Markets Weekly October 28, 2023

Hello my friends, today is October 28th. My name is Joseph and this is Markets Weekly. This week we're going to talk about three things.

大家好，今天是10月28日。我叫约瑟夫，这里是《市场周报》。本周我们将要讨论三个问题。

First, we have to talk about the 10-year yield. Now we've been discussing this subject on and off for the past few months. But today I'm going to say something a bit different. I think that the highs for the 10-year yield for this year are probably it. And I'll tell you why I think that.

首先，我们必须谈谈10年期收益率。过去几个月，我们一直围绕这个主题进行讨论。但是今天我要说些不同的话。我认为今年的10年期收益率高点可能已经达到了。我会告诉你我为什么这样想。

Secondly, I want to talk about gold. So this past week we had stock sell-off, we had bond sell-off. It looks like everything in the financial markets was a disaster with the exception of gold, which basically took off like a rocket shift. It seems like gold is getting a very strong safe haven bid. Let's think about some of the drivers behind it.

其次，我想谈谈黄金。上周股票和债券市场遭受抛售，金融市场似乎一切都灾难性地崩溃了，唯独黄金像火箭一样升值。黄金似乎成为了一个非常强劲的避险因素。让我们考虑一些背后的驱动因素。

And lastly, we have to talk about the bonkers GDP print we had the past week where third-quarter GDP in the US printed at an annual growth rate of 4.9%. Not too long ago, there were so many doomers all over social media telling everyone that at any moment now the economy was going to turn a quarter and you're going to get a recession and so forth. And the economy did turn a quarter, but it turned upward. Let's see if that's sustainable.

最后，我们必须谈谈上周的疯狂GDP增长数据，美国第三季度的GDP以4.9%的年增长率公布。不久之前，社交媒体上有很多悲观者告诉大家，经济随时都有可能出现一个季度的衰退等等。而确实，经济确实经历了一个季度的衰退，但是转为向上。现在让我们看看这是否可持续。

Okay, starting with the 10-year yield. Now before we proceed, let's level set a little bit. Taking a step back, we can see that the 10-year yield started the year a bit below 4% and a throughout the year steadily trended higher. No surprise to any of you. Now when we crossed 4.3%, I told you guys that the highs were not yet in for the year. When we crossed 4.5%, I said the same thing. But I think there are a few things changing right now that lead me to think that we may be due for a pause, at least for the next few weeks until the end of the year.

好的，首先谈谈10年期收益率。在我们继续之前，请让我们稍作解释。回顾一下，我们可以看到今年开始时10年期收益率略低于4%，然后在整个年份持续稳步上升。这对你们中间没有人来说并不令人意外。当我们突破4.3%时，我告诉过大家年内的高点还没有到。当我们突破4.5%时，我也同样说了这样的话。但是我认为现在有一些变化，让我觉得我们可能需要暂停一下，至少在接下来的几周直到年底。

Now make no mistake, as I've been saying for the past two years, I believe that the future will not look like the past. We are in a world where interest rates will trend structurally higher. From my own work, I look at this from the perspective of supply and demand. And as we know, supply is for all intents and purposes infinite. The US government likes to spend money and it's going to spend more and more money going forward. From my work on the financial system, I don't think that the financial system is elastic enough to absorb all that issuance unless yields go higher. And of course, there is a chance where they can spike higher.

现在请不要误解，就像我过去两年一直在说的那样，我相信未来将不会像过去那样。我们处于一个利率趋势结构性上升的世界。根据我的研究，我从供需的角度来看待这个问题。而众所周知，供应从本质上来说是无限的。美国政府喜欢花钱，将来它会花更多的钱。根据我对金融系统的研究，我认为金融系统不够弹性，无法吸收全部发行，除非收益率上升。当然，也存在收益率可能出现剧烈上升的机会。

The end game for all of this is, in my view, some sort of active involvement from the Fed may be in the form of yield curve control. That is the inescapable end game. But like a movie or a novel or anything like that, you don't go straight away to the ending and fight the boss. There is a journey, a process.

