“Ray Dalio Puts ‘Recent Market Moves In Perspective’”

Ray Dalio gilt zu Recht als eine Investorenlegende. Der Gründer des weltgrößten Hedgefonds hat es immerhin aus dem Nichts zum mehrfachen Milliardär gebracht. Im letzten Jahr erzielte sein Fonds 14,6 Prozent Gewinn, u. a. mit Spekulationen auf fallende Kurse bei BASF, Bayer, Allianz und Daimler … Bei bto wurde seine Wette hier diskutiert:

→ Italien dürfte die Party beenden – der weltgrößte Hedgefonds wettet auf die nächste Eurokrise

Legendär ist sein Erklärungsmodell für Wirtschaft und Finanzmärkte:

→ How the economic machine works

Doch nun zu seinen Überlegungen angesichts der Turbulenzen an den Börsen. Kurz vor Weihnachten erschienen:

• “At the biggest picture level, there are three big forces that interact to drive market and economic conditions over time.  They are 1) productivity growth, 2) the short-term debt cycle (which typically takes about 5-10 years), and 3) the long-term debt cycle (which typically takes about 50-75 years).  These factors also affect geopolitics both within and between countries, which also affects the market and economic conditions.” – bto: Ich hätte noch die demografische Entwicklung ergänzt.
• “Productivity growth is the most important influence over the long term, though over the short term it doesn’t seem so important because it’s not highly volatile.  Productivity trends higher over time as people learn and become more efficient so they are able to raise the output per hour worked. (…) (It is driven by) the quality of a) the people (through the education system and through the quality of family guidance), b) infrastructure, c) rule of law, and d) market systems (…) lately, productivity growth in developed countries has been relatively slow, and is more concentrated in a shrinking percentage of the population and in the area of automation that reduces the need for workers.” – bto: weshalb wir strukturell geringere Wachstumsraten haben und dadurch die Schulden noch untragbarer werden.
• “Credit/debt cycles cause swings around that productivity uptrend.  The way it works is that providing credit provides buying power that fuels spending on goods, services, and investment assets (first), which causes stronger economic activity and higher prices of these things (next).  Providing credit also creates debt, which creates the need to pay back in the form of debt-service payments (that comes later) which in turn lessens the spending on goods, services, and investment assets (later) which leads to weaker economic activity and weaker prices of these things (after).  So, credit/debt boosts growth at first and depresses it later.” – bto: Im (zunehmend seltenen) Fall, dass das Geld produktiv verwendet wird, kann es auch zu mehr Wachstum führen und nicht zu dessen Verringerung.
• “The short-term debt cycle lasts about 5-10 years, depending on how long it takes the economy to go from having a lot of slack to not having much, which depends on how much slack it starts off with and how fast demand grows. In the cycle that we are now in, the expansion has been long because it started from a very depressed level (because the 2008 downturn was so deep) and because growth in demand has been relatively slow (because of the debt crisis hangover, because of the growing wealth gap and spending of those with a lot of wealth having a lower propensity to spend than those with little wealth, and because of other structural reasons). (…) during the expansion phase of the cycle that we are in, central banks created exceptionally low interest rates, which made it attractive for companies to borrow money to buy their own and other companies’ stocks, which boosted stock prices and has left corporate balance sheets much more indebted. (…) central banks printed a lot of money and bought a lot of debt, which supported the markets.  These one-time boosts to the markets and economies (…) led the Fed to raise interest rates.  Also contributing to the rate rise has been a) the Fed selling off some of the debt that it acquired through QE and b) big corporate borrowings.  As a result, we are now seeing this classic late-cycle strong profit growth and strong economic growth that is accompanied by falling stock prices due to the financial squeeze.  That’s when the cracks in the system begin to appear and what most people never expected to happen starts happening.” – bto: Es kommt zu der klassischen Schuldenkrise. Das Problem ist nur, dass wir uns auch am Ende des langfristigen Schuldenzyklus sehen.
• “Typically, that happens in the areas that have had the biggest debt growth, especially if that happens in the largely unregulated shadow banking system (i.e., the non-bank lending system).  In the last cycle, it was in the mortgage debt market.  In this cycle, it has been in corporate and government debt markets.” – bto: weshalb dort die große Krise lauert.
• “The Long-Term Debt Cycle comes around approximately once every 50-75 years and happens because several short-term cycles add up to steadily higher debt and debt-service burdens, which the central banks try to more than neutralize by lowering interest rates and, when they can’t do that anymore, they try to do so by printing money and buying debt. (…) When the risk-free interest rate that they control hits 0% in a big debt crisis, central banks lowering interest rates doesn’t work.  That drives them to print money and buy financial assets.  That happened in 1929-33 and 2008-09.  That causes financial asset prices and economic activity to pick up as they did in 1933-37 and 2009-now.  In both the 1930s case and our most recent case, that led to a short-term debt cycle rebound, which eventually led to a tightening (…) For all of the previously described reasons, the period that we are now in looks a lot like 1937.” – bto: Klingt zunächst nicht schlimm, nur sind die USA dank des Weltkrieges aus der Depression gekommen. Ich denke eher, wir sind jetzt bei 1929 und haben keine Munition mehr.
• “The limitation in the ability to print money and make purchases typically comes about when a) asset prices rise to levels that lower the expected returns of these assets relative to the expected return of cash, b) central banks have bought such a large percentage of what there was to sell that buying more is difficult, or c) political obstacles stand in the way of buying more.  We call the power of central banks to stimulate money and credit growth in these ways ‘the amount of fuel in the tank.’ Right now, the world’s major central banks have the least fuel in their tanks since the late 1930s so are now in the later stages of the long-term debt cycle. (…) So, it appears to me that we are in the late stages of both the short-term and long-term debt cycles.” – bto: schlecht, schlecht, schlecht. Und gerade für ein Land wie Deutschland, das so ausgesprochen schlecht regiert wird (von allen!).
• “(…) when interest rates hit 0%, central banks print money and buy financial assets, which causes these assets to rise.  That benefits those who own financial assets (e.g., the wealthy) relative to those who don’t, which widens the wealth gap.  Other factors such as technology and globalization (which remove the barriers between lower-cost and higher-cost populations) also contribute to the widening wealth gap within countries while narrowing the wealth gaps between counties.  This causes the rise of populism and greater conflicts both within countries and between countries.” – bto: Das werden wir gerade auch in Europa in den kommenden Jahren erleben, wobei ich keine Kriegsgefahr sehe, eher bürgerkriegsähnliche Zustände, vor allem mit den Migrantengruppen.
• “The emergence of populism in developed countries classically happens most forcefully late in long-term debt cycles when the short-term debt cycle turns down, which happened in the late 1930s and has a good chance of happening over the next couple of years, perhaps before the next US presidential election.  The outcome of that election will have a big impact on just about everything.” – bto: Die gesamte Weltordnung steht vor einem Umbruch, auch deshalb, weil die Politiker die falschen Prioritäten setzen.
• Sodann definiert Dalio seine drei “Gleichgewichte”, die erforderlich sind für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung der Wirtschaft:

