My Diary 82 --- 美元：格林斯潘的“小心肝”

外汇市场上美元的涨落就是投资者对美国经济和金融市场结构性和周期性因素忐忑不安心情的最好缩影了。上周格老在伦敦关于美国资本帐户赤字（Current Account Deficit）问题的演讲和本周小布什总统的紧缩预算草案似乎为积弱不振的美元粉饰了太平前景。市场本周也因受到格老憧憬未来口吻的所误导，将关注焦点集中在美国经济的成长前景和Fed的短期利率政策上，周二美元兑欧元创下今年以来的高点。

 

 

然而市场这次可能真得判断错了，因为格老的演讲中有很多条件假设，此外这也还没到将结构性问题置之不顾的时候啊。格老“安慰”式的讲话也可能是想防止市场再次重演去年11月因为他的一次公开评论而引发卖空美元的短期交易行为。还有，小布什总统的紧缩预算草案能否通过国会的三读辩论也还存在疑问，因为自从他当家后，美国的年平均开支的增长速度为7 %，而且即使降低了预算也不意味着大手大脚惯了的美国人就会减少购买价廉物美的进口商品。另外，在格林斯潘发表演讲的当天，San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank举行了一场经济研讨会，与会的绝大多数经济学家认为美元的局面可能变的更坏。纽约大学Stern商学院经济学家Nouriel Roubini 和牛津大学Brad Setser教授说：“The United States' large trade deficit and rapidly rising external debt to GDP ratio imply that a large future fall in the dollar will be needed to reduce the U.S. trade deficit to more sustainable levels, 而对投资损失的预期将最终使投资人撤离美元资产（shy away from dollar assets）。”

 

 

好了，说了这么多，也该认认真真读一遍格林斯潘在2月4号对 European Banking Congress的演讲稿了，这里头有许多看法和评论还是很值的仔细琢磨和推敲的。

 

 

首先，格老关于贸易和资本帐户赤字正在改善的提法好象站不住脚。他说，由于美国进出口存在着巨额逆差，只有出口增长大约达到进口的一半时才有可能控制住贸易赤字飞奔的脚步，这点benchmark已经作到了。然而去年1-11月份的统计显示，美国进口总额达$1.6 trillion, 比出口$1.04 trillion 高了65%。另外，同比2003年美国出口增加了12%，如果进口增长保持在8%就能稳定赤字，可是实际进口提高了16个百分点。接着，格老又假设说，当美国和贸易伙伴国之间的经济成长率一样的时候，美国相对倾向于大量进口。然而我们都知道，美国去年的GDP增长远高于欧盟和日本等主要工业化国家和地区。再者就是，欧洲出口商品价格相对于欧元的强劲逼供内没有增加多少。不过这点也并非牢不可破，因为欧洲出口商目前还可以容忍已经被压缩利润空间，而不愿意提高价格而失去市场份额，但是这种局面不会持续很久的时间。对于这个问题，格老的解释.是，“Increases in import prices lower the quantity of imports but leave the resulting value of imports uncertain。”换句话也就是，即使真实进口价值下降，名义价值却不一定下跌。那么如果名义贸易赤字没有变化，美国则仍然需要大量的海外投资来弥补这个缺口的！

 

 

第二点被格老提到的是财政赤字得到缩减和美国家庭储蓄随着mortgage refinancing的退潮而提高可能性。事实上这两方面也不乐观。因为目前国会关于布什总统削减政府预算的许多建议均有异议，所以在2005或者2006财政年度实现大幅削减赤字看来是遥不可及了。在家庭方面，低利率使得很多家庭通过二次抵押获得更多的消费资金，然而这些因房产泡沫带来的钱并不代表美国家庭的当前收入，因此储蓄率并不可能增加很多，即使人们确实放慢生活的脚步了。唯一一点的成哩的是，随着抵押再贷款的减少，人们花钱的能力确实受到抑制，但是能到多大的程度，这点格林斯潘就跳过不提了！毕竟由俭入奢易，由奢入俭难啊！

