美国经济继续强劲增长，第三季度 GDP 增长 4.9%，过去 12 个月的平均值达到 3%。就业持续强劲，失业率保持在 3.7% 的低水平。重要的是，随着原材料价格在油价的带动下继续下跌，通胀率继续下降至3.2%。由于加息抑制了房屋和汽车等大宗采购的需求，美国制造业在过去一年一直在下滑。这一疲软被休闲旅游等服务业的持续强劲所抵消。
针对通胀的下降，美联储推迟了此前预计在 2023 年末加息的计划。此外，长期利率在短暂触及5% 后大幅下跌，10 年期债券收益跌至 3.9%。债券市场预计美联储最早将于3月份开始降息，并预计2024年短期利率将下调1.5%左右。在今年最后一次美联储会议上，主席鲍威尔并没有消除该预期，这进一步加剧了市场的降息预期。历史表明，在现任总统选举年，美联储通常面临提振经济和支撑资产价格的压力。因此，如果经济或市场出现困难，预计美联储将在2024 年提供宽松的货币政策，以防止不稳定力量上台，这是合理的预期。
债券和被动企业所有权（股票）市场评论：
大盘股标准普尔 500 指数第四季度上涨 12.6%，2023年全年上涨 24%，回到 2022 年 1 月创下的历史新高水平。换句话说，该指数的回报率在过去两年为零。进入2023 年，市场情绪变得恐惧和悲观，很少有预测者能预测 2023 年市场会以这种速度上涨。这应该是一个教训，告诉我们跟随市场情绪和预测者是有害的。恰恰相反，你坚持你的长期持有计划。此外，为了比大多数人做得更好，你需要在市场情绪恐惧和悲观时买入。正如体育界多次说过的那样，要取得高于平均水平的成绩，你需要做别人不愿意做的困难事情。
1. 第一个惊喜涉及哪些候选人将获得党内提名。他们预计选民会拒绝现任和前任总统，而支持新候选人。尽管尚未解决，但现在判定这个问题还为时过早，因为目前看来两者都是领先的竞争者。
2. 第二个惊喜称，美联储将在较长时期内维持较高利率，实现实际正利率，这在全球金融危机后是罕见的。他们预计“转向”一词将被搁置，这是一种非共识的观点。当它们在一月份惊喜清单公布时，实际利率仍然为很低的负值，市场预计六月份将首次降息。这个惊喜当然是正确的。
3. 他们在第三个惊喜中犯了错误，预期由于长期的限制性货币政策将导致温和的衰退。相反，尽管利率上升，2023年仍显示出韧性极强的韧性。
4. 他们对市场的看法比经济预计更具建设性，他们认为经济将在年中触底并开始复苏，堪比 2009 年。自 3 月份触及 3,855 点低点以来，标准普尔500 指数已上涨近 20%。
5. 第五个惊喜关注的是央行协调和激进的紧缩政策可能带来的意外后果，即金融“事故”的可能性。虽然他们没有预见到三月份的地区银行危机，但他们怀疑随着系统中多余的流动性被消除，危机将会爆发。
6. 第六个惊喜是美元走强，为欧洲和日本资产提供了跨代的购买机会。由于当今世界各地的经济问题相似之处多于不同之处，他们着眼于大规模的货币调整，并认为世界上一些最有价值的资产是主要发达国家的非美国资产。现在下判断还为时过早，但他们对这一惊喜的良好表现感到满意，欧洲和日本市场以美元计算在2023 年表现良好。
7. 在第七个惊喜中，他们预计中国将无法实现 5.5% 的增长目标，同时积极重建与西方的关系。最近在旧金山举行的亚太进步会议包括美中承诺重新开放军事通讯线、明年初增加航班以及扩大教育、国际学生、青年、文化、体育和商业方面的交流。他们认为这对实物资产和大宗商品来说是积极的，但这里的表现受到了挑战。
8. 他们在第八次惊喜中看好石油。他们认为，美国将巩固其作为全球最大石油和天然气生产国的地位，而随着全球经济复苏，西德克萨斯中质原油(WTI) 可能会触及每桶 50 美元，然后最终反弹至每桶100 美元。这在一定程度上是值得肯定的：虽然石油交易价格在每桶 65 至95 美元之间，但美国 2023 年的日产量创纪录的1,290 万桶。拜登政府通过了可再生能源领域的重要举措，同时还允许至少 17 个大型化石燃料项目，这将在数年内锁定石油产量增长。
9. 第九个惊喜预计乌克兰和俄罗斯将因战争造成的伤亡人数日益难以承受而讨论领土分割问题。不幸的是，尽管双方都付出了代价，但战争似乎还没有接近结束。
10. 拜伦经常告诉人们，我们不要太认真地对待自己的“十大惊喜”。出于这个原因，总是包含一个有点另类的惊喜。第十个惊喜集中在埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 对 X（前身为Twitter）的收购上。我们预测年底会出现好转，但可能输了。
债券指数（代码AGG）在第四季度反弹6.5%，全年回报率为5.4%。这一回报不足以弥补 2022 年遭受的损失，导致 2 年回报率为-8.8%。
公共房地产投资信托基金在第四季度增长了 18.1%，2023 年全年回报率为 12.0%，但这仍然使过去 2 年回报率达到 -16.9%，因为2022 年表现不佳。
黑石私募房地产信托(B-REIT) 第四季度下跌 2.6%，2023 年回报率降至 0.7%。第四季度的疲软是由于利率下降导致利率对冲市场对市场的减少。
结论：美国经济正处于稳健增长（3%）之中，通胀趋势下降至美联储 2% 的目标，这为在疫情结束后经济增长和通胀急剧增长后实现软着陆提供了条件。资产市场期待利率下降和增长稳定。科技股的估值很高，尤其是前七大公司的股票，但排除这些股票的估值是合理的。我们青睐资产，而不是能够随着时间的推移增加利润以抵消利率上涨的影响。由于通胀风险，我们仍然青睐企业所有权和基础设施（尽管短期内会出现波动），而不是固定收益/债券的违约安全性。
Economic and Interest Rate Commentary:
