Markets Weekly September 16, 2023

Hello my friends, today is September 16th. My name is Joseph and this is Markets Weekly.

大家好，今天是9月16日。我叫约瑟夫，这里是《市场周刊》。

This week we're going to talk about three things. First, we have to talk about what's happening with the Bank of Japan. It seems like the Bank of Japan is finally, finally ready to hike rates and exit negative interest rates.

本周我们要谈论三个事情。首先，我们必须谈论一下日本银行正在发生的事情。看起来，日本银行终于终于准备提高利率，退出负利率的政策了。

Secondly, let's talk about what happened at the ECB meeting last week. It seems like the ECB, although they hike rates by 25 basis points, it seems like they are strongly suggesting that their rate hike cycle is over.

其次，让我们谈谈上周欧洲央行会议上发生的事情。尽管欧洲央行将利率上调25个基点，但他们似乎强烈暗示他们的利率上调周期已经结束。

And lastly, let's talk a little bit about the United Auto Workers strike happening here in the US and how that plays into our broader view that we've been discussing for some time that over the next few years, labor is going to have more and more power.

最后，让我们稍微谈谈在美国发生的美国汽车工人罢工，以及它如何与我们长期讨论的观点相吻合，即在未来几年内，劳工将拥有越来越多的权力。

Okay, starting with the Bank of Japan. So last weekend, Governor Wado of the Bank of Japan gave an interview or he suggested that at the end of the year, he's going to have enough information to decide whether or not the Bank of Japan might need to hike rates.

好的，我们先从日本银行开始。所以上个周末，日本银行的总裁和户田瑗表示，在年底的时候，他将会获得足够的信息来决定是否需要提高利率。

Here's some context. So over the past few decades, Japan has been struggling with low inflation or outright deflation. So in order to combat that, the Bank of Japan set rates to negative 0.1% in 2016. And of course, it did not work.

这是一些背景信息。在过去的几十年里，日本一直在与低通胀或明确的通货紧缩作斗争。为了应对这一问题，日本银行在2016年将利率设置为负0.1%。当然，这一举措并未奏效。

But over the past few years, just as inflation swept across the world in the US, in the Eurozone in Canada, and many other countries, it also touched Japan. And inflation in Japan has been comfortably above its 2% target for some time.

然而，在过去几年中，全球范围内如美国、欧元区、加拿大等许多国家都受到通货膨胀的影响，日本也不例外。而日本的通货膨胀率在相当长的时间里一直稳定地超过了其2%的目标水平。

Now, many other central banks in the world saw inflation coming and began to aggressively hike interest rates. But the Bank of Japan saw inflation and basically did nothing.

现在，世界上许多其他央行意识到通胀的到来，并开始积极提高利率。然而，日本银行看到了通胀问题，基本上却采取了不作为的态度。

Now over the past several months, what Bank of Japan officials have been saying is that yes, inflation is above our target, but according to our forecast, it's going to go back down. So we don't need to do anything.

在过去几个月里，日本银行官员一直在表达的观点是，是的，通胀超过了我们的目标，但根据我们的预测，它将回落。所以我们不需要采取任何行动。

And I can totally understand that after all, they've been trying to see inflation for a long time, finally inflation is here, they probably don't want to suddenly overreact and see it go back down to deflation or something like that.

我完全能理解，毕竟经济一直都在努力实现通货膨胀，现在终于有了通货膨胀的迹象，他们可能不想突然过度反应，然后又出现通货紧缩或类似情况。

But I think as data is coming in, it seems like what they're seeing in Japan might actually be more durable than expected. And if that's the case, the Bank of Japan might actually have to hike interest rates.

但是我认为随着数据的不断进展，看起来他们在日本所观察到的情况实际上可能比预期更持久。如果情况确实如此，日本银行可能不得不提高利率。

So if you're looking at wages out in Japan, for example, wages have been suddenly rising. Now if you have wages rising, then you can obviously have a situation where inflation is sustained as people have more money to spend on goods and services. There's more demand and that could be supportive of the prices.

