。尤其值得注意的是，虽然我刚刚花了几分钟描述了死亡股票的严重错误，但你可能注意到我并没有提到我在1979年看到《商业周刊》上发表这篇文章时是否发出了警告。
The reason is simple. I didn't. I had only been in this business for about a decade at that point, so A, I didn't have the experience needed to recognize the article's error, and B, I had yet to develop the unemotional stance and contrarian approach needed to depart from the herd and rebel against its thesis.
原因很简单。我没有。那时，我只在这个行业里工作了大约十年，所以一方面，我没有足够的经验来识别文章中的错误，另一方面，我还没有形成无感情立场和反对群体主张的反叛性思维方式。
The best I can say is that my eventual development of those attributes enabled me to catch the same error when it arose again 33 years later. Pattern recognition is an important part of what we do, but it seems to require time in the field and some scars rather than just book learning.
我能说的是，我最终发展了这些特质，使得我在33年后再次出现同样错误时能够发现它。模式识别是我们工作中重要的一部分，但它似乎需要从实践中获得经验和一些创伤，而不仅仅是书本学习。
On cycles. In my book, Mastering the Market Cycle, I defined cycles not as a series of up and down movements, each of which regularly precedes the next, which I believe is the usual definition, but as a series of events, each of which causes the next. This causality holds the key to understanding cycles. In particular, I think economies, investor psychology, and thus markets eventually go too far in one direction or another. They become too positive or too negative, and afterward, they eventually swing back toward moderation, and then usually toward excess in the opposite direction. Thus, in my opinion, these cycles are best understood as stemming from excesses and corrections.
关于周期。在我所著的《掌握市场循环》一书中，我将周期定义为一系列事件，每个事件导致下一个事件，而不是通常的理解中的一系列上升和下降运动，每个运动常常都会预示下一个。这种因果关系是理解周期的关键。特别是，我认为经济、投资者心理和市场最终都会过度偏向某个方向。它们变得过于乐观或过于悲观，然后最终回归温和，通常会向相反的方向发展过度。因此，在我看来，这些周期最好理解为过度和修正之间的关联。
During the details of the individual episodes, it's clear from the descriptions of these five calls that the greatest opportunities for bargain purchases result from overly negative prevailing psychology, and the greatest opportunities to sell at too high prices arise from excessive optimism.
在对这五次电话的具体细节描述中，可以清楚地看出，最好的低价购买机会来自于过度负面的普遍心态，而最好的高价出售机会则源自过度乐观的心态。
Macro calls and the oak tree culture. While on the subject of market calls, I want to touch on two questions I've received repeatedly since the publication of my memo, The Illusion of Knowledge, September 2022, which discussed why I believe creating helpful macro forecasts is so challenging. How does my making these market calls fit within oak tree's investment approach? And how can we make micro forecasts concerning companies, industries, and securities without predicting the macro context?
宏观预测以及橡树文化。在谈论市场预测的话题时，我想谈一下自从我在2022年9月发表了《知识的幻觉》备忘录以来，我一直收到的两个问题，那篇备忘录讨论了为什么我相信制定有用的宏观预测如此具有挑战性。我的这些市场预测如何符合橡树的投资方式？而且，我们如何在不预测宏观情况的情况下，对公司、行业和证券进行微观预测呢？
In 1995, when my four oak tree co-founders and I decided to form a new firm, we'd already been working together for nine years on average. To come up with an investment philosophy that would guide the new entity, we only had to reflect on what had worked for us up to that point and what we believed in. This led us to write down the six tenets that describe how we invest, and we haven't changed a word in 28 years.
在1995年，当我和另外四位橡树联合创始人决定成立一家新公司时，我们已经在一起工作了九年。为了确定一个能指导新公司的投资理念，我们只需要回顾过去我们所做的工作和我们的信念。这促使我们写下了六个原则，描述了我们的投资方式，而这些原则至今已经保持了28年，没有改变过一字。
Of the six tenets, two raised questions regarding how macro calls fit within oak tree's investment approach. Number five, we don't base our investment decisions on macro forecasts. Number six, we're not market timers. How about the first of those?
