With growth moderating, how durable is the economy? When we look at the mechanics of the expansion—examining who is spending money, what is driving their spending, and how the spending is being financed—we see an expansion that is likely to be unusually durable. There isn’t much spending that is vulnerable to rapid reversal (for example, the way rate rises can quickly cut off borrowing), and meaningful spending is driven by longer-term considerations. Growth looks likely to keep bumping along at roughly the pace supply can keep up with, with pockets of weakness less likely to spiral. This is reinforced by central banks’ relatively unusual policy approach: beginning to ease based on forward projections when inflation is still falling but remains above their targets.

随着经济增长放缓，经济能持续多久？当我们研究经济扩张的机制时——研究谁在花钱、推动他们花钱的原因是什么以及这些花钱的融资方式——我们发现经济扩张的动能可能异常持久。没有多少支出容易迅速逆转（例如，加息可以迅速切断借贷行为），有意义的支出是由长期考虑驱动的。

经济增长似乎可能会继续以大致与供应能够跟上的速度平稳发展，而经济疲软不太可能出现螺旋式上升。各国央行相对不寻常的政策方法进一步证实了这一点：当通胀仍在下降但仍高于目标时，根据前瞻性预测开始放松政策。

But for investors, easy policy and moderate growth and inflation are probably not good enough.This type of conditions is usually great, but financial asset returns are driven by how the future evolves relative to what is discounted in the price. Equity valuations are already accounting for both a durable expansion and a profitable AI revolution. The yield curve has inverted to a degree typically only seen in recessions, pricing that central banks will ease a meaningful amount; easing more slowly than discounted will be an effective tightening, creating a bearish ripple effect on all future cash flows. While the labor market and industrial base are less tight than they were at the peak of post-COVID supply constraints, the durability of the expansion will limit how much and how fast inflation can keep drifting down to achieve targets. Over time, we suspect central banks will find it very challenging to provide as much stimulation as is already priced into rate markets, and the cost of capital will need to adjust. A moderate expansion is also likely not to feel satisfying to voters expressing dissatisfaction with incumbents across much of the developed world.

但对于投资者来说，宽松的政策、适度的增长和通胀可能还不够好。这种情况通常很好，但金融资产的回报是由未来相对于价格折现值的变化情况所驱动的。股票估值已经考虑到了持久的扩张和有利可图的人工智能革命。

收益率曲线已经倒挂到通常只在经济衰退中才会出现的程度，定价表明央行将大幅放松货币政策；比折现值更慢的宽松政策将是一种有效的紧缩政策，对所有未来现金流产生看跌的连锁反应。虽然劳动力市场和工业基础不像新冠疫情后供应限制最严重时那么紧张，但扩张的持久性将限制通胀为实现目标而继续下降的程度和速度。随着时间的推移，我们怀疑央行将发现很难提供已经计入利率市场价格的那么多刺激措施，资本成本也需要调整。温和的扩张也可能不会让许多发达国家对现任政府表示不满的选民感到满意。

Equities look on the margin more attractive than bonds, but the world is already over-positioned in equities, effectively collecting a smaller risk premium while exposed to the risk of a surprise recession or stickier-than-expected inflation. Concentrated portfolios imply that incremental strategic shifts can have outsize impacts: for example, adding investments that can do well if the economic cycle turns unfavorably, shifting investments to other parts of the world where the cycle is less synchronized with the US/Europe, and shifting to earn the equity risk premium in more resilient ways.

股票看起来比债券更有吸引力，但全球股票市场已经过度配置，全球资产组合出现了较小的风险溢价，同时面临意外衰退或通胀高于预期的风险。集中投资组合意味着渐进式战略转变可能产生巨大影响：例如，增加在经济周期不利时可以表现良好的投资，将投资转移到与美国/欧洲周期不太同步的其他地区，以及以更具弹性的方式转移以获得股票风险溢价。

We continue to see opportunities and mispricings between countries’ assets and currencies, as well as within the equity market. In the equity market, cross-company correlations have been unusually low, and we continue to shift our risk-taking away from equity markets in aggregate to more individual company views, reflective of how we expect the environment will influence individual companies based on their circumstances (e.g., demand they’re exposed to, competitive position, debt and balance sheet health, etc.).