我认为，所有这一切的最终目标是美联储以某种形式参与，可能是通过收益率曲线控制。这是不可避免的最终目标。但就像电影、小说或其他任何事物一样，你不会马上走向结局并与BOSS（最终敌人）进行战斗。这是一个旅程，一个过程。

Now let's take a big zoom back and look at the tremendous bull market in Treasuries over the past few decades. We can see that yields trended lower over decades, but it wasn't a straight line. Every now and then we'd see yields jump higher before resuming their trend downwards. Now, this is true for basically any financial asset. And so over the past year, we've seen yields rise significantly. So I think it's reasonable for us to have a bit of a pullback. But there are three specific reasons for it.

现在让我们缩小视野，回顾一下过去几十年中国债市场的巨大牛市。我们可以看到，债券收益率在几十年的时间里呈现下降趋势，但并非笔直线。每隔一段时间，我们会见到收益率在继续下降之前回升上升。现在，这个道理对于基本上任何金融资产都是适用的。因此，在过去一年中，我们看到了收益率的大幅上升。所以我认为稍为回调是合理的。但这其中有三个具体的原因。

First off, as you recall on Monday, when the 10-year yield traded briefly above 5% and then retreated below, we saw some big personalities in social media come out and say, guys, I think the yields are too high. There's recession and geopolitical risk and so forth. And I think those guys, they are obviously influential, but I think they are indicative of sentiment broadly. We've had a big move upwards and I think perhaps the market could use some time to digest.

首先，在周一，当10年期收益率短暂地上涨到5%以上，然后又下跌到下方时，我们看到一些社交媒体上有些重要的人物说，伙计们，我认为收益率太高了。有衰退和地缘政治风险等因素。我认为这些人显然具有影响力，但我认为他们代表了广泛的情绪。我们经历了一个大幅上涨，我觉得市场可能需要一些时间来消化。

Secondly, if you've been following my work, my sense is that over the past few weeks, there's been a shift in monetary policy. Now monetary policy is like a super tanker. It moves slowly and deliberately. And my read is that the Fed has subtly shifted, whereas in my view, the raking, hiking cycle is most likely over. And I think that the market is misunderstanding how things will play out. Now recall, over the past two years, I've been telling everyone that the Fed is going to high grades a lot and they're going to stay higher for longer. The market has been fighting that for the past two years and has been totally wrong all the way. Over the past few weeks, though, the market is pretty much in line with what the Fed has been projecting in their dot plots. Let's say the Fed hikes rates maybe one more time, but then holds it for a four extended period of time.

其次，如果你一直关注我的工作，我的感觉是，在过去几周里，货币政策发生了变化。现在货币政策就像一艘巨型油轮，移动缓慢而刻意。而我的理解是，联邦储备系统已经微妙地发生了变化，我认为加息周期很可能已经结束。我认为市场误解了事物的发展方式。回想一下，在过去的两年里，我一直告诉大家联储将会大幅加息，并且会维持较长时间，而市场在过去两年一直与我的观点相左，并且一直都错得离谱。然而，在过去几周里，市场对联储在点阵图中的预测基本上与他们的预期相符合。假设联储可能再次加息一次，但随后在较长一段时间内保持利率不变。

What the market is not yet understanding, I think, is this shift that we've been hearing from some members of the Fed were because the 10-year yield has risen up so much, there's less of a need to tighten. And if actually if you look at recent data, you can see that inflation is very much trending in the right direction. So I suspect that we'll probably get rate cuts in as early as March, which is not what the market is pricing. So I think the market is making the same mistake it did in the past. And that is to say, thinking that the future looks like the past. And if monetary policy really does shift, and I think it will be more obvious in the coming weeks that there has been a change in the sense of policy, then that would put downward pressure across the curve, across the interest rate curve.

市场还没有理解的是，我认为，我们从一些美联储成员那里听到的转变是由于10年期国债收益率上升了那么多，就不需要那么紧缩了。如果你实际上看最近的数据，你会发现通胀正朝着正确的方向发展。所以我猜测我们可能会在三月份就会有降息，而市场并没有加入这一预期。所以我认为市场正在犯过去的错误，就是认为未来会像过去一样。如果货币政策真的发生转变，我认为在接下来的几周里这将更加明显，那么这将对整个利率曲线产生下行压力。

Now the last thing that I'm thinking that would contribute to slowing down this steady rise in yields is that I suspect that the US Treasury is probably going to have to do something to stabilize the markets. Now the US Treasury gets to decide where along the curve they issue Treasury debt. And this power, this discretion gives them the power to impact financial conditions. For example, they could choose to issue a whole ton of 10-year, 30-years, and that would definitely make yields shoot up higher, which would make financial assets be unhappy and it would make mortgage risk go higher and would have a negative impact on the economy.