所以，如果你看看日本的工资情况，比如说，工资突然在上升。如果工资上涨，显然人们可以有更多的钱用于购买商品和服务，这样就会出现通货膨胀的情况。需求增加，这可能对价格起到支持作用。

I also suspect though that the Bank of Japan might be a little bit concerned with rising energy prices. So we had a CPI rating last week in the US that showed some acceleration. And that was largely due to rising gas prices.

我还怀疑日本银行可能对不断上涨的能源价格有些担忧。上周，美国的消费者价格指数显示了一定的加速度，其中主要是由于汽油价格上涨所致。

So oil prices have been, you know, steadily rising in the past few weeks and maybe it will continue to rise. Now Japan basically imports all its oil and the yen has been weak.

所以过去几周油价一直在稳步上涨，或许会继续上涨。现在日本基本上需要进口全部石油，而日元一直比较弱势。

So in yen terms, energy prices have been increasing a lot. So you can easily have a situation where inflation in Japan continues to increase rapidly because of imported energy costs and stuff like that. So I think it's totally reasonable that the Bank of Japan might be thinking about hiking rates maybe at the end of the year, maybe sometime early next year.

所以按日元计算，能源价格一直在大幅增长。由于进口能源成本等原因，日本的通胀情况可能会继续迅速上升。因此，我认为日本银行可能会考虑在年底或明年初提高利率，这是完全合理的。

When that interview was leaked, we had an immediate reaction in the market. The Japanese yen strengthened, although we gave that back a lot of back throughout the week. And you also had short data Japanese government bonds also spiked.

当那个采访被泄露时，市场立即有了反应。日元走强，尽管在整个周内我们也有所回调。此外，日本政府债券的短期数据也出现了急剧上升。

So the two year Japanese government bond spiked at that and then, you know, gave a little bit of that back. But if you zoom out a bit, you can see that over the past few months, market participants have been anticipating the Bank of Japan to lift yields, to lift interest rates and exit negative rates.

因此，当时两年期日本政府债券出现大幅上涨，然后又稍微回落。但是如果你放大一些观察，你会发现在过去几个月里，市场参与者一直在预测日本银行将会提高收益率、升息并逃离负利率。

So the two year Japanese government bond year is now comfortably positive. Now when the Bank of Japan ultimately does decide to hike interest rates, I think that's going to be another upward push on global yields.

所以，日本政府的两年期国债收益率现在正处于令人满意的正值水平。现在当日本银行最终决定加息时，我认为这将给全球收益率带来另一个上行推动。

After all, a global bond markets, global sovereign bond markets are interlinked. If you are a global investor, you can invest anywhere. And we can see over the past few decades, Japanese investors have been sick of low yields in Japan and many of them have invested abroad.

毕竟，全球债券市场、全球主权债券市场是相互关联的。如果你是一位全球投资者，你可以在任何地方进行投资。我们可以看到，在过去的几十年里，日本投资者对日本低收益率感到厌倦，很多人选择了海外投资。

As the Bank of Japan is forecasted to hike rates, you know, on the margins, you could see some of them coming back or at least, you know, not wanting to invest additional funds outside of Japan. And that could, of course, put upward pressure on global yields, including treasury yields.

根据预测，随着日本银行可能加息，你知道，在一定程度上，你可能会看到其中一些回流回来，或者至少不愿意将额外资金投资到日本以外的地方。这当然会对包括国债收益率在内的全球收益率施加上升压力。

It's just one factor among many, but it's something that we should pay attention to. This is a very big change. Japan is a major country and they have kind of been an anchor for global rates.

这只是众多因素中的一个，但是我们应该关注它。这是一个非常重大的变化。日本是一个重要的国家，他们在全球利率方面一直起着一种支撑作用。

We saw the yield curve control for the tender JTB widen. And now we're seeing short rates move and maybe some people are speculating that they might scrap yield curve control entirely. So this is definitely an area that is worth watching over the coming months. Okay.