我们继续看到各国资产和货币之间以及股票市场内部存在机会和错误定价。在股票市场中，跨板块的公司相关性异常低，我们继续将风险承担从总体股票市场转移到更关注单个公司的观点，这反映了我们预计环境将如何根据各个公司的情况（例如，它们面临的需求、竞争地位、债务和资产负债表健康状况等）影响它们。

Below, we share some of our thinking around (1) how we’re processing whether this expansion is likely to remain durable, (2) how we see the investment landscape in this environment, and (3) where we see alpha opportunities.

下面，我们将分享我们的一些想法，涉及：

（1）我们如何看待这种扩张是否可能持续下去，

（2）我们如何看待这种环境下的投资前景，以及

（3）阿尔法机会（超额收益）究竟在哪里。

The Economic Backdrop: How Durable Is the Expansion?

宏观经济背景：信用扩张能持续多久？

In processing the economic backdrop, we find it useful to examine the mechanics of the expansion: who is spending money in the economy, what is driving their spending, and how that spending is being financed. Spending in the economy can come from one of three places: income growth, new borrowing, or drawing down savings. The three big spenders—households, businesses, and the government—tend to use a different mix of these sources of funds and are influenced by different factors in choosing whether to spend.

在分析经济背景时，我们发现研究经济扩张的机制很有用：谁在经济中花钱，是什么推动了他们的消费，以及这些消费是如何融资的。经济中的消费可以来自三个方面：收入增长、新借款或减少储蓄。三大消费大户——家庭、企业和政府——倾向于使用不同的资金来源组合，并在选择是否消费时受到不同因素的影响。

Households spend mostly from income, and this is how most of the spending in today’s economy is occurring. Income growth tends to be self-reinforcing, as new spending becomes new income, fueling further spending growth. This process is humming along, with ample momentum to keep the economic expansion going at a moderate pace. Household borrowing to spend in excess of incomes typically adds fuel to the fire but also makes an expansion vulnerable to reversal, as interest rate rises will make borrowing less attractive and raise debt burdens. Today, households are not reliant on debt growth to spend. The small share of households with consumer debts are being crushed by high rates, but they are a minority. Overall, balance sheets are as healthy as they have been in decades, and spending is being financed from incomes and cash on hand.

家庭支出主要来自收入，这也是当今经济中大部分支出的发生方式。收入增长往往具有自我强化作用，因为新的支出会变成新的收入，从而推动进一步的支出增长。这个过程正在顺利进行，有足够的动力让经济扩张保持适度的速度。家庭借款用于超额支出通常会火上浇油，但也会使扩张容易出现逆转，因为利率上升会使借款变得不那么有吸引力，并增加债务负担。如今，家庭并不依赖债务增长来消费。一小部分拥有消费债务的家庭正受到高利率的重创，但他们是少数。

总体而言，资产负债表与几十年前一样健康，支出由收入和手头现金提供资金。

But borrowing is certainly fueling spending well above incomes; it is just coming in the form of government borrowing, with the largest fiscal deficit we’ve experienced outside of wartime. Government borrowing, unlike private sector borrowing, is subject to political choices and not directly sensitive to what the interest rate is. It’s hard to cut off borrowing without political change, and it looks likely that government borrowing and spending will remain high no matter who wins the US November election; there is even a chance of renewed fiscal stimulus providing a jolt of adrenaline in 2025. Other countries have been more cautious, in part because they have more fear of the market disciplining high deficit spending (as we saw briefly in the UK in 2022). But as elections throughout the developed world have signaled voters’ frustration with the status quo and incumbents, pressure to keep borrowing and spending will remain high. The structural backdrop of geopolitical competition, climate change and energy security challenges, and questions of technological leadership will keep pressure on governments globally to engage in expensive industrial policies. The US is least likely to face an endgame to rising government debt levels anytime soon due to “pent-up demand” for bonds after years of QE, low competition from private sector borrowing, and the enduring role of the US dollar.