在这六项原则中，有两项引发了关于宏观调用如何符合橡树投资方法的问题。第五，我们不根据宏观预测来做投资决策。第六，我们不是市场定时器。那么第一项原则呢？
It's easy to say you don't invest on the basis of macro forecasts, and I've been saying this for decades, but the truth is, if you're a bottom-up investor, you make estimates regarding future earnings and or asset values, and those estimates have to be predicated on assumptions regarding the macro environment. Certainly, you can't predict a business's results in a given period without considering what will be going on in the economy at that point.
说你不投资基于宏观预测很容易，我已经这样说了数十年，但事实是，如果你是一个自下而上的投资者，你对未来盈利或资产价值进行估计时，这些估计必须基于对宏观环境的假设。毫无疑问，如果不考虑当时经济状况，是无法预测一家企业在某个时期的业绩的。
So then, what does avoiding macro forecasting mean to us? My answer is as follows. We generally assume the macro environment of the future will resemble past norms. We then make allowance for the possibility that things will be worse than normal. Ensuring our investments have a generous margin of safety makes it more likely they'll do okay, even if future macro developments disappoint somewhat. What we never do is project that the macro environment will be distinctly better than normal in some way, making winners at a particular investment. Doing so can lead to profits if one is right, but it's hard to consistently make such forecasts correctly. Further, investments reliant on favorable macro developments can expose investors to the possibility of disappointment leading to loss. It's our goal to construct portfolios where the surprises will be on the upside. Building on optimistic underlying assumptions is rarely part of such a process. We prefer to make assumptions I would describe as neutral.
那么，在避免宏观预测方面，对我们意味着什么呢？我的答案如下。通常我们假设未来的宏观环境将类似于过去的常态。然后我们留有余地，考虑到有可能比正常情况更糟糕。确保我们的投资有足够的安全边际，这样即使未来的宏观发展稍微令人失望，它们也更有可能做得不错。我们永远不会预测宏观环境在某种方面会明显优于正常水平，从而使某项投资成为赢家。这样做可以带来利润，如果预测正确的话，但要持续准确地进行这样的预测是困难的。此外，依赖于有利的宏观发展的投资可能使投资者面临失望导致亏损的可能性。我们的目标是构建令人惊喜的投资组合。建立在乐观的基础假设上很少参与其中。我们更喜欢做中立的假设。
So we do base our modeling on macro assumptions by necessity, but rarely are those assumptions boldly idiosyncratic or optimistic. We never base our investment decisions on the mistaken belief that we, or anyone else, can predict the future. Thus, we recognize that the above average results we seek must arise from our ground-up insights and not from our ability to do a superior job of forecasting unusual macro events.
因为必要性，所以我们确实基于宏观假设进行建模，但很少有那些大胆特异或乐观的假设。我们从不基于错误的信念来做投资决策，即我们或其他人能够预测未来。因此，我们认识到，我们寻求的超平均结果必须来自我们的基于具体情况的洞察力，而不是我们在预测异常宏观事件方面的卓越能力。
You might ask here, what about the memo C change, and it's assertion that we may be seeing a shift toward a wholly different environment? My answer is that I feel good about this memo because, A, it's mostly a review of recent history, and B, the important observations surround the unusual nature of the 2009-21 period, its effect on investment outcomes, and the imprimability of it repeating.
你可能会问，在备忘录C中提到的转变，以及其声称我们可能正在见证一个完全不同的环境的情况如何？我的回答是，我对这个备忘录感到乐观，因为，一、它主要是对近期历史的回顾，二、重要观察围绕着2009-21年这段非同寻常的时期的性质，其对投资结果的影响，以及其重复的可行性。
I'm particularly comfortable saying interest rates aren't going to decline by another 2,000 basis points from here. While it's important to stick to guiding principles, it's also essential to recognize and respond to real change when it happens. Thus, I stand by C change, my only expression of an opinion of this kind in my entire working life as an acceptable deviation for my standard practice. For me, the case for a C change has more to do with observing and inferring than it does with predicting.