 

 

最后一点是关于赤字测不准的模糊问题。格老的演讲提高的大量存在于贸易和资本帐户赤字中的难以量化的不确定性因数。比如：在国际间经济互动往来的过程中，货币管理机构很难准确预测外汇汇率变化以及难以估计贸易和资本赤字的经济后果。他总结说，在美国调整资本帐户的过程中，还有许多悬而未决的问题，其中之一就是亚洲国家通过人为干预汇率市场来支撑美元地位的局面是很难被扭转的。然而至少有一点是现在市场都很明白，那就是中国不会停止外汇干预和人民币盯紧美元的作法。上周末，周小川行长很清楚的表明中国将根据自己的时间表对人民币汇率进行调整，并且强调如果考调虑中国的外汇支付和资本流动总体格局，人民币并没有象外界说的那样被“严重低估”。我想这个时间表上，暂时还没有2005年，甚至2006年的字眼吧！

 

 

不过，格林斯潘也确实不愧为世界金融市场的第一人，他讲话的时候，几乎每个人都树起耳朵在听，生怕漏掉什么重要信息！看到格老70多岁的人了，还要屡屡站出来捍卫美元这个“小心肝”，以免自己十几年来的英名被美元一起拉下台阶，我还真想替美元鼓鼓劲，加加油。噢，还有，格老您多保重，这还有11个月的时间得撑着哪！

 

 

 

写于2005年2月12日多伦多

[不忘中囯]

夜掌柜“留香”来了，难得墨宝啊！

[夜林]

看到标题想起个笑话，一个护士给病人查肝功，发现他喝酒过多，就告诫他：“小心肝”。病人一楞，回答到：“小宝贝”。。。

[不忘中囯]

Hi, Wei :

Thank you very much for your reply. I think you raise couple points here and let me response to them one by one.

First of all, I agree with you that Forex policy is not the fundamental solution to the global structural imbalances and the runaway of dollar. The balance of economic growth and more cooperation among the major economic entities will be the bottom line. In this sense, I am glad to see that the G7 meeting has invited the Asia’s No.2 and No. 4 economies to their Feb. 4 conference. The mutual understanding and trust among the central banks have become more and more important within the background of globalization.

Back to the near-term global economy, Global Leading Economic Indicators were essentially unchanged in December, signalling sluggish growth over the next 6 to 9 months. The U.S. component edged up, aided by the stimulus to spending from lower bond yields. But there is little sign of renewed momentum elsewhere. For example, the Japan’s planned tax increase raised recession concerns, and that could extend more than 6 years of deflation period of the world’s No.3 economy. Europe, well, is now having some concerns on the inflation over the house price growth, but I don’t think it can be the new engine of global economy in the near future. China is the heir apparent, according to the conventional wisdom, and would lead the so-called “Pacific Century”. However, it is not all good, perhaps, since it is still unclear how much the rest of Asia will be able to compete with China’s low wages and growing market share. Also, another big question mark is China’s banks, undermined by an institutionalized misallocation of capital with little regard fro risk management and the extension of credit.

Secondly, I think it could be just a statistical relationship between the declining export and the rate hikes. For Mr. Chairman, he seems to pay more attention on the balance between inflationary and deflationary pressure and the growth, and this perhaps is the key driver when he is considering the adjustment of monetary policy.


My last point is the shape of curve was also driven by the other market factors. For example, the back end of curve was flattened due to the legal requirements for pension fund to match their durations and the buy-in of foreign central banks. One of my recent observations is that including US, Japan and China are addressing the necessity to deal with the aging problem in the coming decades. Certainly, I may not have to put all this together, but considering the weights of these three countries in the world, it may imply that we will have low inflation and high saving in the future 10-15 years, which is a good news to the outlook of Bond markets and bad to Equities.


Have a good day!