我现在在考虑的最后一件事是，我认为美国财政部可能需要采取措施来稳定市场，从而减缓收益率稳步上升的趋势。现在美国财政部可以决定在曲线的哪个位置发行国债。这种权力和自主权使他们有能力影响金融状况。例如，他们可以选择发行大量的10年期和30年期国债，这肯定会推高收益率，使金融资产感到不满意，还会增加按揭风险，并对经济产生负面影响。

Now they don't have control over how much debt to issue. That's totally up to Congress, which decides spending and taxing. But this power to adjust issuance along the curve is important because the US Treasury could, for example, decide to issue a lot more debt in Treasury bills, where there is tremendous demand for bills in the markets. So if you issue a whole bunch of bills, it's not going to have a big impact on long-rated yields or market prices in general. So over the last quarter, the US Treasury decided that they were going to slightly adjust the share of bills they issue higher than they usually do. And I suspect that they're going to continue to do that because that's the only way, well, it's not the only way, but because they have an election next year and they don't want yields to continue to rise, putting downward pressure on the economy and financial assets, that's a bad place to be in an election year. So I don't know for this for sure, but from my read, I think that's likely going forward. We'll find out more when they release their debt issuance plan next week. But if that's the case, though, I think that's going to put a bit more stability in the Treasury market.

现在他们对于发行多少债务失去了控制。这完全取决于国会决定支出和征税的权力。但是调整发行各个期限的能力非常重要，因为美国财政部可以决定在短期国债方面发行更多的债务，市场对此有极大的需求。因此，如果大量发行短期国债，对长期债券收益率或整体市场价格不会有很大影响。因此，在过去的一个季度里，美国财政部决定稍微提高短期国债的发行份额，我认为他们可能会继续这样做，因为明年有选举，他们不希望收益率继续上升，给经济和金融资产施加下行压力，在选举年处于不利地位。所以我不确定，但是从我的观察来看，我认为这可能会继续下去。下周他们发布债务发行计划时，我们将了解更多情况。但是如果情况是这样的话，我认为这将对国债市场增加一些稳定性。

On that topic, we also had a pretty interesting interview from US Treasury Secretary Yellen this past week on her thoughts on why yields are rising. Let's listen to what she has to say. Largely, I think it's a reflection of the resilience that people are seeing in the US economy that we're not having a recession, that consumer spending and demand continue to be strong, the economy is continuing to show tremendous robustness. Okay, so obviously she's saying that yields are going higher because I'm doing a really good job. The economy is booming. I'm sure she has to say something like that, but that's not a reasonable perspective. US nominal GDP growth is quite strong as is real GDP growth. So if you are a traditional economist, as she is, you would think there's a connection between interest rates and economic growth, which brings us to our next topic, GDP growth.

在这个话题上，我们上周还对美国财政部长耶伦的访谈进行了一次相当有趣的采访，她谈到了为什么收益率上升的原因。让我们听听她的想法。总体上，我认为这反映了人们对美国经济的韧性看法，我们没有陷入衰退，消费支出和需求依然强劲，经济仍然显示出极大的强劲表现。好的，显然她是在说收益率上升是因为我做得非常好，经济正在蓬勃发展。我相信她必须说这样的话，但这并不是一个合理的观点。美国名义GDP增长相当强劲，实际GDP增长也是如此。因此，如果你是一个传统的经济学家，就像她一样，你会认为利率和经济增长之间存在联系，这就带我们到了我们下一个话题，GDP增长。

So this past week, we had latest GDP data for third quarter US GDP growth, which clocked in at 4.9% annual rate. Now 4.9% obviously is spectacular. Now, not too long ago, we got doomers just all over social media telling everyone that recession was coming and the exact opposite happened. Now for context, for the first two quarters of this year, US GDP grew at 2% annual rate. And the Fed thinks that the underlying trend growth for the US economy is 1.8%. So we've been growing above trend for most of the year and are seem to be accelerating a bit. Now there's some concern over this because traditionally thinking when you think about this, if you have really strong economic growth, that is upward pressure on inflation.