我非常确信利率不会再从这里下降2,000个基点。虽然坚持原则很重要，但也必须承认并对真实变化作出回应是至关重要的。因此，我坚持我的C变化观点，这是我职业生涯中唯一一次表达这种观点的合理偏差。对我来说，支持C变化更多地是观察和推断，而不是预测。
And what about market timing? As I've written numerous times since developing my risk posture framework a few years ago, every investor should operate most of the time in the context of their normal risk posture, by which I mean the balance between aggressiveness and defensiveness that's right for them. It makes perfect sense to try to vary that balance when circumstances dictate compellingly that you should do so, and your judgments have a high probability of being correct, like in the case of the five calls I've discussed. But such occasions are rare. So we stay in our normal balance, which in Oak Tree's case implies a bias toward defensiveness, unless compelled to do otherwise. But we are willing to make changes in our balance between aggressiveness and defensiveness, and we have done so successfully in the past. In fact, I consider one of my principal responsibilities to be thinking about the proper balance for Oak Tree at any given time.
那么市场时间呢？自从几年前开发我的风险姿态框架以来，我已经多次提到，每个投资者在大部分时间里都应该根据他们自己的正常风险姿态来进行操作，所谓正常风险姿态是指适合他们的进攻性和防守性之间的平衡。当情况迫使你必须改变这种平衡并且你的判断有很大概率是正确的时候，尝试改变这种平衡是非常合理的，就像我所讨论的那五个问题一样。但是这样的情况很少见。因此，我们会保持我们的正常平衡，对应于橡树的情况，这意味着我们更倾向于防守。但是我们愿意在进攻性和防守性之间进行调整，并且我们过去也成功地做到了这一点。事实上，我认为我负有的首要责任之一就是思考橡树在任何时候的适当平衡。
If we're happy to vary our risk posture, then what does it mean when we say we're not market timers? For me, it means the following. We don't sell things we consider attractive long-term holdings to raise cash in expectation of a market decline. We usually sell because A, a holding has reached our target price, B, the investment case has deteriorated, or C, we've found something better. Our open-end portfolios are almost always fully invested. That way we avoid the risk of missing out on positive returns. It also means buying usually necessitates some selling. We don't say it's cheap today, but it'll be cheaper in six months, so we'll wait. If it's cheap, we buy. If it gets cheaper, and we conclude the thesis is still intact, we buy more. We're much more afraid of missing a bargain-priced opportunity than we are starting to buy a good thing too early. No one really knows whether something will get cheaper in the days and weeks ahead. That's a matter of predicting investor psychology, which is somewhere between challenging and impossible. We feel we're much more likely to correctly gauge the value of individual assets.
如果我们乐意改变我们的风险姿态，那么当我们说我们不是市场定时器时，这意味着什么？对我来说，它意味着以下几点。我们不会出售我们认为是有吸引力的长期持有品种，以筹集现金来应对市场下滑的预期。我们通常出售的原因是：A、某个持有品种达到了我们的目标价格；B、投资案例恶化；或者C、我们找到了更好的投资机会。我们的开放式投资组合几乎总是完全投资的。这样我们可以避免错过正收益的风险。这也意味着购买通常需要一些出售。我们不会说今天便宜，但六个月后会更便宜，所以我们会等待。如果便宜，我们会买入。如果价格继续下跌，而我们认为投资论点仍然成立，我们会增加买入。我们害怕错过便宜的机会，而不是过早开始购买优质资产。没人真正知道某个东西在未来几天或几周内会变得更便宜。这是对投资者心理的预测，这在某种程度上是具有挑战性甚至是不可能的。我们觉得我们更有可能正确判断个别资产的价值。
While on the subject of buying too soon, I want to spend a minute on an interesting question. Which is worse, buying at the top, or selling at the bottom? For me, the answer is easy. The latter. If you buy at what later turns out to have been a market top, you'll suffer a downward fluctuation. But that isn't cause for concern if the long-term thesis remains intact. And anyway, the next top is usually higher than the last top, meaning you're likely to be ahead eventually. But if you sell at a market bottom, you render that downward fluctuation permanent. And even more importantly, you get off the escalator of a rising economy and rising markets that has made so many long-term investors rich. This is why I describe selling at the bottom as the cardinal sin in investing.