我们看到了投标国债收益率曲线限制的扩大。现在短期利率开始变动，有些人可能在猜测他们可能会完全放弃收益率曲线限制。因此，这绝对是一个在接下来几个月值得关注的领域。好的。

Now let's talk about the ECB. Now before we talk about the ECB, let's level set a bit. So the ECB has an inflation target of 2%. And they've been failing that target miserably. So inflation in the Eurozone is far above 2%. And it really doesn't have any clear indication of declining to 2%.

现在让我们来谈谈欧洲央行（ECB）吧。在谈论欧洲央行之前，让我们先统一一下认识。所以欧洲央行的通胀目标是2%。然而，他们一直未能达到这个目标。因此欧元区的通胀率远高于2%。而且它并没有明显迹象能够下降至2%。

However, at the same time, the economy in the Eurozone is not doing super well. We have reports that we have a lot of data that suggests that, you know, maybe Germany is in recession. We have a lot of, you know, surveys that suggest that things in the Eurozone aren't heading in the right direction. And of course, monetary policy has time conditions. And you can kind of see bank lending has basically ground to a halt. And in Southern Europe, many people who have variable mortgages are going to be paying higher mortgage payments. At the same time, of course, you also have, just like you do in the US, a pretty strong labor market, wages continue to go strongly.

然而，同时，欧元区经济并不表现出良好状态。我们有很多数据显示可能德国正面临衰退。我们有很多调查显示欧元区的情况并不朝着正确的方向发展。当然，货币政策具有时间条件。并且你可以看到银行贷款基本上已经停滞不前。在南欧，许多拥有变动利率抵押贷款的人将支付更高的房贷。与此同时，当然，就像在美国一样，劳动力市场也很强劲，工资继续大幅增长。

So heading into the September meeting, many people were not sure what the ECB would do. So if that ECB would do nothing, other people thought that maybe they would hike. At the end of the day, the ECB decided to hike. But they gave very strong guidance that this is probably going to be their last hike.

在9月份的会议前，许多人不确定欧洲央行会采取什么行动。有人认为，如果欧洲央行什么都不做，可能会采取加息措施。最终，欧洲央行决定加息。但他们明确表示，这可能是他们最后一次加息。

So one of the things I like about the ECB is that they're super, super clear and super, super blunt in their discussions. So I think it might possibly be because, you know, the ECB conducts a press conference in English, but as we all know, many people in the Eurozone don't speak English. And there's a lot of stuff that probably gets missed in translation and in cultural misunderstands and so forth. And so whenever a metamaguar group, where were the ECB president, says something, they say it multiple times and they're very blunt.

所以，我喜欢欧洲央行的一点是，他们在讨论中非常、非常明确和直率。我认为可能是因为欧洲央行以英语进行新闻发布会，但众所周知，欧元区很多人不会说英语。在翻译和文化误解方面可能会有很多东西被忽略。所以，每当欧洲央行主席或其他成员说一些话时，他们会重复多次，而且非常直率。

So here's a clip of a journalist asking metamaguar. Is that the end of the rate hiking cycle or do you leave the door open? And what we have decided is actually reflected in that key paragraph, which I have read twice, because it is in the body of the text, which was released to you earlier and also in the conclusion of the text, which is that, and it has caveats, you know, based on our current assessment. It is based on all the data, the numbers, the analysis, the assessment, the projections and any other information that we have available. We consider that the key ECB interest rates have reached levels, okay, no, levels that calmer maintained for sufficient long duration. So there is the time element that comes up, will make a substantial contribution, substantial contribution, those are heavy words, to the timely return of inflation to our target.

这里有一个记者问metamaguar的片段。这是加息周期的结束，还是你保留了余地？我们所做的决定实际上反映在那个关键段落中，我已经读了两遍，因为它在正文中，并且我们之前发布给你的文本中也有结论，就是，它有一些限制条件，基于我们当前的评估。它基于所有的数据、数字、分析、评估、预测以及我们可以获得的任何其他信息。我们认为欧洲央行的关键利率已经达到了足够长时间维持的水平。所以时间因素会对及时使通胀回归我们的目标产生重大影响，这些都是严肃的话语。

And so as you can see, metamaguar breaks out her statement and basically reads it to the journalist, trying to explain to everyone that the ECB is probably going to high-grates here and not do anything, but if inflation involves really differently than their expectations, they're probably going to have to hike again. And so the market reaction to this was immediately to sell your own against dollars. And that makes complete sense because the Fed may not be done hiking, but the ECB seems to be done hiking. So we could potentially have interest rate differentials further widen going forward.

