Fred Yao's List: Oil and Global Economy

• "Since the market remains over-supplied, and given downside risks associated with the extremely fragile [economic] recovery, the conference once again agreed to leave current production levels unchanged for the time being," OPEC said in a statement dated Thursday in Vienna.
• Saudi Arabian Petroleum Minister "Ali Naimi may say he is comfortable with $70 oil, but I am sure he would sleep even better if it were at $80," said Kerr.

• 目前我国大多数制造业是面向全球市场参与竞争的，因此海外经济体的“去库存化”进程对我国各行业的影响也非常明显。如果海外经济体“去库存化”进程没有完成，即使国内的“去库存化”进程接近完成，我国各行业的销售和盈利也仍将受到海外冲击。
• 比如美国，以金额衡量，美国制造业目前发货与存货之比已经低于2000年互联网泡沫破裂那轮危机时的水平。而从这个比值的同比增长率数据来看，更是创出了1993年以来的新低。随着发货下降和存货上升，美国产能利用率开始出现明显下滑，其2009年1月的读数为72，已经直逼1982年12月70.7的历史低位。
  
  　　从美国制造业新订单（金额）的同比增长率情况看，新订单下滑幅度比较剧烈，也已经超过了2000年时的水平。新订单的剧烈下滑预示着美国的产能利用率仍将在一段时间内维持低迷水平。
• 　　综合来看，全球范围内各主要经济体的“去库存化”过程仍在持续。随着经济全球化的深入，各经济体的“去库存化”过程不仅会受到国内因素的影响，也将受到海外因素的影响。 
• 在短期内不考虑新技术和生产制度变革带来影响的前提下，各行业（大多数竞争性行业）和企业下一阶段的竞争策略共同作用的结果，将是企业盈利能力的继续下降。这个下降的过程将持续到新的纳什均衡产生，即企业都预期对方会压缩毛利率而主动压缩自己的毛利率，直到各方因为成本和现金流等原因无法继续压缩毛利率。
  
  　　在实现新供求均衡的过程中，我们将看到不少企业因为竞争而退出市场，或者成为被收购的对象。可以说，寻求新的均衡过程就是一场收购兼并之旅，这也为资本市场提供了持续的热点话题。

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• 经济波动主要存在三类周期：一是与存货投资变化有关的短周期（基钦周期，2～4年）；二是与固定投资有关的中周期（朱格拉周期，7～11年）；三是与住房投资有关的中长周期（库兹涅茨周期，15～25年）。
• 改革开放以来，我国经济增长出现的5次周期性波动。按“波谷-波谷”划分，我国已完成四个周期，扩张期平均2年，收缩期平均3.8年，两者比例为1：1.9。
• 有观点认为，“去库存化”在我国经济的快速下滑中扮演了重要角色，随着“去库存化”在2009年二季度接近尾声，三季度经济将开始复苏。笔者认为，对于“去库存化”结束对我国经济的刺激作用不可高估
• 即时生产技术、信息技术和互联网技术等在企业存货管理中的应用使企业库存被大幅压缩，库存投资对经济波动的影响下降，两者之间的关系变得不稳定。
• 从生产企业来看，存货的积累可以分为主动积累和被动积累两类，当物价大幅上涨时，企业经常会主动积累原材料和产成品库存，这部分需求有时会带有一定投机性，而被动积累才是真正由于供求关系变化所导致的企业库存增加。企业投机性需求形成的“库存泡沫”会对我们利用库存变化判断经济形势形成干扰，导致误判

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• In a normal economic cycle inventory-led recovery would be followed by corporate capex, which leads to employment expansion. Rising employment leads to consumption growth, which expands profitability and more capex. Why wouldn’t it work this? The reason, as I argued in this page before, is that the big bubble distorted the global economic structure. The re-matching of supply and demand will take a long time. The process is called Schumpeterian creative destruction. The Keynesian thinking ignores structural imbalance and focuses only on aggregate demand. In a normal situation the Keynesian thinking is ok. However, when a recession is caused by the bursting of a big bubble, the Keynesian thinking no longer works.

