Oaktree's Howard Marks on Credit Yields, Trump's Tariffs
发布时间 2025-04-04 15:25:43 来源
Mark's joined us on a day of turmoil after putting out a memo about a month ago where he wrote, the bottom line is that credit presently offers a better deal than equities. Even at today's spreads, credit isn't a giveaway today, but it offers a healthy absolute returns and it's fairly priced.
马克在一个动荡的日子里加入了我们。大约一个月前，他发布了一份备忘录，其中写道：归根结底，目前信贷比股票提供了更好的交易。即便在今天的利差情况下，信贷也不是免费的，但它提供了可观的绝对回报，并且定价合理。
Howard joins us right now. Howard, you wrote that a month ago, the world has changed. We have seen the markets sell off. We have seen tariffs implemented that are the highest levels that we've seen going back 100 years. Does your thesis still hold? The yields on credit are still very healthy and in fact credit yields a little more now than it did six weeks ago when I wrote that memo. Then high yield bonds, for example, were yielding around 7.2.
霍华德现在加入了我们的讨论。霍华德，你写道一个月前世界已经改变了。我们看到市场出现了抛售，也看到关税提升到了100年以来的最高水平。你的观点是否依然成立？信贷收益率仍然非常稳健，事实上，比六周前我写下那篇备忘录时稍高。例如，那时高收益债券的收益率大约是7.2%。
Today they're close to eight, which means they went down in price, producing a higher prospective return. Of course, the stock market is well down since then. I don't know. 15, 16, 17%. I haven't done the math yet and it keeps moving. Obviously, the state of the world, which equity prices depend on, is completely influx and has been radically changed. Most investors think for the worse. That's why prices are down.
今天价格接近八元，意味着价格下降，潜在回报提高。当然，自那时以来，股市大幅下跌。我不知道，大概跌了15%、16%、17%吧。我还没有仔细计算过，而且市场一直在波动。显然，世界的状况——股价所依赖的基础——正在经历剧变，并且发生了根本性的变化。大多数投资者认为这是不好的变化，这就是价格下跌的原因。
The question, of course, is whether they're down too much, just right or not enough and almost nobody can say. How do you start to even measure something like a potential paradigm shift, like the tariffs that were announced earlier this week? Well, first of all, of course, measure is the wrong word because that suggests some quantification, which is impossible. There's nothing to measure.
当然，问题在于它们下降得太多、恰到好处还是不够，几乎没有人能确定。您如何开始衡量类似于潜在范式转变的东西，比如本周早些时候宣布的关税呢？首先，当然，"衡量"这个词是不合适的，因为这暗示了一种量化，而这是不可能的——没有什么东西可以衡量。
But how do you gauge? How do you think about the changes? This is the biggest change in the environment that I've seen probably in my career. We've gone from free trade or world trade and globalization to this system, which implies significant restrictions on trade in every direction and a step toward isolation for the United States. I believe that the last 80 years since World War II have been the best economic period in the history of mankind.
但是你该如何衡量呢？你该如何看待这些变化呢？这是我职业生涯中见过的最大的环境变化。我们已经从自由贸易或全球贸易、全球化转变到了这个新体系，这意味着对贸易的各个方面都有显著限制，并且美国也在朝着孤立的方向迈进。我相信，自第二次世界大战以来的80年是人类历史上最好的经济时期。
One of the major reasons was the growth of trade. I think that we have truly had a rising tide that lifted all boats and trade was a big part of that. Everybody in the audience should understand the role of trade. Every country, for example, does something's better and worse. Worldwide welfare is maximized when every country does the things that does best and cheapest and then sells them to the countries that need them, which do other things and sell them to other people.
其中一个主要原因是贸易的增长。我认为，我们确实经历了一场提升所有人的潮流，而贸易在其中发挥了重要作用。观众们应该了解贸易的作用。每个国家都有自己擅长和不擅长的事情。当每个国家专注于做自己最擅长和最便宜的事情，然后将这些产品卖给需要这些产品的国家，而这些国家又做其他事情并将产品卖给其他地方时，全球的福利就能实现最大化。
That's how trade works. Well, I don't know if it's politically correct, but the good news is that the Italians make the pasta and the Swiss make the watches. But if we stop world trade and the Swiss have to make their own pasta and the Italians have to make their own watches, the world will probably be, well, maybe arguably people in both countries will be a little worse off.
这就是贸易的运作方式。嗯，我不知道这是否政治正确，但好消息是意大利人制作意大利面，而瑞士人制造手表。但是，如果我们停止世界贸易，让瑞士自己制作意大利面，意大利自己制造手表，可能这两个国家的人都会过得不太好。
That's what we're talking about here. We should not underestimate the benefits that we've gotten from globalization. Among other things, there was a 25-year period which I cited in one of my memos 10 years ago, in which the cost of durables in the US went down by 40 percent in inflation adjusted terms. That kept a lid on inflation here. It made goods available cheaply to all Americans.
