2014美股投資總結(jié)：盛世末路
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????2014年即將成為歷史，各路股市專家也終于可以松一口氣了。 ????從投資決策角度來(lái)看，2014年是有史以來(lái)最糟糕的年景之一，幾乎可以說(shuō)是全盤皆輸。除了少數(shù)華爾街億萬(wàn)富豪才玩得起的“股東積極主義”維權(quán)策略還算奏效外，沒(méi)有哪種投資策略在這一年里始終靈光。 ????對(duì)于更多的普通投資者而言，在標(biāo)普500指數(shù)回報(bào)高于歷史平均值的大背景下，2014年是充滿挫折的一年。 ????我們不妨借用一些狄更斯的名句，來(lái)回顧下幾乎各種戰(zhàn)略都失靈的2014年： ????這是最好的時(shí)代，這是最壞的時(shí)代…… ????今年，標(biāo)普500指數(shù)的總回報(bào)率為14%，比該指數(shù)25年期平均年化收益率高出40％。過(guò)去12個(gè)月，華爾街的首席戰(zhàn)略師們一直在上調(diào)其目標(biāo)值。標(biāo)普500指數(shù)出現(xiàn)了50多次創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的收盤，幾乎所有專業(yè)投資管理人士都卯足了勁，至少要跑平該指數(shù)。但有些因素讓美股投資者要獲得高于基準(zhǔn)股指的收益，在今年尤為困難。 ????這是智慧的時(shí)代，也是愚蠢的時(shí)代…… ????今年領(lǐng)跑美國(guó)股市的標(biāo)普500公司的行業(yè)組合有些奇特，出現(xiàn)了一些令人意想不到的黑馬。就算基金經(jīng)理預(yù)見(jiàn)到了醫(yī)療保健行業(yè)今年將上漲27％，難道他們也能猜到公用事業(yè)行業(yè)將位列第二，上漲23％？不大可能。 ????今年年初，所有華爾街經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家都呼吁提高利率，彭博社就這個(gè)問(wèn)題調(diào)查了67位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家的意見(jiàn)，他們?nèi)辟澩需b于此，任何一個(gè)有理性的人都不會(huì)想要增持對(duì)利率敏感的公用事業(yè)股。把賭注押在金融股上的投資者，回報(bào)進(jìn)展緩慢；而瞅準(zhǔn)了“低價(jià)”能源股的投資者，投資組合業(yè)績(jī)?cè)诘谝缓偷诙径仍虼送聘撸瑓s在第三和第四季度被大拖后腿，可謂“成也蕭何，敗也蕭何”。 ????這是信仰的時(shí)代，也是懷疑的時(shí)代…… ????另外兩個(gè)在2014年表現(xiàn)上佳的行業(yè)可謂風(fēng)馬牛不相及：高科技（上漲16％）和必需消費(fèi)品（上漲13.2％）。市場(chǎng)上最激進(jìn)與最保守的兩大投資領(lǐng)域前后腳撞線，留下困惑的旁觀者們不知該如何解釋這一現(xiàn)象。2014年，美國(guó)失業(yè)率大幅下降，GDP呈增長(zhǎng)勢(shì)頭，為何領(lǐng)跑市場(chǎng)的卻是醫(yī)療保健、必需消費(fèi)品、公用事業(yè)等周期性最不明顯的行業(yè)？令專家們懊惱的是，有些時(shí)候就是沒(méi)有令人滿意的答案。美國(guó)作家?guī)鞝柼?馮內(nèi)古特曾寫道： ????老虎要獵食，鳥(niǎo)兒要飛翔； ????人類想知道“這是為什么？” ????老虎要入眠，鳥(niǎo)兒要降落； ????人不得不告慰自己，原來(lái)如此。 ????如果你認(rèn)為一開(kāi)始準(zhǔn)確判斷應(yīng)增持和減持哪些行業(yè)的股票是件難事，在年內(nèi)不斷調(diào)整投資組合更是難上加難。11月，野村證券一位定量分析師向《巴倫周刊》表示：“行業(yè)領(lǐng)軍者每個(gè)月都在變換，其變化速度之快，在股市數(shù)十年未見(jiàn)。即便你選對(duì)了某行業(yè)的個(gè)股，由于市場(chǎng)環(huán)境瞬息萬(wàn)變，業(yè)績(jī)也根本無(wú)法持續(xù)。” ????這是光明的季節(jié)，也是黑暗的季節(jié)…… ????對(duì)投資者而言，今年對(duì)行業(yè)的準(zhǔn)確判斷還只是個(gè)小問(wèn)題，因?yàn)槌嗣拦桑衲耆虻耐顿Y好選擇不多。 ????鑒于標(biāo)普500和納斯達(dá)克指數(shù)都回升了14％以上，道瓊斯和標(biāo)普400中型股指數(shù)也都回升了近10％，你可能會(huì)認(rèn)為今年被動(dòng)投資者應(yīng)該收獲頗豐。確實(shí)，要不是那些惱人的海外股業(yè)績(jī)不佳，大拖多元化投資組合的后腿，被動(dòng)投資者原本應(yīng)該值得慶祝。 ????大多數(shù)專業(yè)顧問(wèn)（包括我在內(nèi)）都會(huì)對(duì)其客戶大力鼓吹全球化多元投資組合的好處，然而，在12月看來(lái)，殘酷的現(xiàn)實(shí)是2014年更像是個(gè)平局，而非大獲全勝。事實(shí)上，上周摩根士丹利資本國(guó)際全球指數(shù)同比僅上漲了2％，而摩根士丹利資本新興市場(chǎng)指數(shù)（MSCI Emerging Markets）和追蹤美國(guó)以外發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家市場(chǎng)的EAFE指數(shù)雙雙下跌了近5％。