The US economy continues its strong growth with Q3 GDP of 4.9% to bring the average the last 12 months to 3%. Employment continues to be strong with a low 3.7% unemployment rate. Importantly, the inflation rate continues to decline to 3.2% as raw materials prices continue to decline led by oil prices. US manufacturing has been in decline in the past year as the interest rate increases have dampened demand for large purchases such as houses and cars. This weakness has been more than offset by continued strength in services sector like leisure travel.     
In response to the lower inflation, the FED has held off on rate increases that were previously expected in late 2023. Further, long term interest rates dropped sharply after briefly touching 5%, the 10-year bond dropped to 3.9%. The bond markets are predicting the FED to begin cutting rates as early as March and expect around a 1.5% cut in short-term rates in 2024. At the last FED meeting of the year, Chairman Powell did little to dispel the market’s expectations which further fueled the rates decrease expectations. History has shown that the FED is usually under pressure to pump up the economy and hold up asset prices in election years for incumbent presidents. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect the FED to provide accommodative monetary policy in 2024 if the economy or markets stutter to prevent a destabilizing force from coming into power.
Bond and Passive Business Ownership (Stock) Market Commentary:
The Large Cap S&P500 index increased 12.6% in Q4 to result in a full year 2023 increase of 24% bringing it back to the level of its all-time high set in January 2022. In other words, the returns of the index have been zero in the past two years. Coming into 2023, market sentiment was fear and pessimistic as few prognosticators predicted the markets to rise at this rate in 2023. This should be a lesson that it’s detrimental to follow market sentiment and prognosticators. Instead, stick to your long-term plan of holdings. Further, to do better than most, you need to buy when sentiment is fearful and pessimistic. As is said many times in sports, to achieve above average results, you need to do the hard things others are not willing to do.
I try to avoid short term market predictions, therefore strictly for entertainment purposes are a review of Byron Wien of Blackstone’s surprises for 2023. Byron passed away this past October at the age of 90. Notably, he was known to still walk to work every day until he passed. He published his annual top surprises for the past 38 years. His definition of a Surprise is an event that the average professional investor would assign a one-third chance of taking place, but which he believes has a 50% or better chance of happening. The goal is not simply to be contrarian, or even to get a high score. Instead, the aim to stretch our own thinking and that of our readers.