所以在过去这一周，我们得到了美国第三季度GDP增长的最新数据，年增长率达到了4.9%。现在4.9%显然是令人瞩目的。不久之前，社交媒体上到处都是一些悲观者告诉大家衰退即将来临，但事实恰恰相反。现在对于背景信息来说，今年前两个季度，美国GDP以2%的年增长率增长。美联储认为美国经济的潜在趋势增长率为1.8%。所以我们在大部分时间里都保持了高于趋势的增长，并且似乎正在加速一些。现在有一些担忧，因为传统思维认为，如果经济增长强劲，那会对通胀造成上升压力。

We had the latest inflation numbers this past Friday, which continues to show that inflation is trending in the right direction, but we did have a slight tick up in core PCE month over month. Over PCE month over month printed at 0.3%. If you look at the chart here, you know that it needs to get to about 0.15% month over month for the Fed to be back towards target. Again, definitely trending there, but not there yet. However, as we noted, financial conditions have tightened a lot through the 10-year yield rising. And so in the coming months, we may see more economic weakness.

上周五发布了最新的通胀数据，继续显示通胀趋势向好，但核心个人消费支出（PCE）环比有轻微上升。核心PCE环比增长了0.3%。如果你看一下这里的图表，你会发现为了恢复到联邦储备的目标水平，需要达到大约每月0.15%的增长率。再次强调，虽然正在向目标水平趋近，但还未达到。然而，正如我们指出的，金融条件因为10年期美债收益率上升而收紧了很多。因此，在未来几个月内，我们可能会看到更多的经济疲软。

Now one thing I'll note is that there are commentators looking at this print and saying, you know, a lot of this print is because of government, right? Government has been spending a lot of money and that's been goosy in GDP. I think that's fair, but I think it's also fair to note that the government will continue to spend enormous amounts of money. There's prospect of even more spending related to potential war. And so this kind of boosting of GDP through government spending could continue. So that's the past though.

现在有一件事我要注意的是，有评论员看着这个数据并说，你知道的，很多这些数据是因为政府，对吧？政府一直在大量花钱，这促进了国内生产总值的增长。我认为这是公正的观点，但我也认为公正的观点是要注意政府将继续花费巨额的资金。未来还可能有更多与潜在战争相关的支出。所以这种通过政府支出来提升国内生产总值的情况可能会继续下去。不过这是过去的情况了。

What are we thinking about this quarter, fourth quarter GDP? Now, of course, we've only had one month of data so far. There's two more months ago in the quarter, but let's look at the GDP now cast from the Atlanta Fed and the New York Fed. Now the Atlanta Fed and the New York Fed are both forecasting. So far, of course, we have two more months ago, a lot more data to come, but so far it looks like GDP for the fourth quarter of this year is going to be around 2%. So it's going to be pretty solid as well. There doesn't seem to be the prospect of recession.

这个季度，即第四季度的国内生产总值（GDP）会怎么样呢？现在我们当然只有一个月的数据了。这个季度还有两个月要过去，但是让我们先来看看亚特兰大联储和纽约联储的GDP预估。亚特兰大联储和纽约联储都在进行预测。目前为止，当然我们还有两个月的数据要等待，但是看起来今年第四季度的GDP将会达到2%左右。所以它也会相当稳定。目前看来并没有经济衰退的迹象。

Now to be perfectly clear, now the economy goes in cycles. We are always, always heading into our recession. So eventually, of course, the doomers will be right after being wrong for a very long time, broken clock. You know, it is right twice a day. However, it doesn't look like it's going to be happening in the next few months. I would say that as yields stay high around here, I think I can see that having a big material impact on the real economy. So we could have the economy slow down, let's say second half of next year or something like that. But my own view is that because the amount of debt that spending is so large, it's hard to see the U.S. economy go into a serious recession. And even if there was a serious recession, I think that we'd cut rates, we'd have big fiscal spending and so forth. The policy response would be strong because the lesson we learned from 2020 is that it works, even if it has inflationary side effects.