这就是我们在这里讨论的内容。我们不应该低估全球化带来的好处。其中一个好处是，在我十年前的一份备忘录中提到的25年里，美国耐用品的成本在经过通货膨胀调整后下降了40%。这在一定程度上抑制了美国的通货膨胀，使所有美国人都能以低价购买商品。
If we don't have world trade, we don't have that benefit. And the tariffs are designed to encourage production at home. But who could imagine that most things produced in the United States will be as cheap as they are coming from abroad? In other words, things will cost more. If that's the case, does that mean that you see the inflationary regime as being something that is more persistent or reversal of what we saw the disinflation of the globalization?
如果我们没有全球贸易，就无法享受到其中的好处。关税的设置目的在于鼓励国内生产。但谁能想到，大多数在美国生产的商品价格能和进口商品一样便宜呢？换句话说，商品会变得更贵。如果是这样，是否意味着你认为通货膨胀的趋势会更持久，而不是我们在全球化中看到的通货紧缩趋势的逆转呢？
Well, I think so. There were financial benefits from globalization, including keeping a lid on inflation. If we hadn't bought our TV sets and appliances from abroad in that 25-year period at the declining prices, what would inflation have been? And the answer is considerably more, maybe not two, but maybe three, four, five.
嗯，我是这么认为的。全球化带来了经济好处，比如帮助抑制通货膨胀。如果在过去的25年里我们没有以不断降低的价格从国外购买电视机和家电，那么通货膨胀率会是多少呢？答案是会高得多，可能不是翻倍，但也许会是三、四、甚至五倍。
And so tariffs are an increased cost. Somebody has to pay them. And most people think that consumer will pay them. There's some possibility that the importer or the exporter will pay them or the government of the exporting country. But it's an increased cost. The proceeds from which we'll go to the government and will society be better off as a result.
关税是一种增加的成本。必须有人来承担这个费用。大多数人认为消费者会承担这个费用。也有可能是进口商、出口商或出口国政府承担。但无论如何，这都是一项增加的成本。这笔钱将流入政府的口袋，那么社会会因此变得更好吗？
When you're measuring how to decide the risk and reward of given asset classes in this type of environment, they could go in a multitude of different ways. How do you understand where there's value? What a return is that would justify a risk at a time when you know, potentially you could get seven, eight percent, nine percent with credit, with stocks they have delivered more than 10 percent for the past number of decades.
在这种环境下，当你衡量如何评估特定资产类别的风险和回报时，它们可能会有多种不同的发展方向。你如何判断哪里有价值？在你可能获得七、八、九个百分点回报的时候，怎样的回报才足以证明所承担的风险是合理的，尤其是考虑到股票在过去几十年中曾多次带来超过10%的回报。
But going forward. I want to respond first to your last sentence. Stocks have delivered an average of 10 percent a year for the last 100 years. But not when the PE ratio was 19. And the PE ratio today is probably 19. The average return has been 16. So we can say that when the PE ratio averages 16, the return average is 10. But when the PE ratio is 19, my guess is, if you look at history, if you bought the PE, the S&P when the PE ratio was 19, historically you probably made, let's say, one to six percent a year or two to seven percent a year sunlight, but certainly not 10. And so what you pay matters and the price of the S&P is elevated relative to historic levels. So you shouldn't expect historic returns.
但展望未来，我想先回应你最后一句话。过去100年，股票的年平均回报率为10%。但在市盈率为19时，并非如此。而现在的市盈率大概也是19。平均回报率为16。所以可以说，当市盈率平均为16时，回报率平均为10%。但当市盈率为19时，根据历史数据来看，如果你在市盈率为19时购买标普指数，历史上可能每年的回报率大约是一到六个百分点或者二到七个百分点，但肯定不是10%。因此，你支付的价格很重要，而标普指数的价格相较于历史水平较高，所以不应期望获得历史平均回报。
Whereas in credit, one of your arguments is you can expect to get that return because the default risk is as great as some of the excess spreads and what you're getting in all in yellow. Well, you know, with credit is a new fangled word for fixed income or which was a new fangled word for bonds. In 1978, I was moved at Citibank from the Equities Department to the Bond Department. Nobody talked about fixed income or credit. But with debt or bonds or fixed income or credit, what you see is what you get. You can read on the piece of paper what the promised return is and then the only thing you have to wonder about is, will I get it?