• How long a bubble lasts depends on its impact on demand. The most lasting are property and technology bubbles. The multiplier effect of a property bubble is multifaceted. It stimulates both investment and consumption in the short term. The supply chain that it impacts is very long. From commodity producers to real estate agencies it could stimulate over one fifth of an economy on the supply side. On the demand side it stimulates credit growth and financial sector earnings, and often boosts consumption through the wealth effect. Because the property bubble is so powerful, the negative effect from its bursting is very damaging, because the excess supply during the bubble takes time to consume, and it destroys the credit system.

   

  A technology bubble happens when investors exaggerate its impact on corporate earnings. A breakthrough technology like the internet improves productivity enormously. However, most of its benefit goes to consumers. Competition eventually shifts temporary high corporate profitability to lower consumer prices. Because the emergence of an important technology brings down consumer price, central banks often release too much money that travels into asset markets and create bubbles. As the underlying technology leads to an economic boom, the bubble feels real. More and more capital pours into the technology. It leads to overcapacity and destruction of profitability. The bubble bursts, when speculators finally realize that the corporate earnings wouldn’t come. The cost of a technology bubble is essentially the overinvestment. Because a breakthrough technology expands the economic pie, it makes it easier to absorb the cost of a technology bubble. Economy can recover relatively quickly.

• A pure bubble in one or multiple financial assets due to excess liquidity doesn’t last long. Its multiplier impact on the broad economy is limited. It could have some impact on consumption due to the wealth effect. As it doesn’t stimulate the supply side nor boosts productivity, whatever story it is based on will have holes apparent to speculators. It doesn’t take long for them to flee. Further, a pure liquidity bubble without productivity support can easily lead to inflation, which causes tightening expectation that triggers the bursting of the bubble.

   

  What we are seeing now is a pure liquidity bubble in the global economy. It has manifested itself in several asset classes. The most prominent are commodities, stocks, and government bonds. The story that supports this bubble is that the stimulus would lead to a quick economic recovery and the output gap could keep inflation down and, hence, central banks can keep interest rates low for a couple more years. Therefore, according to this story, investors could look forward to strong corporate earnings and low interest rates at the same time, sort of a goldilocks scenario for stock market.
• Oil is uniquely suited as an inflation hedging device. Its supply response is very low. Over 80% of the global oil reserves are with sovereign governments. They don’t respond to rising prices with more production. Indeed, when their budgetary needs are met, high prices may decrease their desire to increase production. The demand doesn’t drop quickly against rising prices either. Oil is essential for routine economic activities that its reduced consumption has a large multiplier effect. As its price sensitivities are low on both demand and supply side, it is uniquely suited to absorb excess liquidity and reflect inflation expectation ahead of other commodities.
• If central banks refuse to raise interest rates as long as economies remain weak, oil price may double from here. I think that central banks, especially the Fed, will begin to raise interest rate early next year or even late this year. I don’t believe that they are willing to raise interest rate. They just want to cool inflation expectation by showing that they still care about inflation. Hence, they will raise interest rate slowly, i.e., deliberately behind the curve. The consequence is that inflation would rise faster than interest rate, which is what the indebted US household sector needs.

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• 挖黄金的人不见得赚钱， 但生产和销售铲子和铁锹的人可以大赚其钱。

• 美国洲际交易所首席执行官斯普雷彻28日在美国商品期货交易委员会召开的听证会上将表示，应由该委员会而非交易所规定头寸限额及对冲目的豁免权。
• 斯普雷彻在预先准备的证词中表示，ICE认为CFTC是规定、管理美国能源期货、相关国外合约及能源掉期等头寸限额、责任水平及对冲目的豁免权的适当机构。仅CFTC可查看所有交易场所的交易商头寸。

• China’s imports of commodities including copper, aluminium, coal, iron ore and crude oil surged in the first half of the year in spite of the economic slowdown, helping to push up world prices, which had collapsed in the aftermath of the global crisis.

• Restocking by China’s state commodity reserve bureau played a large part in the record import volumes, as did easy credit from state banks, which encouraged some firms to buy commodities speculatively, according to the report.

  Some producers took advantage of arbitrage opportunities presented by plummeting global commodity and shipping prices to replace domestic production with imported supply, illustrated by the steep drop in energy use in the first half of the year as energy-intensive miners and smelters shut down operations in favour of cheaper imports. Imports of unwrought copper and aluminium in the first half of the year were more than six times the level seen in 2006, when GDP growth was averaging 11 per cent, while monthly imports of crude oil and iron ore reached their highest ever level in July.