现在，为了非常清楚明了，经济会呈周期性变化。我们总是、总是朝着经济衰退的方向前进。所以最终，毫无疑问，悲观者在很长时间内都是错误的，就像坏掉的时钟。你知道，即使时钟坏掉了，一天中它也还是对两次。然而，在接下来的几个月里，看起来不太可能发生经济衰退。我认为，如果利率保持在这个水平附近升高，我可以预见这对实体经济会有很大的实质影响。所以，我们可能会在明年下半年或类似的时间出现经济放缓。但是，我自己的看法是，由于支出的债务规模非常庞大，很难看到美国经济陷入严重衰退。即使发生严重衰退，我认为我们会降息，进行大规模财政支出等等。政策应对将会很有力，因为我们从2020年得出的经验就是这样，即使它有通胀副作用。

Okay, the last topic I want to talk about is gold. So this past week, we had a gold prices basically shoot up like a rocket ship. Gold ended the week above $2,000, which I think too many people was perceived to be a psychological barrier. Now when we think about gold prices, I think there are a couple of popular stories in the market. One popular story, of course, is real yields. The thinking is that when we had real yields negative, well, if you bought bonds, you were basically burning money might as well buy real assets like gold. And so the thinking was that as real interest rates go higher, that would be negative for gold prices. But of course, over the past few months, real yields gone steadily higher, gold prices gone to the moon. So that has been a very good story.

好的，我想谈谈最后一个话题——黄金。所以，上周我们的黄金价格基本上像火箭一样飙升。黄金以每盎司2000美元以上的价格收盘，这对于很多人来说被视为一个心理障碍。现在当我们谈到黄金价格时，市场上有一些受欢迎的说法。当然，其中一个受欢迎的说法是实际收益率。人们认为，当我们的实际收益率为负值时，如果你购买债券，基本上就等于是在烧钱，还不如购买实物资产，比如黄金。因此，人们认为随着实际利率的上升，这将对黄金价格产生负面影响。但是在过去几个月里，随着实际收益率稳步上升，黄金价格却一路飙升。所以这是一个非常好的说法。

Another way people think about this is to look at gold as another currency. So when the dollar strengthens, for example, then gold prices in dollar terms decline. But over the past week, we saw the dollar very, very modestly strengthen hasn't really done that much, but gold prices go to the moon. What seems to be driving gold prices, of course, is geopolitics. It seems like well, usually when you have big stress in the world, there's a flight to the safety, usually that's into the dollar, usually that's into treasuries, strangely, that's not really happening so far. But we do seem to have a notable flight into gold.

人们对这个问题的另一种看法是将黄金视为一种另外的货币。例如，当美元走强时，黄金价格以美元计价会下降。但在过去的一周里，虽然美元只是非常非常轻微地走强，但黄金价格却直线上升。当然，似乎促使黄金价格上涨的是地缘政治因素。通常情况下，当世界上发生重大压力时，人们会寻求安全避风港，通常是投资美元，通常也会投资国债，但不可思议的是，这种情况目前并没有真正发生。但我们确实看到了明显的投资黄金行为。

Now, I would also note that this is happening in the broader tectonic geopolitical shifts that are more of a medium term story that is to say that there seems to be some more geopolitical realignment in the world. As many commentators have noted over the past couple years since the war in Ukraine, when the Western powers confiscated the reserves of Russia that a lot of countries that are not friendly with the US are going to be more cautious. Maybe they don't want to hold as many of their reserves in dollars since it could be confiscated. Now we have this big geopolitical struggle in the Middle East where battle lines seem to be formed where you have the West and when you have the US and you have the European Union basically standing on the side of Israel and you have the rest of the world standing on the side of Palestine.