在信贷方面，其中一个论点是，你可以期待获得回报，因为违约风险与某些超额利差一样大，而这些利差都是显而易见的。其实，"信贷"是固定收益的新词，而"固定收益"曾经是"债券"的新词。在1978年，我从花旗银行的股票部门被调到债券部门。当时没人谈论固定收益或信贷。对于债务、债券、固定收益或信贷来说，意义很明确：你可以在纸上看到承诺的回报，然后唯一需要考虑的问题就是，你能否真正获得这些回报。
That is to say, will the issuer default or will they keep their promises? And by the way, they promised you interest; they promised you to pay your money back at the end that if they don't keep the promise, they lose the company. So they have a lot of incentives to pay. I've been in non-investment grade credit for 47 years and in our experience, roughly 99% of our issuers have paid as promised. You've thrived during your five-decade career, almost five-decade career during times of dislocation. Is this a time of dislocation to play or not to?
也就是说，发行人会违约还是会履行他们的承诺？顺便提一下，他们承诺给你支付利息，并在最后把你的钱还给你。如果他们不履行承诺，他们可能会失去公司。因此，他们有很强的动机去偿付。我在非投资级信用领域工作了47年，根据我们的经验，大约99%的发行人都按承诺付款。在你近五十年的职业生涯中，你在动荡时期表现出色。那么现在是动荡时期的好时机吗？
Well, it's a time of dislocation. Everybody has to judge for themselves whether the reduction in asset prices so far is right, inadequate or excessive. If it's excessive, you should jump in with both feet. If it's inadequate, you should wait until things adjust further. And it's impossible to make that judgment qualitatively. You used the word measure before. I pushed back a little bit. There's no place you can look. There's no analysis you can do to determine whether today's asset prices are right for the environment ahead. Now, there never is.
这是一个动荡的时期。每个人都需要自己判断目前资产价格的下跌是否合理、不足或过度。如果认为过度下跌，就应该大胆投资；如果认为下跌不足，就应该等待进一步调整。然而，很难通过定性分析做出这个判断。你之前提到过"衡量"这个词，我对此稍有不同看法，因为没有任何地方可以指出，也没有任何分析可以判断今天的资产价格是否适合未来的环境。事实上，这种情况一直如此。
It's always conjecture. It's always guesswork. That's in theory why the greatest investors are great because they make those judgments better than most people. It's excessively hard today because today we have no idea what the future is going to be. Normally, we think we know what's going to happen in the future. We normally assume the future will look mostly like the past. We extrapolate. And usually it works because the world doesn't change that much.
总是在推测，总是在猜测。从理论上讲，最伟大的投资者之所以伟大，是因为他们比大多数人更擅长做出这些判断。如今，这变得非常困难，因为我们对未来将如何发展毫无头绪。通常情况下，我们认为对未来有所了解，常常假设未来会与过去大致相同，我们进行外推。而通常这种方式有效，因为世界变化并不那么大。
But the world economy and the world order beyond economy, meaning geopolitics and international legislatures has been shook up like a snow globe by the events of the last days. And nobody knows what it's going to look like. Nobody knows. I dare say, if you tell me that you, what the, what the, what our rules will be six months ago, six months from now, I'll bet you you're wrong. This is in flux. And if you think it's in flux, then by definition, you know, no, what the future holds. And then even if you know what our country is going to do, and it's going to be that way six months from now, we don't know what other countries are going to do, what the ramifications will be.
最近几天的事件就像摇晃雪花球一样，动摇了世界经济以及经济之外的世界秩序，也就是地缘政治和国际立法。没有人知道未来会是什么样子。如果你现在告诉我我们六个月前的规则和六个月后的规则是什么，我敢打赌你错了。一切尚未确定。如果你认为事情还在变化中，那么你就无法确定未来的发展。即使你知道我们的国家会怎么做，并且认为这种状态会持续六个月，但我们也无法预料其他国家的行为以及可能产生的影响。
And so, you know, I always invade against forecasting. I don't believe in macro forecasting it, my own or other peoples. And we know much less today than usual. Now, people who, who like to run their lives according to forecasts, they say, well, this is going to happen in the future. So I'm going to do this. And this is going to happen in the future. So I'm going to do that. But what you're really knew, if you like to work with forecasts is you need two things, not just a forecast. You need the forecast, but you need an estimate of the probability that your forecast is correct.
