Warum selbst Negativzinsen einen Börsencrash nicht aufhalten können

Wenn man John Hussman als Autor sieht, denkt man sich sogleich: Wozu soll man das noch lesen? Schon seit Jahren weist er auf die historisch hohe Bewertung an der US-Börse hin, prognostiziert Null-Renditen auf  zehn und mehr Jahre – und es passiert nichts. Im Gegenteil, der Markt eilt von Hoch zu Hoch.

So gut seine Analyse auch sein mag – bzw. meiner Meinung nach ist – sie scheint irrelevant in einer Zeit von Negativzins, Helikoptern und MMT. Doch vielleicht ist es nur das typische Blasenphänomen, dass es eben Jahre länger dauern kann, bis sie platzt?

Grund genug, einige seiner aktualisierten Analysen an dieser Stelle zu wiederholen und zugleich seine Sicht zu erläutern, weshalb Negativzinsen nicht geeignet sind, einen Crash zu verhindern. Von der Machtlosigkeit der Notenbanken also.

Los geht es:

• “In my view, investors are on the cusp of yet another very long period in which the stock market is likely to go ‘nowhere in an interesting way.’ The ‘interesting’ part is more likely to begin with steep lossesthan a further advance from these levels. (…) I believe that the combination of hypervaluation and unfavorable market internals has opened a trap door that is permissive of abrupt and severe market losses (…)” – bto: Er bleibt sich auf jeden Fall treu.  
• “The chart below shows the Hussman Margin-Adjusted P/E (MAPE), which is better correlated with subsequent market returns than numerous popular alternatives such as price/forward earnings, the Shiller CAPE, or the so-called Fed Model. Despite a slight decline since January 2018 due to modest growth in fundamentals, this measure remains above both the 1929 and 2000 extremes.” – bto: Und damit bleiben die Aussichten für die kommenden Jahre schlecht, ob nun in Form heftiger Korrekturen oder aber Null-Erträgen für Jahre.

Quelle: Hussman

• “The steep losses of the S&P 500 in 2000-2002 and again in 2007-2009 were consistent with a century of historical experience. Given current market valuations, the prospect of yet another 10-12 year period of zero or negative returns for the S&P 500 would also be wholly consistent with a century of evidence. (…) The chart below shows our MAPE on an inverted log scale (left), along with the actual total return of the S&P 500 over the following 12-year period (right). In recent decades, achieving historically normal market returns has required either depressed starting valuations at the beginning of the period or bubble valuations at the end of the period.” – bto: Es bleibt halt so simpel. Der Gewinn liegt im Einkauf.

Quelle: Hussman

• “It’s worth noting that the total return of the S&P 500 since 2000 has averaged just 5.4% annually, andit has taken a return to the most extreme valuations in U.S. history to produce that outcome. It won’t come as a surprise that I expect the entire total return of the S&P 500 since 2000 to be wiped out over the completion of the current market cycle.” – bto: Auch hier bleibt er sich mit seinen Aussagen treu. Wenn man rein auf die Historie blickt, ist es auf jeden Fall realistisch.
• “Unlike the 1972 and 2000 stock market peaks, when acceptably high bond yields provided a merciful alternative to overvalued stocks, we presently observe the combination of record-high stock market valuations (on the most reliable measures we identify), and severely depressed interest rates. From a pure, value-focused standpoint, this combination suggests the likelihood of low future returns across the board.” – bto: gute Zusammenfassung. Wenn alles teuer ist, muss auch alles einen tiefen Ertrag haben.
• “The idea that ‘low interest rates justify high stock valuations’ is really a statement that ‘low interest rates justify low expected stock returns as well.’ Those high stock valuations are still associated with low prospective future stock market returns. (…) the notion that ‘low interest rates justify high stock valuations’ assumes that the growth rate of future cash flows is held constant, at historically normal levels. If, as we presently observe, interest rates are low because growth rates are low, no valuation premium is ‘justified’ by low interest rates at all.” – bto: Das diskutierte ich hier schon vor Jahren im Zusammenhang mit dem “Duration-Risk”.
• “One of the concepts (…) is the idea of an ‘Endowment-to-Spending Multiple.’ The estimated E/S Multiple answers the following question:
  Suppose an investor has accumulated a lump-sum of savings, and wants to finance a long-term stream of real, inflation-adjusted spending. How large must the initial ‘endowment’ be, as a multiple of annual spending, to finance those future outlays, assuming that it’s passively invested in a conventional portfolio mix (60% S&P 500, 30% Treasury bonds, 10% Treasury bills)? (…) The chart below presents our estimate of the Endowment to Spending Multiple going back to 1928.” – bto: Und zeigt auf, wie stark die Preise nach Jahrzehnten des Notenbanksozialismus verzerrt sind.