在谈论过早购买的主题上，我想花一分钟谈一个有趣的问题。到底是买在市场高点更糟糕，还是在市场低点卖出更糟糕？对我来说，答案很简单，后者更糟糕。如果你买入的时候恰好是市场的高点，你会面临价格下跌的波动。但是如果你持有的时间较长，随着时间推移，这并不是什么大问题。而且，通常情况下，下一个高点会比上一个高点更高，这意味着你最终可能会赚钱。但是如果你在市场低点卖出，你就将这种下跌趋势固定下来。更重要的是，你退出了一个经济和市场一直走强的行列，而这正是让很多长期投资者致富的关键所在。这就是为什么我将在市场低点卖出视为投资中的致命错误。
Thinking about the macro environment and how it influences our proper risk posture falls squarely within our responsibilities as investment managers. But the bottom line is that at Oaktree, we approach these things with great humility. Diverging from our neutral assumptions and normal behavior only when circumstances leave us no other choice. Five times in 50 years gives you an idea about our level of interest in being market timers. The fact is, we do so hesitantly. July 10, 2023. Thank you for listening to The Memo by Howard Marks. To hear more episodes, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
思考宏观环境及其对我们适当的风险姿态产生的影响，是作为投资经理正确认知的一部分。但最重要的是，在Oaktree，我们以极大的谦卑态度对待这些事情。只有在情况迫使我们别无选择时，我们才会偏离中立假设和正常行为。50年来只有五次，这给你一个关于我们在市场定时方面兴趣程度的想法。事实是，我们这样做时常常犹豫。2023年7月10日，感谢您收听Howard Marks的《备忘录》。要听更多的剧集，请务必订阅您聆听播客的任何地方。
This podcast expresses the views of the author as of the date indicated and such views are subject to change without notice. Oaktree has no duty or obligation to update the information contained herein. Further, Oaktree makes no representation and it should not be assumed that past investment performance is an indication of future results. Moreover, wherever there is a potential for profit, there is also the possibility of loss.
这个播客表达了作者在指定日期时的观点，这些观点可能会随时改变而无需提前通知。Oaktree没有义务或责任更新此处所包含的信息。此外，Oaktree不作任何陈述，也不应假设过去的投资业绩能预示未来的结果。此外，任何有盈利潜力的地方也存在亏损的可能性。
This podcast is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose. The information contained herein does not constitute and should not be construed as an offering of advisory services or an offer to sell or solicitation to buy any securities or related financial instruments in any jurisdiction.
这个播客仅供教育目的提供，不得用于其他任何目的。本文所包含的信息不构成并不应被解释为提供咨询服务或出售或购买任何证券或相关金融工具的要约或邀请，在任何司法管辖区内。
Certain information contained herein concerning economic trends and performances based on or derived from information provided by independent third-party sources. Oaktree Capital Management LP, Oaktree, believes that the sources from which such information has been obtained are reliable. However, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of such information and has not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of such information or the assumptions on which such information is based.
关于经济趋势和表现的某些信息包含在此文件中，这些信息基于或来源于独立第三方提供的信息。橡树资本管理有限合伙公司（以下简称"橡树"）认为所获取信息的来源可靠。然而，橡树不能保证该信息的准确性，并且并未独立核实该信息的准确性、完整性或基于该信息的假设。
This podcast, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part in any form without the prior written consent of Oaktree. De but LAN.
本播客以及其中包含的信息，未经Oaktree的事先书面同意，不得以任何形式全文或部分复制、再制、重新发布或发布。De but LAN.