Bond yields still need to rise to set a price of capital that is sustainable for the world we’re in now.
债券收益率仍需上升，以对应当前的高利率金融环境。
If I could point to one price that matters most for the economy and financial markets, it’s the bond yield. It signifies how expensive it is to move from present to future: in a low-yield world, if you have money, you should consume now and not wait; if you have no money, you can get some by borrowing since it is virtually free. In a high-yield world, if you have money, you should save it because it will grow; if you have no money, it is difficult to get more because you must earn a high return in order to be able to pay it back. The bond yield is the relevant cost of capital, the baseline expected return of any longer-term financial investment, and the hurdle any real economic idea has to clear for profitability.
如果让我指出一个对经济和金融市场最重要的价格作为指标，那就是债券收益率。债券收益率表明从现在走向未来的成本有多高：在低收益的世界里，如果你有钱，你应该现在就消费，不要等待；如果你没钱，你可以通过借钱来获得一些钱，因为借钱几乎是免费的。在高收益的世界里，如果你有钱，你应该把钱存起来，因为钱会增长；如果你没钱，你就很难赚更多的钱，因为你必须赚取高额回报才能偿还。债券收益率是相关资本成本，是任何长期金融投资的基准预期回报，也是任何真正的经济理念要盈利必须跨越的障碍。
We’re in the midst of a transition from an exceptionally low cost of capital to more moderate levels. That process is underway but will likely take a few more years to fully complete. Bond yields still need to rise to set a price of capital that is sustainable for the world we’re in, compensating for structurally higher fiscal stimulation and inherently inflationary spending on things like AI investments, remilitarization, rebuilding supply chains to reduce reliance on China, the energy transition, and energy security.
我们正处于从极低的资本成本向更适中的水平过渡的过程中。这个过程正在进行中，但可能还需要几年才能完全完成。因此，债券收益率仍需上升，以设定一个适合我们所处世界的可持续的资本价格，以补偿结构性更高的财政刺激和固有的通胀支出，如人工智能投资、再军事化、重建供应链以减少对东大的依赖、能源转型和能源安全。
What Sets the Cost of Capital?
是什么因素决定了资本的成本？
The Fed, of course, plays a critical role in setting the cost of capital. The Fed sets the short-term interest rate and provides expectations for how its rate setting is likely to evolve over time. It is leading the shift: it shifted from a decade or more of making money free to seeing an economy that requires a new, higher cost of capital. Expectations of what the Fed will do over time anchor the bond yield: if the Fed ends up setting higher rates over time than the bond yield, investors will wish they held cash instead.
当然，美联储在资本定价中发挥着关键作用。美联储设定短期利率，并预测其利率将如何随时间演变（通过预期影响市场）。美联储正在引领这一转变：美联储将市场环境从十年或更长时间的零成本赚钱（QE) 转变为看到经济需要新的、更高的资本成本的市场环境。对美联储将采取何种行动的预期锚定了债券收益率：如果美联储最终设定的利率高于债券收益率，投资者将希望持有现金。
But the Fed and expectations of the Fed don’t ultimately set the bond yield on their own. At the end of the day, buyers and sellers of bonds must come together to form the price, and the Fed’s actions are one important element that weighs in the considerations of many (but not all) buyers. The composition of buyers and sellers can cause material deviations from the Fed’s current and expected future policies.
但美联储及其预期并不能最终独自决定债券收益率。归根结底，债券的买家和卖家必须共同决定价格，而美联储的行动是影响许多（但不是全部）买家考虑的一个重要因素。买家和卖家的构成可能导致美联储当前和预期未来政策出现重大偏差。
We lived through this prior to the financial crisis when China’s and OPEC’s desire to save in US dollars added a large group of lenders to the US that were not price-sensitive; they pushed the bond yield lower and lower, which incentivized borrowing, creating a bond yield that seemed inconsistent with how the Fed was likely to behave. This ended in tears with the global financial crisis, when some of those borrowers reached their limits, having borrowed too much.
我们在金融危机爆发前就经历过这种情况，当时中国和欧佩克希望用美元储蓄，这为美国带来了一大批对价格不敏感的贷款人；他们把债券收益率推得越来越低，从而刺激了更加强劲的借贷需求，（高涨的借贷需求）导致债券收益率似乎与美联储的行为方式出现了偏差。然而这最终以全球金融危机告终，其中一些借款人借款过多（开杠杆开得过高），这使得金融系统达到了极限。
Where We Are Today
我们当下的处境
We are coming out of a very long period when the price of bonds was largely set by noneconomic players. After the period of reserve accumulation mentioned above, we lived through over a decade when central banks intentionally dominated the bond market, with quantitative easing designed to shape policy outcomes by dramatically reducing the cost of capital and injecting printed money into the system. This era pushed many investors out of the bond market. Holding yields at zero was hard to justify relative to their return goals. Worse, the primary role bonds were supposed to play in a portfolio—of offsetting equity losses when the Fed eased in response to growth slowdowns—they couldn’t play very well when rates were close to zero already.