Quelle: Hussman

• “You’ll notice that the current E/S Multiple is over 31, which basically says that if you insist on passively investing a lump-sum in a conventional portfolio mix in order to fund your retirement, you’d better already have nearly all the dollars you hope to spend, because the prospects for significant long-term capital growth from present valuations are dismal.” – bto: Erstaunlich ist auch, wie weit wir über der Blase von 2000 liegen. Nur in den 1920er-Jahren war es schlimmer.
• “The current risk of yet another long, interesting trip to nowhere is easy to understand when one examines the underlying drivers of long-term stock market returns: 1) long-termgrowth in representative fundamentals; 2) changes in valuations (the ratio of market prices to those representative fundamentals); and 3) dividends received in the interim.” – bto: weil es am Ende eben doch auf die fundamentale Entwicklung ankommt.
• “Presently, U.S. real structural economic growth is running at just 1.4% (reflecting the combination of demographic labor force growth and trend productivity growth, without the impact of cyclical changes in the unemployment rate). Meanwhile, upward pressure on real unit labor costs is already putting downward pressure on nonfinancial profit margins, so earnings growth is unlikely to outpace nominal growth in GDP and corporate revenues, as it has over the past decade.”  – bto: eher das Gegenteil. Die Gewinnmargen werden unter Druck kommen, auch aufgrund des politischen Umfelds. Wenn man diese Faktoren für Europa ansieht, wird es übrigens noch klarer. Die hiesigen Börsen müssen auch fundamental schlechter abschneiden.
• “Put these factors together, and even assuming slightly higher productivity and an acceleration of inflation to at least 2%, nominal growth in GDP, corporate revenues, and corporate earnings over coming decade is likely to average only about 4% annually. Indeed, S&P 500 revenues have grown at only that rate for nearly two decades now.” – bto: Die Börse macht darum ein großes Geräusch, was auch an der Flut billigen Geldes liegt. Es ist die künstliche “Alles-Blase“.
• “Now do some basic arithmetic. The most reliable valuation measures we’ve identified across history are presently an average of 2.7 times their historical norms. Assuming 4% nominal growth in fundamentals, and a future valuation multiple that simply touches its historical norm fully 20 years from today, the resulting average annual capital gain for the S&P 500 would be: (1.04)*(1/2.7)^(1/20)-1 = -1.0%. Add in the S&P 500 dividend yield, currently at just 2%, and we should not be surprised if the S&P 500 performs little better than T-bills over the next couple of decades.” – bto: Es ist so einfach, wenn man einen Schritt zurücktritt und mal rechnet.
• Womit wir bei der entscheidenden Frage wären: “(…) whether the prospect of negative interest rates might support elevated market valuations forever, and defer the completion of this market cycle indefinitely.” – bto: Das zumindest muss derjenige denken, der heute kauft.
• “Across history, emphatically including the most recent market cycle, the response of the stock market to monetary policy has always been conditional on whether investors are inclined toward speculation or toward risk-aversion, (…).” – bto: heißt im Klartext, dass es von der Stimmung abhängt, ob Geldpolitik wirkt und dass die Geldpolitik diese Stimmung nur bedingt beeinflussen kann.
• “When investors are inclined toward risk-aversion, risk-free liquidity is a desirable asset, not an inferior one, so as we observed during previous market collapses, even aggressive monetary easing does nothing to support the market. In contrast, when investors are inclined toward speculation, risk-free liquidity is an inferior ‘hot potato,’ and monetary easing amplifies that speculation.” – bto: was einleuchtet. Denn selbst wenn Geld nichts kostet, muss man einen Ertrag haben, der die Finanzierung deckt. Im Zweifel muss das gekaufte Asset weniger stark fallen, als die Zinsen negativ sind, plus Risikozuschlag.