1. The First Surprise addressed which candidates would secure their party nominations. They expected voters to reject both the incumbent and former president, favoring new candidates. Although unresolved, it’s still too early to call this one as both look to be leading contenders at this point.
2. The Second Surprise said that the Fed would maintain higher interest rates for an extended period, achieving a real positive rate, a post-Global Financial Crisis rarity. They anticipated a shelving of the term “pivot,” an out-of-consensus view. When they went to print in January, the real rates were still deeply negative and the market anticipated the first interest rate cuts in June. This Surprise certainly was correct.
3. They erred in the Third Surprise, expecting a mild recession due to prolonged restrictive monetary policy. Instead, 2023 showcased economic resilience despite higher rates.
4. They were more constructive on the market than the economy in our Fourth Surprise, thinking that it would bottom by mid-year and begin a recovery that rivaled 2009’s. Since March’s low of 3,855, the S&P 500 has risen nearly 20%.
5. The Fifth Surprise focused on the possibility of a financial “accident” as an unintended consequence of coordinated and aggressive central bank tightening. While they didn’t foresee the regional bank crisis in March, they suspected a crisis would unfold as excess liquidity was removed from the system.
6. The Sixth Surprise was a stronger dollar presenting a generational buying opportunity in European and Japanese assets. As the economic problems around the world today are more similar than different, they looked at the massive currency adjustment and believed that some of the best values in the world were in non-US assets of major developed countries. It is a little too early to judge, but they feel good about this Surprise playing out favorably, with European and Japanese markets performing well in US dollar terms in 2023
7. In the Seventh Surprise, they expected China to miss its 5.5% growth target while aggressively rebuilding relations with the West. The recent Asia-Pacific Advancement Conference in San Francisco included US-China commitments to reopen military lines of communication, increase flights early next year, and expand exchanges in education, international students, youth, culture, sports, and business. They thought this would be positive for real assets and commodities, but performance here was challenged.
8. They were bullish on oil in the Eighth Surprise. They thought that the US would strengthen its position as the world’s largest oil and gas producer and that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) could touch $50 per barrel before eventually rallying to $100 a barrel as the global economy recovered. Partial credit is deserved here: While oil traded between $65 and $95 a barrel, the US extracted a record 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023. The Biden administration passed important initiatives in the renewable energy space while also permitting at least 17 large fossil fuel projects, which will lock in oil production growth for years.
9. The Ninth Surprise anticipated Ukraine and Russia discussing a territorial split due to increasingly unbearable war tolls. Unfortunately, the war does not seem to be any closer to an end despite the cost to both sides.
10. Byron would often tell people that we don’t take ourselves too seriously with the Ten Surprises and, with a wink and a nod, that others shouldn’t either. For that reason, we always included a Surprise that was a little offbeat. Our Tenth Surprise focused on Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter). We predicted a turnaround by year’s end, a bet we may have lost.
The bond index (symbol AGG) rebounded 6.5% in Q4 to result in a full year 5.4% return. This return was not sufficient to make up for the losses suffered in 2022 resulting in a 2-year return of -8.8%.
Public REITs increased 18.1% in Q4 to result in a 2023 full year return of 12.0% but this still brings the trailing 2 year returns to -16.9% as public REIT’s had a miserable 2022.
The Blackstone Private REIT (B-REIT) decreased 2.6% in Q4 bringing the 2023 return to 0.7%. The weakness in Q4 was due to the drop-in interest rates resulting in interest rate hedge market to market decreases.
Conclusion: The US economy is in the midst of solid growth (3%) and inflation trending down to the FED’s 2% goal providing goldilocks of a soft landing after break neck growth and inflation when the pandemic ended. Asset markets are looking forward to lower interest rates and growth being stable. Valuations are high in the technology sector particularly the top 7 largest companies’ stocks, but excluding these stocks valuations are reasonable. We favor assets than 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 risk.
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