但借贷确实推动了远高于收入的支出；它只是以政府借贷的形式出现，而政府的财政赤字是我们经历过的战时以外最大的。与私营部门借贷不同，政府借贷受政治选择的影响，并不直接受利率影响。如果没有政治变革，很难切断借贷，而且无论谁赢得美国 11 月的选举，政府借贷和支出似乎都将保持高位；甚至有可能在 2025 年推出新的财政刺激措施，为经济注入一剂强心剂。其他国家则更加谨慎，部分原因是他们更担心市场会约束高赤字支出（正如我们在 2022 年英国看到的）。但随着发达国家的选举表明选民对现状和现任者感到失望，继续借贷和支出的压力仍将很高。地缘政治竞争、气候变化和能源安全挑战以及技术领导地位问题的结构性背景，将使全球各国政府继续面临实施昂贵产业政策的压力。由于多年量化宽松之后债券的“被压抑的需求”，私营部门借贷竞争较低，以及美元的持久作用，美国短期内不太可能面临政府债务水平上升的最终结果。

Businesses are also behaving unusually this cycle. They typically borrow to make investments in response to rising demand. This cycle, they are not borrowing much—which means they are not sensitive to what the interest rate is—but are spending down their large cash flows and piles of accumulated cash. Spending down savings is typically short-lived, but businesses today are unusually willing to draw down their piles of cash because they see existential risks that require spending to mitigate them or turn them into opportunities: AI, remilitarization, the energy transition, energy security, and the rebuilding of the industrial base to be less reliant on the EAST. The government is in many cases supporting these types of spending through subsidies and incentives. Not only are businesses not reliant on borrowing to finance these types of spending, they are also not driven by rising consumer demand—these types of spending are meant to mitigate risks or prepare the ground for eventual demand that may be many years away, making them quite durable to the inevitable ups and downs in sentiment.

企业在这个周期中的表现也异常。他们通常会借钱进行投资，以应对不断增长的需求。在这个周期中，他们借的钱并不多——这意味着他们对利率不敏感——而是在花掉他们大量的现金流和大量积累的现金。花掉储蓄通常是短暂的，但如今的企业异常愿意动用他们的大量现金，因为他们看到了生存风险，需要花钱来缓解这些风险或将其转化为机遇：人工智能、再军事化、能源转型、能源安全，以及重建工业基础以减少对东大的依赖。在许多情况下，政府通过补贴和激励措施支持这些类型的支出。企业不仅不依赖借款来为这些类型的支出提供资金，而且它们也不是由不断增长的消费者需求驱动的——这些类型的支出旨在缓解风险或为可能在多年后出现的最终需求做好准备，这使得它们能够承受情绪不可避免的起伏。

These drivers of spending and how they’re being financed add up to a late-cycle environment that looks unusually durable. By this, we mean the economy can keep bumping along at roughly the pace supply can maintain, with pockets of weakness less likely to spiral. The nature of the spending and how it’s financed are such that creating self-sustaining downward momentum would likely take a meaningful shock or a meaningful tightening in response to sticky inflation—which central banks will gradually become less tolerant toward. In the near term, the durability of the cycle is reinforced by central banks’ policy approach, which is to ease more preemptively than we’ve seen in the past, with inflation still above target. Central banks assess the current level of rates as restrictive—despite the outcomes they have produced so far—so with inflation moderating from prior bottlenecks and growth having slowed a touch to around potential, we’re starting to see easing. Our examination suggests that the Fed and other central banks looking at the same circumstances in past cycles would have had less of a bias to ease into these conditions.