• “So could negative interest rates, or fresh QE, or something else defer the negativeimplications of current valuation extremes indefinitely? I doubt it (…).” – bto: Und das tue ich auch. Es wäre ja sonst so einfach, Wohlstand zu schaffen. Einfach nur Geld drucken.
• “Negative interest rates aren’t some ‘equilibrium’ outcome of a weak economy. They’re a product of sheer coercion. That coercion is exerted charging interest on bank reserves that someone has to hold at every moment in time, either until they are retired by the central banks, or until the entire contents of the European and Japanese banking systems are dumped into mattresses and personal safes.” – bto: Das Halten von Zentralbankgeld wird bestraft. Ziel ist offiziell, die Umlaufgeschwindigkeit, also faktisch die Vergabe neuer Kredite, zu beschleunigen.
• “There’s no evidence that these extraordinary policies do anything for the economy, or even to boost inflation. The fact is that the trajectory of the recent economic expansion has followed the trajectory of nearly every other U.S. economic expansion (…).” – bto: Er ist sogar schwächer als nach früheren Rezessionen.
• “If investors have chosen to save for their future spending needs in retirement, driving interest rates lower doesn’t cause them to suddenly throw up their hands and say, oh heck, let me blow it all on a new car. There might be some economic activities on the margin that are so unproductive that they couldn’t survive a hurdle rate of 2%,but become possible at 0%, but most of those activities are financial in nature, where interest expense is the primary cost of doing business.” – bto: Das ist sehr gut erklärt. Nur Geschäfte, bei denen die Finanzierungskosten faktisch die gesamten Kosten ausmachen, profitieren von der Negativzinspolitik. Also die Spekulation.
• “(…) once a central bank creates base money, someone in the economy must hold that base money at every point in time, until it is retired. In aggregate, there’s no ‘getting out of it’ by buying stocks or anything else. The seller just gets the base money instead. So base money is a hot potato, and the use of it by central banks is the underlying cause of speculative havoc. (…) Of course, these monetary hot potatoes wreak even greater havoc when the speculation bleeds over into increasingly risky assets, as it has in the recent half-cycle. (…) (this) is what I’d call the ‘carry-trade mentality’ – the assumption that risky assets cannot decline in price, so any asset yielding more than the risk-free interest rate is worth owning.” – bto: So ist es. Und viele argumentieren genauso.
• “A key feature of risk-aversion is that it destroys the carry-trade mentality. At that point, investors consider not only the yield of a given investment, but also the risk of price losses. This is why the S&P 500 was able to lose 50% or more of its value in the 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 collapses despite persistent and aggressive easing by the Federal Reserve.” – bto: Und es wird auch beim nächsten Mal so sein. Das Problem ist nur das Timing, da es letztlich von externen Faktoren abhängt.
• “The thought experiment is this. What do you think investors would prefer in that environment of hypervalued prices and risk-averse psychology: the predictable loss of half of one percent on the risk-free investment, or the potential loss of fifty percent on the risky one? The answer is simple: lose the speculative ‘carry-trade mentality,’ and you simultaneously lose the ability of extraordinary monetary policy to support overvalued risky assets.” – bto: Genauso sehe ich das auch. Und weil die “carry-trade-mentality” so stark ausgeprägt ist wie wohl noch nie, ist die Fallhöhe auch entsprechend!