经济和利率评论：
美国第四季度 GDP 为 2.6%，2022年 GDP 为正 0.9%。与 2021 年的惊人步伐相比，这是一个急剧的倒退。尽管科技行业出现负面新闻，但就业率依然强劲，我们仍接近 3.5% 的充分就业率。领先经济指标在整个 2022 年和 2023 年初都在下降，但由于和 2021 年极高水平相比，因此并未达到令人担忧的水平。服务业继续扩张，但制造业已经放缓指向收缩。
经济增长放缓，通胀从历史高位回落。这也得益于能源价格从 2022 年第一季度开始持续下跌。通胀改善导致美联储将最近的加息幅度降至 0.25%，联邦基金利率目前为 5.0%。银行业的动荡导致长期利率在一季度下降 0.39%。主要的媒体报道是 FDIC 在银行挤兑存款后关闭了 三家银行。大多数报道都针对硅谷银行，因为在倒闭前是第 17 大银行。我会将他们的倒闭归因于糟糕的客户集中度和风险管理，而不是会损害整个美国经济的系统性风险。 FED 和 FDIC 允许储户在短时间内使用所有存款，从而阻止了银行崩溃的系统性风险，而唯一损失是银行股东。另外两家银行倒闭是对比特币/加密货币敞口的银行，这表明美联储不会支持这些风险。银行和企业在做出错误决策后倒闭是很正常的，自从 2019 年左右以来，公司不用面对错误决策后果已经有一段时间了。因为自 2019 年左右以来，每家大公司都能够轻松地从市场或政府获得资金，来掩盖他们的错误决定并继续前进。这种崩溃表明你需要谨慎配置资金，否则将面临后果损失，这是回归到更正常的风险规避市场。
债券和被动企业所有权（股票）市场评论：
大盘股标普 500 指数继续从 10 月份的低点反弹，第一季度上涨 7%。尽管出现反弹，但我们仍处于“熊市”中，因为股市比 2022 年 1 月 4 日的高点低约 15%。过去2年没有有效回报。第一季度的市场非常动荡，一月份出现了对 2022 年最受挫的输家的大量投机，主要集中在技术和通信领域。二月份随着硅谷银行的崩溃和蔓延效应，市场进入极度恐惧。三月份这种担忧消退，整体市场反弹，但由于对银行的担忧，金融板块在第一季度下跌了 5%。油价下跌导致能源板块在第一季度下跌 4%。
硅谷银行崩溃导致长期利率（10 年期政府债券）出现自 1987 年以来的最大跌幅，利率从 4.5% 跌至本季度末的 3.5%。导致第一季度债券指数上涨 3.23%。有很多猜测认为这种下降表明美联储将不得不很快降低利率。我预计利率下降不会在未来 12 个月内发生。本季度一个大趋势是投资者减少他们的银行现金余额并将其转移到货币市场或经纪账户中持有短期政府债券，因为这些资产的年收益率为 4.5%，而大多数大型银行拒绝支付存款的市场利率。我本人已经开始配置更多的资产在货币市场，因为 4.5% 的无风险收益率与股票相当；如果市场大幅下跌提供更好的购买机会，那么可以随时调整购买股票。
公募房地产投资信托基金继续落后于股票和债券市场。公募REITs 主要投资在写字楼区域，由于利率提高了资本化率和维护成本，而租金并没有增加以抵消这一点，该投资领域最近经历了极度恐慌，已经开始出现一些违约，并引起了资产风险管理者的关注。我们对公募房地产投资信托基金的敞口很低，因为过去几年这些房地产投资信托基金的收益率太低，从风险收益来看毫无吸引力。
黑石私募房地产投资信托 (B-REIT) 第一季度增长 0.52%，前 12 个月的回报率达到 4.61%。他们继续能够提高租金，但被更高的资本化率假设所抵消。因此回报的主要组成部分是4.5%的租金收入分配。在利率下降之前，我预计该基金不会出现显著的资本增值。
结论：美国经济正在经历一个调整期，其增长速度低于我们在 2021 年的习惯。资产市场正在调整以适应更高的利率和更低的增长速度。更高的利率开始使债券收益率更接近实际（通胀调整后）利率。我们看好可以随着时间的推移增加利润以抵消利率上涨影响的资产。由于通胀风险，我们仍然看好企业所有权和基础设施（尽管在此过程中会出现短期波动），而不是固定收益/债券的违约安全。
Economic and Interest Rate Commentary:
US Q4 GDP was 2.6% resulting in full year 2022 to have positive GDP of 0.9%. This is a sharp pull back from the breakneck 2021 pace. Despite negative headlines in the technology sector, employment remains strong as we remain near full employment at 3.5%.The leading economic indicators declined throughout 2022 and early 2023, but are not at levels of major concern as they are coming off extremely high levels of 2021. The services sector continues to be in expansion, but manufacturing has slowed to indicate contraction.