1. Debt growth is in line with the income and money growth that is required to service debts.  Debt growth itself isn’t a problem. More specifically, a) if the debt is used for purposes that produce more cash inflow than the cash outflow due to the increased debt service then there will be a net benefit, and if the reverse is true there will be a problem, but b) if debt growth is at rates that finance spending rates that do not produce the cash flows to pay for debt service, it will be unsustainable and big changes need to occur.” – bto: einfach deshalb, weil die getätigten Investitionen die erforderlichen Mehreinnahmen einspielen. Dann bleiben die Verschuldungsquoten stabil, genauso wie im Debitismus beschrieben. → Das debitistische Modell der Wirtschaftserklärung
2. “Utilization of the economy’s capacity is neither too high nor too low.  Too much spare capacity (lots of unemployed workers, idle factories, etc.) is a painful set of economic conditions.  Over time, it will spur unrest and policy makers to act to improve conditions (through the levers described below), and it will lead to pricing adjustments until using up the spare capacity is profitable again.  Too little spare capacity creates undesirable inflation pressures, which spurs central banks to try to limit demand growth by tightening credit.”
3. “The projected return of cash is below the projected return of bonds, which is below the projected return of equities by appropriate risk premia.  These spreads in expected returns are important for the healthy functioning of capital markets and the economy because they create the incentives to lend, borrow, and produce. (…) Appropriate spreads are required for the capitalist system to work.” – bto: eben, weil es ein wichtiger Steuerungsmechanismus ist.

Dann stellt Dalio die Frage, was denn der Staat tun kann, sollten dauerhafte Abweichungen von den drei angestrebten Gleichgewichtszuständen entstehen:

• Das ist zunächst die “Monetary policy: (…) There are three types of monetary policy that central banks progressively turn to: interest rate policy, quantitative easing, and finally monetary stimulus targeted more directly at spenders.” – bto: Diese letzte Phase steht uns nun bevor.
• Und natürlich “Fiscal policy: Governments can impact the economy through their spending on goods and services, taxation, and legal structural reforms (by affecting regulations).” – bto: Letzteres wirkt, dauert aber zu lange und ist unpopulär, deshalb macht es auch keiner. Außer Gerhard Schröder.

Er schließt dann, bevor er zum eigentlichen Schluss kommt: “I hope this explanation of my template and what is happening now in light of it has helped you to put things in perspective and, more importantly, will help you independently put things in perspective in the future.” – bto: Ich denke, das Modell ist klar und damit auch das Szenario:

• Die Notenbanken gehen zur direkten Staatsfinanzierung über.
• Die Politik verschiebt sich massiv nach links, um die Vermögenseffekte “zu korrigieren”.
• Das Problem der Schulden löst sich so jedoch nicht.
• Deshalb muss und kommt es zu einer Schuldenentwertung. Weg noch immer unklar.

Wir sind am Ende des Schulden-Super-Zyklus. Fasten seat belts!

→ zerohedge.com: “Ray Dalio Puts ‘Recent Market Moves In Perspective’”, 26. Dezember 2018