这些支出驱动因素及其融资方式共同构成了一个看起来异常持久的后期周期环境。我们指的是，经济可以继续以大致与供应能够维持的速度平稳发展，而疲软的领域不太可能出现螺旋式上升。支出的性质及其融资方式使得创造自我维持的下行势头可能需要一次重大冲击或一次重大紧缩来应对粘性通胀——央行将逐渐对此变得不那么宽容。

短期内，央行的政策方法强化了周期的持久性，即在通胀仍高于目标的情况下，比我们过去看到的更先发制人的宽松政策。央行认为当前的利率水平是限制性的——尽管它们迄今为止产生了一些结果——因此，随着通胀从之前的瓶颈中缓和下来，经济增长放缓至潜在水平附近，我们开始看到宽松政策。我们的研究表明，美联储和其他央行在过去的周期中面对同样的情况时，不会倾向于放松政策以适应这些条件。

How does it end? As more time passes with growth around potential at these rate levels, it becomes harder to believe that this level of rates is unsustainably restrictive. In the meantime, the easing underway will only increase the odds that inflation remains higher than its target for an extended period. The labor market and industrial base are less tight than they were at the peak of post-COVID supply constraints but remain relatively tight, and the continued ability and desire to spend by households, businesses, and the government will create ongoing gradual pressure. Over time, we suspect central banks will find it very challenging to provide as much stimulation as is already priced into rate markets, and the cost of capital will need to adjust to be high enough to compensate for structurally higher fiscal borrowing and especially durable private sector demand, such that small increases in the cost of capital probably won’t do much to slow the economy.

最终结果如何？随着时间推移，经济增长在这些利率水平上接近潜在水平，越来越难以相信这种利率水平是不可持续的限制。与此同时，正在进行的宽松政策只会增加通胀在较长时间内高于目标的可能性。劳动力市场和工业基础不像新冠疫情后供应限制高峰时那么紧张，但仍相对紧张，家庭、企业和政府持续的消费能力和意愿将带来持续的渐进压力。随着时间的推移，我们怀疑央行将发现很难提供已经计入利率市场价格的那么多刺激措施，资本成本将需要调整到足够高以补偿结构性更高的财政借款和特别是持久的私营部门需求，这样资本成本的小幅上涨可能不会对经济放缓造成太大影响。

One release valve might be the emergence of deflationary forces from the adoption of AI. Currently, AI spending in the near term is particularly inflationary because it is building up capacity without line of sight to the productivity payoffs, but the deflationary potential is massive—and could hit fast. There is potential for even larger and faster impacts than we experienced in manufacturing over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, when about 10% of the US workforce was displaced out of manufacturing sectors through the processes of globalization and industrial automation—which kept inflation low, led to rising inequality, supported corporate profits, and contributed to political and social shifts, including rising populism and a broad rethinking of trade and economic policies. An even bigger event is likely ahead of us.

经济上的释放阀可能是人工智能的应用引发的经济通货紧缩力量。目前，人工智能支出在短期内尤其容易引发通胀，因为它正在建设产能，但看不到生产率回报，但通货紧缩潜力巨大，而且可能很快产生影响。它可能会造成比我们在 20 世纪 90 年代和 21 世纪制造业经历的更大、更快的影响，当时约 10% 的美国劳动力因全球化和工业自动化而退出制造业，这导致通胀率保持在低位，导致不平等加剧，支持企业利润，并促成政治和社会变革，包括民粹主义兴起和对贸易和经济政策的广泛反思。我们可能还会看到更大的事件。

Investing in This Environment

如何在当下的宏观环境中投资？

We break down market returns into the return of cash, the return of assets relative to cash (i.e., accruing risk premiums holding assets), and alpha through timing the markets. Today, holding cash is relatively attractive and, on its own, can get a long way toward return goals. An environment where economic conditions are moving toward equilibrium and central banks are easing is usually a great one for earning risk premiums above cash, but right now, financial assets look only moderately attractive. Past asset returns have been great—engineered by central banks to be high following the financial crisis and supported more recently by AI enthusiasm—such that optimism about the future is already discounted. And if central banks ease just a bit less than is already priced in, this will trigger all future cash flows to reprice lower. Alpha is more important when risk premiums are squeezed, and we see a great environment for alpha precisely because risk premiums are not declining in synchronized ways globally.