正如你所看到的，Metamaguar把她的声明拆解开来，并将其念给记者听，试图向大家解释欧洲央行(ECB)可能会高息而不采取任何行动，但如果通胀情况与他们的预期真的有很大不同，他们可能会再次加息。市场对此的反应立即是抛售欧元兑美元。这完全合理，因为美联储可能还未结束加息，但欧洲央行似乎已经结束加息。因此，利率差异有可能在未来进一步扩大。

After the conference, too, I think it's worth noting that some ECB members leaked to the press that they would still be open to hiking rates. Later on in the year if inflation remains high. So I think that's one of the hard parts of doing policy in the Eurozone. So in the US, obviously, we are one fiscal one country, one fiscal union and all that, but in the Eurozone, you have a whole bunch of countries and everyone has a different cultural background. Some people come from, let's say, hybrid inflation background is really, really, really cautious of inflation. Some people are more lax and are like easy monetary policy. Some countries have a lot of floating rate mortgages where hikes have a big impact on their households. And some people have, let's say, 25-year fixed mortgages in their country and it doesn't really matter. So it's really hard to get a consensus at the ECB. On the way up when inflation was high, it was really easy to go from zero. But I think going forward, it's going to be really hard for them to get on the same page. So my guess is the way to build political consensus going forward is going to be pretty difficult. So this probably is their last hike. And perhaps sometime next year, they're going to have to be thinking about cutting. If the economic situation there doesn't improve and so far it doesn't look like it's going well. Okay.

在会议之后，我认为值得注意的是一些欧洲央行成员向媒体透露，如果通胀仍然高企，他们仍然愿意考虑加息。那就是在欧元区制定政策的难点之一。在美国，我们显然是一个财政联盟，但在欧元区，有一大堆国家，每个国家都有不同的文化背景。一些人来自混合通胀背景，对通胀非常谨慎。有些人对宽松的货币政策更加宽松。一些国家有很多浮动利率抵押贷款，利率上涨对他们的家庭有很大影响。有些国家有25年固定利率抵押贷款，利率上涨对他们并不重要。因此，要在欧洲央行取得共识是非常困难的。在通胀率高企的时候，从零开始加息非常容易。但我认为，未来他们要达成一致将会非常困难。所以我猜想，未来他们建立政治共识的方式将会非常困难。这可能是他们最后一次加息。也许明年他们将不得不考虑降息，如果那里的经济形势没有改善的话，而目前情况看来并不理想。好的。

The last thing I want to talk about is the United Auto Workers strike. So as this has been widely reported, the United Auto Workers began striking on Friday. The United Auto Workers, about 150,000 people, okay, so this part of the United Auto Workers for the big three American auto companies, about 150,000 people and about 13,000 of them went on strike. The union seems to have decided that they're going to strike at select facilities and this makes sense for them because if they all strike, well, you know, that's a, so when they're on strike, they have a strike fund that pays for their employees so that they can continue to live. And so if you have a target at strike, it's not as big as drain on that employee fund. And also they're picking strikes at locations where it's most painful to the auto workers. It seems like they're picking locations that produce their most profitable vehicles.