The economic growth slowing has resulted in inflation decreasing from its historical highs. This was helped by energy prices continuing their decline from Q1 2022. The inflation improvements caused the FED to reduce their latest interest rate increase to 0.25% to bring the FED funds rate to 5.0%. The shakiness in the bank sector caused longer term rates to decrease 0.39% in Q1. The major media story was the shutdown of three banks by the FDIC after they experienced bank run on their deposits. Most coverage went to Silicon Valley Bank because they were the 17th largest bank before their collapse. I would attribute their demise to poor customer concentration and risk management, and less so to systematic risk that would hurt the entire US economy. The risk from their collapse was stemmed by the FED and FDIC providing depositors access to all of their deposits in a short time period, resulting on the only losses being born by the bank stockholders. The other two bank failures were banks that had exposures to Bitcoin/crypto and signal that the FED will not support these risks. It’s quite normal for bank and business to fail when they make poor decisions. It has been a while since companies have had to face the consequences of poor decisions as since about 2019 every major company has been easily able to raise more funds from either the market or government to paper over their poor decision and keep going. This collapse shows that you need to allocate capital prudently otherwise face the consequences or losses, which is a return to a more normal risk averse capital market.
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Bond and Passive Business Ownership (Stock) Market Commentary:
The Large Cap S&P500 index continued to rebound from its October low as it increased 7% in Q1. Despite the rebound we continue to be in a “bear market” as the stock market is about 15% below the high on 1/4/2022. The decrease has resulted in no effective return for the past 2 years.
The markets were very volatile in Q1. January saw a burst of speculation in the most beaten down 2022 losers primarily in the technology and communication sectors. In February, extreme fear entered the markets with the collapse of SVB and contagion effects. In March, this fear subsided and the overall market rebounded, but the financial sector was down 5% in Q1 due to the bank fears. The drop in oil, resulted in the energy sector being down 4% in Q1.
The SVB collapse resulted in the sharpest drop of long-term rates (10-year gov bond) since 1987 as the rate went from ~4.5% to end the quarter at 3.5%. This resulted in the bond index to increase 3.23% in Q1. There has been lot of speculation that this drop signals the FED will have to decrease interest rates soon. I am not expecting this happen within the next 12 months. A big trend is that investors reducing their bank cash balances and moving them to money markets or short-term government bonds held in brokerage accounts because the annual yield on these assets is 4.5% and most large bank refuse to pay market interest rates for deposits. We have started to allocate a higher % assets to money markets as the risk free yield of 4.5% is comparable to stocks and it allows buying power to purchase stocks if markets decrease significantly providing a better buying opportunity.
Public REITs have continued to lag the stock and bond markets. Public REITs primarily comprise the office space sector which has experienced extreme fear recently as interest rate have increased cap rates and maintenance costs, meanwhile rents have not increased to offset this. There have started to be some defaults in this space and this space is a cause of concern to the risk managers of assets. We have low exposure to public REITs as the yield on these have been too low in the past few years and is not attractive from a risk adjusted basis.
The Blackstone Private REIT (B-REIT) increased 0.52% in Q1 bringing the prior 12 month return to 4.61%. They have continued to be able to increase rents but this has been offset by higher cap rate assumptions. Therefore, the main component of return is the rental income distribution of 4.5%. Until interest rates decrease I would not expect significant capital appreciation from the fund.
Conclusion: The US economy is going through an adjustment period with slower growth than we were accustomed to in 2021. Asset markets are adjusting to higher interest rates and lower growth. Higher interest rates are starting to bring bond yields closer to the real (inflation adjusted) rate. We favor assets that can increase profits over time to offset the effects of rate increases. We still favor business ownership and infrastructure (despite short term bumps along the way) over the default safety of fixed income / bonds due to inflation.
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