我们将市场回报分为现金回报、资产相对于现金的回报（即持有资产所产生的风险溢价）以及通过把握市场时机获得的阿尔法（超额收益）。如今，持有现金相对具有吸引力，而且仅凭这一点就可以实现回报目标。经济状况趋于平衡且央行正在放松政策的环境通常非常适合赚取高于现金的风险溢价，但目前，金融资产看起来仅具有中等吸引力。过去的资产回报一直很高——金融危机后央行将其设计得很高，最近又受到人工智能热情的支持——以至于人们对未来的乐观情绪已经打了折扣。

如果央行的宽松幅度比已经计入的幅度略低，这将触发所有未来现金流重新定价走低。当风险溢价受到挤压时，阿尔法更为重要，我们看到阿尔法的环境非常好，正是因为全球风险溢价并未同步下降。

Relative to holding cash, equities look better than bonds (where the repricing of the cost of capital is likely to hit most directly). But the challenge with concentrating in stocks is that a durable economic boom, while it’s what we expect, is already priced in, as are future profits from AI advancements—leaving investors to collect a smaller risk premium while exposed to the risk of a surprise recession or stickier-than-expected inflation. And after a long stretch of equity outperformance, allocations to equity and equity-like risk have never been higher, and many portfolios are more illiquid than ever. While every investor has unique constraints, circumstances, and vulnerabilities, there are incremental moves that investors can make to improve resilience and mitigate equity concentration: (1) add investments that can do well if the economic cycle turns unfavorably, (2) shift investments to other parts of the world with differentiated economic cycles, and (3) earn the equity risk premium in a more resilient way.

相对于持有现金，股票看起来比债券更好（资本成本重新定价可能会对债券产生最直接的影响）。但集中投资股票的挑战在于，尽管我们预期经济将持续繁荣，但这种趋势已经被计入价格，未来人工智能的利润也是如此——这导致投资者在面临意外衰退或通胀高于预期的风险时，只能获得较小的风险溢价。

在股票长期表现优异之后，股票和类似股票的风险配置从未如此之高，许多投资组合的流动性也比以往任何时候都差。

虽然每个投资者都有独特的限制、环境和弱点，但投资者可以采取一些渐进的措施来提高韧性并减轻股票集中度：（1）增加在经济周期出现不利变化时可以表现良好的投资，（2）将投资转移到经济周期不同的其他地区，以及（3）以更具韧性的方式赚取股票风险溢价。

In terms of protection against the economic cycle turning, investors had meaningfully reduced their bond holdings in an environment where, with rates at zero, bonds couldn’t play their traditional diversifying role of rallying when central banks eased into a surprise economic downturn. Now bonds can play this role again. Bonds look mediocre relative to cash, but they are a means of locking in the expected moderate cash rates that are likely to transpire with an option value if growth surprises on the downside, leading to easing. Inflation-linked bonds can play the same role while earning the actual inflation rate (which could easily end up higher than the moderate expectations embedded into nominal bonds). And with a little bit of alpha enhancement on top, returns can reach tolerable levels. Portfolio resilience is especially enhanced if the alpha isn’t achieved by holding credit exposure, which exacerbates the concentration to corporate risk already in most portfolios.

在防范经济周期转变方面，投资者大幅减少了债券持有量，因为在利率为零的情况下，债券无法发挥其传统的分散化作用，即在央行意外陷入经济衰退时反弹。现在债券可以再次发挥这一作用。相对于现金，债券看起来平庸，但它们是锁定预期温和现金利率的一种手段，如果经济增长意外下滑，导致宽松，这种利率很可能会以期权价值的形式出现。通胀挂钩债券可以发挥同样的作用，同时赚取实际通胀率（最终很容易高于名义债券中嵌入的温和预期）。再加上一点阿尔法增强，回报可以达到可容忍的水平。如果阿尔法不是通过持有信贷敞口实现的，投资组合的弹性就会得到特别增强，这会加剧大多数投资组合中已经存在的企业风险集中。

In terms of shifting to investments exposed to differentiated economic cycles, we continue to find opportunities in the large Asian markets that have independent central banks and are experiencing very different conditions than those in the US or in Europe. A less synchronized economic cycle is a fundamental basis to diversify exposures. It is surprising to many that a balanced mix of Chinese assets, increasingly excluded from most portfolios, has been performing well—despite poor Chinese economic conditions. Even with what we expect are years of deleveraging and mediocre economic outcomes ahead in China, the Chinese yield curve is not inverted, equities are cheap, and the incentive to remain easy to support assets relative to cash will be in place in China for years. Regulatory, reputational, and geopolitical risks of investing directly in China can be mitigated by focusing on other diversifying Asian economies.