我最后要谈论的是美国联合汽车工人罢工。据广泛报道，美国联合汽车工人于星期五开始罢工。美国联合汽车工人约有15万人，嗯，所以这部分是服务于美国三大汽车公司的联合汽车工人，大约有13,000人参加了罢工。工会似乎已经决定只在特定设施进行罢工，这对他们来说是有道理的，因为如果所有人都罢工，你知道的，对于工人基金来说是一个巨大的负担。而且他们还在选择对汽车工人最痛苦的地点进行罢工。似乎他们在选择制造他们最具利润的车辆的地点进行罢工。

Now this is part of a broader theme that we've seen all throughout the summer. We saw UPS workers go on strike and get big wages. We'd have United airline pilots go on strike and get big increases. And now the United Auto Workers are going on strike and they are offering to come back to work if they can get 40% wage increases, which is of course a lot. Reporting suggests that the auto companies are offering them 20% raise over the next few years and the United Auto Workers is not willing to accept that, but they seem to be wanting 30% over the next few years. But that's how negotiations work, right? Eventually they're, they're meat at some middle ground, but it looks like it's going to be a lot closer to what the auto workers want.

现在这是整个夏季我们一直见到的更广泛主题的一部分。我们看到UPS的工人罢工并获得高工资。我们曾经有联合航空的飞行员罢工并得到较大加薪。现在，联合汽车工人即将举行罢工，他们表示如果能够获得40%的工资增长，他们就愿意回去工作，当然这是很多的。报道显示，汽车公司提供的是在未来几年内加薪20%，而联合汽车工人却不愿接受，他们似乎希望在未来几年内获得30%的加薪。不过这就是谈判的方式，对吧？最终他们会在某种中间地带取得一致，不过看起来接近汽车工人所期望的结果。

So let's sit back for a bit and see just these big macro and demographic forces that are, that we see being manifested. So as we've been talking about for, for, for many a long time, so the workforce population in the US isn't really growing the same way that it used to. And if you look at some particular blue collar jobs like auto workers or let's say, you know, truck drivers and things like that, people, people are not as interested in those professions anymore. So macro scale, you don't have a workforce that's increasing as much. And culturally, you don't, you, people want to go to college and study English or something like that. They don't want to do the traditional blue collar jobs. So there's in many segments of the economy, there's going to be a tremendous shortage of labor and labor is taking full advantage of that to press for higher wages.

所以让我们稍微放松一下，看看这些正在显现的宏观和人口力量。正如我们长舌的谈论了许多次，美国的劳动力人口增长不再像过去那样快速。而且如果你看看一些特定的蓝领工作，比如汽车工人或者卡车司机之类的，人们对这些职业的兴趣不再像从前那样高。所以宏观层面上，劳动力并没有像以前那样增加。而且从文化上来看，人们更愿意上大学学习英语之类的，不愿从事传统的蓝领工作。所以在许多经济领域，劳动力短缺的问题将会变得严重，而劳动力正在充分利用这一点来争取更高的工资。

United Auto Workers have repeatedly pointed out the big profits that their companies make, the big salaries for CEO straw, they're pointing out that inflation over the past few years has been high and then running their purchasing part. So they want a bigger share of the pie. Zoom out a bit and you'll see that over the past few decades, labor has had a smaller share of national income. And that's part of lead, you know, technology, globalization and so forth. But now finally, because of demographics, labor is, is, is realizing that they have more power and they're going to want to have a bigger share of the pie. Totally, I think, totally normal and something that we're going to see more and more going forward.

美国汽车工人联合会（United Auto Workers）一直在指出他们所在公司的巨额利润，首席执行官的高薪酬，并指出过去几年的通货膨胀率较高，导致他们的购买力下降。因此，他们希望能够获得更大的利益分配。放大一点来看，过去几十年来，劳工在国家收入中所占的份额越来越小，这与科技发展、全球化等因素有关。但现在，由于人口结构的变化，劳工认识到自己拥有更多的力量，并希望获得更大的利益份额。我认为这是完全正常的，而且将来会越来越常见。

Now this could play out. This couldn't play out in a few ways. We could have something like a wage price bar where they gave employees higher wages and then just turn around and raise prices to pass on that costs. We saw that happen in the 70s and 80s and that seemed to lead to higher inflation and that's what the, the dry banks don't want. But another way this could play out is that, you know, the company actually eats those costs and has smaller margins. I think that's also a pretty reasonable outcome because if you look at from a macro standpoint, a corporate profits, they really surged over the past few years. So you can also have a situation where a company is really just share more of the profits with their workers and that would improve living standards of a lot of people. So I think that would be an optimal outcome. So it's not clear which outcome will have, but we'll see playing forward. Hopefully, hopefully it's the better outcome.