我一直反对进行预测，特别是宏观预测，无论是我自己的还是其他人的。我认为，今天我们对未来的了解比平常更少。有些人喜欢根据预测来规划生活，他们说，这件事将来会发生，因此我会这样做；那件事将来会发生，所以我会那样做。但如果你真的喜欢依据预测来做决定，你其实需要两样东西，而不仅仅是一个预测。你需要预测本身，还需要一个对预测准确性的概率估计。
And today, whatever your forecast may be, you have to say the probability that I'm right is lower than ever, because the probability that we know what the future is going to look like is lower than ever. And that's how I feel. Is this a time to be fearful or greedy? You know, what you have to say, Bloomberg's offices, you have to think in terms of your neighbor, the department store. Bloomingdale's. Bloomingdale's just put everything on sale. Prices have come down for the S&P 8% in the last two days. And much more in the last six weeks.
今天，无论你的预测是什么，你都必须承认我预测准确的可能性比以往更低，因为我们对未来的了解程度比以往更低。这就是我的感受。现在是该感到恐惧还是贪婪的时候呢？你知道，你必须要说，Bloomberg 办公室，你得从邻居的角度来思考，比如百货公司。在Bloomingdale's，一切商品都在打折。过去两天S&P下跌了8%，而在过去六周，更是跌了不少。
It's on sale. That should encourage people to think about buying. Will they go down further? Nobody knows. Are the prices fair? Nobody knows. But everybody runs from the market when prices go down because they think it can oats risk. It's just stuff going on sale. And of course, it takes well, I was going to say a pro, but it takes a prescient pro of which there aren't many to know whether, as I keep saying, the discounts are adequate or appropriate. But certainly you have to look.
正在打折。这应该会鼓励人们考虑购买。价格会进一步下跌吗？没有人知道。价格是否合理？也没有人知道。但每当价格下跌时，大家都会避开市场，因为他们认为这可能会带来风险。其实，这只是商品在打折。而要判断折扣是否足够或合适，说是需要专业人士，不如说需要少数有预见能力的专业人士。不过，毫无疑问，你得仔细看看。
And it doesn't make any sense to say just a minute, I did XYZ when the price was 100. Today, the price is 90. So I'm going to boycott it. That doesn't make any sense on its face. You have to take a hard look. Do you still think that the US is the best place to invest? It's, I think it's probably still the best place, but it's less best than it used to be.
这段话的意思是，如果你说：“等一下，我在价格是100时做了XYZ。今天价格是90，所以我决定抵制它。” 这样的说法并没有道理。你需要认真审视一下。你是否仍然认为美国是最好的投资地？我认为可能仍是最好的地方，但已经不如从前那么好了。
Because I think that, you know, if you think about the things that made it the best place, one of them was the rule of law, that may be less the fact today. One of them was the predictability of outcomes. That may be less today. One of them was the, well, the worst thing about investing in the United States for many years has been our fiscal situation, our deficits and debts.
因为我认为，如果你考虑那些曾使这个地方成为最佳之地的因素，其中之一是法治，而今天这可能有所减弱。另一个因素是结果的可预测性，今天这也可能有所减弱。在过去的许多年里，在美国投资最糟糕的一点就是我们的财政状况，我们的赤字和债务问题。
And the US has behaved like somebody who has a golden credit card where there's no credit limit and the bill never comes. So of course, you can spend more than you make. And that's, and if somebody has a golden credit card, what would you do? Well, you might buy an ice car, but what the hell? You might as well buy all the cars because the bill's not going to come.
美国的行为就像一个人用着一张没有信用额度限制的金卡，而且账单永远不会寄来。所以，当然可以花得比挣得多。如果你有这样一张金卡，你会怎么做？可能你会买一辆豪华车，但何止如此，你干脆把所有的车都买了，因为反正账单不会到。
And that's the way we've behaved. And that's the way Washington has spent money. But can the events of the recent days change that? Can they cause there to be a credit limit? Can they cause a bill to be presented at some point in time? And if the answer to either or both of those questions is yes, that's a real risk.
这是我们一直以来的行为方式，也是华盛顿一直以来花钱的方式。但是，最近几天发生的事件能否改变这种情况呢？它们能否导致设定一个信用额度？能否导致某个时间点呈现出账单？如果这两个问题中有一个或两个的答案是“是”，那么这就是一个真正的风险。
If people don't like the dollar, don't like investing in the United States, don't want to hold an unlimited number of treasuries. If we just make people mad and say the US is still a great credit, but I don't want to hold their debts because look how they're treating me, the fiscal situation will be very complicated.
如果人们不喜欢美元，不愿意在美国投资，不想持有大量的国债。如果我们惹恼了他们，即使美国信用依然良好，他们也可能会因对待方式不满而不愿持有美国的债务，那么财政状况将会非常复杂。
Howard Marx, we have to leave it there. That was Oak Tree Capital, Co-Chairman, Howard Marx. Thank you so much. Back to you.
我们就到这里吧，霍华德·马克斯。这是橡树资本的联合主席，霍华德·马克斯。非常感谢你。交给你了。