在转向受差异化经济周期影响的投资方面，我们继续在拥有独立央行且与美国或欧洲截然不同的大型亚洲市场中寻找机会。经济周期不太同步是分散风险敞口的基本基础。令许多人感到惊讶的是，尽管中国经济状况不佳，但均衡的中国资产组合（越来越多地被排除在大多数投资组合之外）一直表现良好。即使我们预计东大未来几年将去杠杆化，经济表现平平，但东大的收益率曲线并未倒挂，股票价格便宜，而且仍将在未来数年内保持资产相对于现金的宽松支持激励。通过关注其他多元化的亚洲经济体，可以减轻直接投资东大面临的监管、声誉和地缘政治风险。

In terms of earning equity risk premiums more efficiently, the environment of low correlations across stocks in the public markets and illiquidity (e.g., challenging exits) in private equity and venture is an opportunity to revisit the nature of the equity risk premiums being earned in a portfolio, including the costs and benefits of managing relative to a benchmark and how closely one hews to it. We believe it is possible to build more reliable equity allocations and to reduce the traditional vulnerabilities of equities through thoughtful security selection and hedges.

就更有效地赚取股票风险溢价而言，公开市场股票之间的低相关性以及私募股权和风险投资的流动性不足（例如退出困难）的环境是一个重新审视投资组合中赚取的股票风险溢价性质的机会，包括相对于基准进行管理的成本和收益以及一个人对基准的接近程度。我们相信，通过深思熟虑的证券选择和对冲，可以建立更可靠的股票配置并降低股票的传统脆弱性。

Where We See Alpha Opportunities

在哪里寻找阿尔法超额收益的机会

Tactically, many of our strongest views are differentials. The decline in inflation is not happening in a synchronized way, and central bankers are able to pursue their own paths, creating opportunities in currency and bond markets. There are also meaningful cross-asset opportunities to capture the differentiation in the economic cycle—for example, in countries like Japan. In the equity markets, correlations across stocks are low, reflecting large divergences across companies exposed to different aspects of the economic machine. Companies we see as likely to outperform include AI beneficiaries with “winner takes all” dynamics, value laggards with large risk premiums and pressure for the gap to close, and past underperformers where moves look overdone.

从战术上讲，我们许多最强烈的观点都是差异化的。通胀的下降并不是同步发生的，央行行长能够走自己的路，从而在货币和债券市场创造机会。还有一些有意义的跨资产机会可以捕捉经济周期的差异——例如，在日本这样的国家。在股票市场，股票之间的相关性很低，反映出暴露于经济机器不同方面的公司之间存在巨大差异。我们认为可能表现优异的公司包括具有“赢家通吃”动态的人工智能受益者、具有较大风险溢价且面临缩小差距压力的价值落后者，以及过去表现不佳、行动看起来过度的公司。

These dynamics tie directly to key questions we’re wrestling with in our research process. These include: how AI advancements are likely to hit companies and the economy at large; where inflation is likely to settle and shifting central bank reaction functions around the world; how to accrue risk premiums most efficiently in an environment of generally squeezed risk premiums; and how the political changes we’re seeing around the world in recent elections are likely to flow through to changes in sources of uses of funds and ultimately economic and market outcomes.

这些动态与我们在研究过程中努力解决的关键问题直接相关。这些问题包括：人工智能的发展可能如何影响企业和整个经济；通货膨胀可能在哪里稳定下来以及全球各国央行的反应职能如何转变；如何在风险溢价普遍受到挤压的环境中最有效地累积风险溢价；以及我们在最近的选举中看到世界各地的政治变化可能如何影响资金使用来源的变化以及最终影响经济和市场结果。