我们刚刚走出一段很长的时期，当时债券价格主要由非经济参与者决定。在上述储备积累时期之后，我们经历了十多年的时间，当时各国央行有意主导债券市场，量化宽松旨在通过大幅降低资本成本和向系统注入印刷货币来影响政策结果。这个时代将许多投资者赶出了债券市场。相对于他们的回报目标，将收益率保持在零很难证明其合理性。更糟糕的是，债券在投资组合中应该发挥的主要作用——当美联储为应对增长放缓而放松政策时抵消股票损失——当利率已经接近于零时，债券收益率就无法发挥很好的作用了。
So, while the Fed has raised short-term rates (maybe to the max this cycle) and conveyed expectations of higher rates into the future than expected a few years ago, the process of transition and adjustment to a new cost of capital by buyers and sellers is not yet behind us. This is clear looking at the mix of buyers and sellers of bonds, which is not yet normalized. The bond yield has been range-bound around 4-4.75% for almost a year, and you can look at the buying and selling of bonds in this period as underlying this price formation.
因此，尽管美联储已经上调了短期利率（本周期可能已上调至最高），并传达了未来利率高于几年前预期的预期，但买家和卖家对新资本成本的过渡和调整过程尚未结束。从债券买家和卖家的组合来看，这一点很明显，尚未正常化。近一年来，债券收益率一直在 4-4.75% 左右波动，你可以将这段时间的债券买卖视为这一价格形成的基础。
At this phase in the cycle, years into a boom, there is usually a lot of borrowing to be absorbed, requiring rising yields. Today, despite an eye-popping federal deficit, total borrowing has been roughly normal (or maybe a touch low relative to the strong economy). Usually, the big borrower is the private sector, especially so long into a boom. Whereas today, yields are high enough to discourage the most rate-sensitive borrowing (e.g., mortgages). And many players have such healthy balance sheets and so much cash after a decade of deleveraging followed by COVID stimulus that they don’t need to borrow in order to spend (the chief example of this is the AI-related capex funded from cash flows and cash on balance sheets). But with massive federal deficit borrowing plus the Fed unwind of QE adding supply to the bond market, it still all adds up to a pace of borrowing that typically puts upward pressure on yields to keep drawing money into the market.
在这个周期阶段，即经济繁荣的几年后，（金融系统）通常需要吸收大量借款，这就需要提高收益率。如今，尽管联邦赤字惊人，但总借款额大致正常（或者相对于强劲的经济来说可能略低）。通常，最大的借款人是私营部门，尤其是在经济繁荣这么久之后。而今天，收益率高到足以阻止对利率最敏感的借款（例如抵押贷款）。而且，在经历了十年的去杠杆和新冠刺激之后，许多参与者的资产负债表非常健康，现金充足，因此他们不需要借钱来消费（主要例子是与人工智能相关的资本支出，这些资本支出由现金流和资产负债表上的现金资助）。但由于联邦赤字巨额借款加上美联储退出量化宽松政策增加了债券市场的供应，所有这些加起来仍使借款速度加快，这通常会给收益率带来上行压力，以继续吸引资金进入市场。
“Pent-Up Demand”
被压抑的债券需求
Bonds are nonetheless clearing at the roughly 4.5% yield levels we’ve seen. This is pretty low relative to the short-term interest rate of 5.5%, and even with expectations of some easing ahead of us, it is hard to argue there is much risk premium in that yield level (i.e., do buyers expect that the Fed will set rates on average well below this level such that bonds will outperform cash?).
尽管如此，债券的结算收益率仍达到我们所见的 4.5% 左右。相对于 5.5% 的短期利率，这一水平相当低，即使我们预期未来会出现一些宽松政策，也很难说这一收益率水平存在太多风险溢价（即，买家是否预期美联储将把平均利率设定得远低于这一水平，从而使债券表现优于现金？）。
Even 4.5% yields were sufficient to persuade bond buyers to begin to normalize their abnormally low bond holdings. This can be thought of as “pent-up demand” for bonds, which slows the process of adjustment to a new cost of capital. It’s less severe in the US than, say, in Japan (where every player sold all its bonds to the BoJ) but puts a lid on yields in the near term as players digest the fact that bonds offer acceptable (no longer negative in real terms) returns and can begin to play their traditional diversification role (i.e., the Fed can ease in response to an unexpected downturn).
即使 4.5% 的收益率也足以说服债券买家开始将其异常低的债券持有量正常化。这可以被认为是债券的“被压抑的需求”，这会减缓调整新资本成本的过程。在美国，这种情况不像在日本那么严重（在日本，每个参与者都将其所有债券卖给了日本央行），但在短期内限制了收益率，因为参与者已经接受了债券提供可接受的（实际不再为负）回报的事实，并且可以开始发挥其传统的多元化作用（即美联储可以放松政策以应对意外的经济衰退）。
As pent-up demand runs out and holdings of bonds start to normalize after years of decreasing, we’ll likely need another step up in the cost of capital to fund even this level of borrowing—which, as noted above, doesn’t include much private sector borrowing. And since conditions in the rest of the world have consistently lagged as US yields rise more than elsewhere, the differential grows, leading money to come in from abroad; this is another factor that is slowing the adjustment process to a higher cost of capital.