现在，我还要指出，这发生在更广泛的地缘政治转变中，更多地是一个中期故事，也就是说，世界上似乎正在发生一些地缘政治的重新调整。正如许多评论员在过去几年里指出的那样，自从乌克兰战争以来，西方大国没收了俄罗斯的储备，许多不与美国友好的国家会更加谨慎。也许他们不想持有那么多以美元计价的储备，因为它可能会被没收。现在，我们在中东地区看到了这场重大的地缘政治斗争，在那里战线开始形成，你有西方，你有美国，你有欧盟基本上站在以色列一边，而世界其他地区则站在巴勒斯坦一边。

Now, I don't know how this will eventually evolve into but there's a potential for some more extended conflict. Now if you are someone like China or someone say in the Middle Eastern country, you probably don't want to have a lot of your reserves held in dollars because in the event that the US really has to stand up against the rest of the world, well maybe the US tries to punish the people who are standing against it by confiscating its reserves like they did in the case of Russia. So I would imagine that there's some geopolitical considerations here for the big sovereign countries that maybe they might have to just kind of maybe rebalance a little bit in light of this potential. I mean you don't want war to break out, suddenly find yourself without foreign reserves, that would be very inconvenient.

现在，我不知道事情最终会如何发展，但有可能会出现一些更长期的冲突。如果你像中国这样的国家，或者是中东的某个国家，你可能不想将很多储备持有在美元中，因为在美国真的不得不对抗世界其他国家时，美国可能会试图惩罚那些站在对立面的人，例如像他们对俄罗斯那样没收储备。所以我可以想象，对于大型主权国家来说，在面对这种潜在的情况下，可能会有一些地缘政治方面的考虑。我的意思是，你不希望战争爆发，然后发现自己没有外汇储备，那将非常不方便。

In a related note, I'd also note that Bitcoin this past week also soared. Bitcoin is often thought of as digital gold but this rise in Bitcoin prices doesn't seem to be related to geopolitical considerations. It seems to be more related to the prospect of the SEC approving a Bitcoin ETF. Now the thinking is that if you have a Bitcoin ETF there's going to be more demand for Bitcoin. A lot of retail investors will be able to easily go to their broker, just click buy and buy Bitcoin through an ETF as more demand comes in, well maybe that will send prices to the moon. I think that's totally reasonable and it would make sense to front run this. But I would also note though that as some commentators in Twitter have noted, you've had Bitcoin ETFs in other countries like Canada doesn't seem to have done much.

相关的一点是，我也想指出，比特币在过去的一周里也飙升了。比特币通常被认为是数字黄金，但这次比特币价格的上涨似乎与地缘政治考虑无关。看起来更与美国证券交易委员会批准比特币交易所交易基金（ETF）的前景有关。现在的想法是，如果有了比特币ETF，将会有更多人对比特币有需求。许多散户投资者将能够轻松地去他们的经纪人那购买比特币，只需点击购买按钮。随着更多的需求进入，也许价格会飙升。我认为这完全合理，提前行动是有道理的。但是，我也要指出，一些评论员在Twitter上指出，其他国家如加拿大的比特币ETF似乎没有起到多大作用。

Oh and one more thing I would note about gold prices is that so gold, if you look back to the Russian Ukraine conflict, gold skyrocketed at the eve of the conflict and over the following weeks gave that all back. So it's really hard to know if this is just the one time one time pop or really is this the mark of the greater broader shift that many have been speculating on over the past two years. We'll find out in the coming months.

哦，还有一件事我要注意一下关于黄金价格的是，在回顾俄罗斯乌克兰冲突时，黄金价格在冲突前夕飙升，然后在随后的几周内回落。因此，很难确定这是否只是一次性的上涨，还是真正标志着过去两年来许多人一直在猜测的更大范围转变的开始。我们将在接下来的几个月中找出答案。

And okay that's all I prepared for this week. This week we have an FOMC meeting so I will be here to give you my thoughts on what I expect to be an uneventful meeting. And again if you're interested in hearing more about my latest market thoughts, check out my blog at fenguy.com. And if you're interested in learning more about macro assets, check out my online courses at centralbaking101.com. Talk to you all soon.

好的，这就是我为本周准备的全部内容。本周我们有一次FOMC会议，所以我将在这里分享我对这次可能是一个平淡无奇的会议的看法。如果你对我最新的市场思考感兴趣，可以去我的博客fenguy.com了解更多。如果你对宏观资产想要了解更多，可以去我的在线课程centralbaking101.com。很快我会再与大家交流。