现在可能会出现这种情况。这种情况可能有几种不同的发展方式。第一种是可能出现工资物价齐升的情况，即公司提供更高的工资，然后提高价格来传递成本。我们在上世纪七八十年代就见过这种情况，这似乎导致了更高的通货膨胀，而这正是银行不希望的。但另一种可能性是，公司实际上会承担这些成本并具有更小的利润率。从宏观角度来看，公司利润在过去几年中大幅增长，所以也有可能公司与员工分享更多利润，从而改善很多人的生活水平。因此，我认为这是一个较为理想的结果。目前还不清楚会出现哪种结果，但我们将继续观察。希望能出现更好的结果。

But one other additional thing that I'll note though is that even though we'll see labor have greater power over the few years, I think that the auto industry in the US is probably not in a good place.

但是我还要补充的另一件事是，尽管在未来几年劳工力量会增强，但我认为美国的汽车工业可能处于困境之中。

So overall globally, what's happening is that people are moving towards electric cars. Now electric cars are something that American auto manufacturers are not very good at. You can see Ford trying to build out an electric car business and not doing very well. So what seems to be happening is that globally, China, Chinese automakers are really, really, really building out the production capacity and begin to massively export electric cars.

总体而言，在全球范围内，人们正在转向电动汽车。然而，电动汽车并不是美国汽车制造商擅长的领域。你可以看到福特试图建立一个电动汽车业务，但成绩并不好。因此，似乎在全球范围内，中国和中国的汽车制造商正在大规模建设生产能力，并开始大量出口电动汽车。

Now recently, China became the top exporter of all your electric cars in the world. This is kind of a playbook they've done many times. Solar panels for example, solar panels are basically all produced in China now. The government there gave big subsidies, is willing to maybe not pay too much attention to environmental costs and just massively produce an export and they basically took over the solar industry. It seems like they're doing the same strategy for cars as well.

最近，中国成为全球所有电动汽车的最大出口国。这是他们多次采用的一种策略。以太阳能电池板为例，现在基本上所有的太阳能电池板都是在中国生产的。中国政府提供了巨额补贴，愿意可能不太关注环境成本，只是大规模生产和出口，他们基本上接管了太阳能产业。看起来他们也在为汽车采取同样的策略。

So the auto sector, as we transition to an electric car world, is going to be in some trouble, especially the American manufacturers and the German ones as well. Basically the legacy car manufacturers that are very good at producing IC engines, but not as good at producing electric cars. So this particular strike is probably another headache for the American auto industry. That's kind of unlucky for them. But the overall trend I think is for, we just continue to increase. And this auto industry here in the US is going to be in some trouble, it seems.

随着我们向电动汽车时代过渡，汽车行业将遇到一些麻烦，特别是美国制造商和德国制造商。基本上则是那些非常擅长生产内燃机的传统汽车制造商，却不擅长生产电动汽车。所以这次罢工对美国汽车行业来说可能又是一个头疼的问题，对他们来说有点倒霉。但总的趋势我认为是继续增长。看起来，美国的汽车行业可能会遇到一些麻烦。

Okay, so that's what I prepared for today. This coming week, we're going to have an FOMC meeting. So I'll produce an FOMC debrief. Once again, if you like what I'm producing here, remember to like and subscribe and check out my blog, figure out comment for additional market commentary and my courses at Central making 101, if you're interested in learning more about asset markets through the lens of a macro trader.

好的，那就是我今天为今天准备的内容。下周我们将举行一次FOMC会议，所以我会提供一份FOMC总结。再次提醒大家，如果你喜欢我这里的内容，请记得点赞、订阅并查看我的博客。如果你想要了解更多关于宏观交易者视角下的资产市场知识，可以考虑参加我的课程“中央市场学101”。

All right, talk to you all soon.

好的，很快与你们再聊。