随着被压抑的需求耗尽，债券持有量在经历多年下降后开始恢复正常，我们可能需要进一步提高资本成本才能为这种借贷水平提供资金——如上所述，这不包括太多私营部门的借贷。由于美国收益率上升幅度超过其他地区，世界其他地区的情况一直落后，差距不断扩大，导致资金从海外流入；这是另一个减缓向更高资本成本调整过程的因素。
Keep in mind that many buyers don’t care about the level of yields as much as the steepness of the yield curve: they want to earn carry by borrowing to hold the bonds (e.g., banks that pay short-term rates on deposits and hold bonds with the money). The yield curve is inverted, discouraging these buyers. A small correction of Fed easing from these levels won’t change that. The bond yield needs to be higher than the short-term interest rate (and what the short-term rate is expected to be over time) to ensure it’s more profitable to lend over long periods and finance economic activity than to sit in cash. A normalized cost of capital includes a modest risk premium of this nature. When the Treasury borrowed to fund a large war effort in WWII, the Fed effectively promised a positive carry to get investors to buy. For large amounts of borrowing to clear, an upward-sloping yield curve will eventually be necessary.
请记住，许多买家并不关心收益率水平，而是关心收益率曲线的陡峭程度：他们希望通过借入资金持有债券来赚取套利（例如，银行支付短期存款利率并用这笔钱持有债券）。收益率曲线倒挂，令这些买家望而却步。美联储小幅调整宽松政策不会改变这一现状。债券收益率需要高于短期利率（以及预计的短期利率随时间的变化），以确保长期借贷和为经济活动融资比持有现金更有利可图。正常化的资本成本包括这种性质的适度风险溢价。当美国财政部借款为二战期间的大规模战争努力提供资金时，美联储实际上承诺了正套利以吸引投资者购买。为了清算大量借款，最终将需要一条向上倾斜的收益率曲线。
Structurally Higher Spending Creates Upward Pressure on the Cost of Capital
结构性支出增加对资本成本造成上行压力
Today, even a modestly slowing economy keeps us in what is effectively an unsustainable boom, with lots of desire to spend while the labor market and industrial base are tight. This backdrop is unlikely to change much in the coming months. The Fed is likely to ease a bit given its easing bias, which may add a bit more borrowing into the mix. Households and businesses will keep spending, because they’re spending from incomes and balance sheets. The federal government is likely to keep high spending no matter how the election goes, and there is even a chance of renewed stimulus providing a jolt of adrenaline when the economy is already revved up. Things will move up and down here and there, but what will remain is an underlying structural desire across government and the private sector to spend on inherently inflationary things: AI (near-term inflationary even if long-term deflationary), remilitarization, energy transition, energy security, and the rebuilding of the industrial base to be less reliant on China.
如今，即便是经济略有放缓，也让我们处于一种实际上不可持续的繁荣之中，在劳动力市场和工业基础紧张的情况下，人们的消费欲望很强。这种背景在未来几个月不太可能发生太大变化。鉴于美联储的宽松倾向，它可能会稍微放松一点，这可能会增加一些借贷。家庭和企业将继续支出，因为他们的支出来自收入和资产负债表。无论选举结果如何，联邦政府都可能保持高支出，甚至有可能在经济已经加速时推出新的刺激措施，为经济注入一剂强心针。情况会时好时坏，但政府和私营部门仍然存在一种潜在的结构性愿望，即在本质上会导致通胀的领域进行支出：人工智能（即使长期通货紧缩，短期内也会导致通胀）、再军事化、能源转型、能源安全，以及重建工业基础以减少对中国的依赖。
The cost of capital will need to adjust to be high enough to compensate for these drivers of demand and for structurally higher fiscal borrowing and stimulation, especially in an environment where small increases in the cost of capital probably won’t do much to slow the economy. There are mitigants in place slowing the process of transition, but bond yields likely still need to rise over time to set a price of capital that is sustainable for this reality.
资本成本需要调整到足够高，以抵消这些需求驱动因素以及结构性更高的财政借贷和刺激，尤其是在资本成本小幅上涨可能不会对经济放缓产生太大影响的环境下。目前有缓解措施减缓转型进程，但债券收益率可能仍需要随着时间的推移而上升，以设定一个可持续的资本价格来应对这一现实。
Looking back over the last 100 years, the cost of capital was abnormally low in the decade leading up to COVID, supported by unprecedented noneconomic purchases. The transition to a higher cost of capital is now underway, but bond yields (especially in real terms) are still at the lower end of what we’ve seen without economic purchases to drive the cost of capital down and especially low relative to periods of structurally high demand (e.g., the last tech boom in the 1990s).
回顾过去 100 年，在疫情爆发之前的十年中，由于前所未有的非经济性购买，资本成本异常低。目前资本成本正在向更高水平过渡，但债券收益率（尤其是实际收益率）仍处于我们在没有经济性购买来压低资本成本的情况下所见的低端，并且相对于结构性高需求时期（例如 1990 年代的上一次科技繁荣时期）尤其低。