具有諷刺意味的是，除美國(guó)以外全球唯一一個(gè)表現(xiàn)上佳的市場(chǎng)——中國(guó)大陸股市的上證綜指（上漲了45％），也是唯一一個(gè)美國(guó)投資者無(wú)法進(jìn)入的市場(chǎng)。 ????從10年和20年的時(shí)間跨度來(lái)看，地域和資產(chǎn)類別的多元化已經(jīng)證明對(duì)投資回報(bào)和風(fēng)險(xiǎn)管理有益。不幸的是，在12個(gè)月內(nèi)，不一定能看到此種戰(zhàn)略的好處。在如今這個(gè)140字微博消息和2分鐘短視頻盛行的時(shí)代，投資者不能以長(zhǎng)期的表現(xiàn)來(lái)判斷其投資組合的成敗，又有何奇怪？ |
????As we get closer to relegating 2014 to the history books, your local stock market guru most likely couldn’t be happier to see those books slammed shut. ????It’s been one of the worst years for investment decision-making on record, almost across the board. No strategy worked consistently, save for the type of shareholder activism that only a handful of Wall Street’s billionaire titans are able to engage in. ????For almost everyone else, it was a year of frustration against a backdrop of better-than-average returns for the most popular index in the land. ????With a bit of help from Charles Dickens, let’s take a look back at the year in which almost nothing worked: ????It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… ????The S&P 500’s total return of 14% this year was 40% higher than its 25-year average annual gain. Wall Street’s chief strategists spent much of the last 12 months revising their targets higher from behind. The index printed over 50 all-time record closes, with nearly all investment management professionals racing to at least pull even. A few characteristics made the U.S. stock market particularly difficult to keep up with this year. ????It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… ????An odd assortment of S&P sectors led the market higher this year, with some strange bedfellows atop the leaderboard. Even if a manager had foreseen that the healthcare sector would gain 27% this year, would they have guessed that utilities would be in the No. 2 slot, with gains of 23%? Unlikely. ????Given that every single Wall Street economist had called for higher rates at the start of this year and 67 of 67 economists surveyed by Bloomberg concurred, the rate-sensitive utilities industry would have been the last sector a rational person would want to overweight. Bets on the financial sector were slow to pay off while wagers on “cheap” energy stocks demolished portfolio performance in the third and fourth quarters, just as they had elevated it during the first and second. ????It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity… ????Rounding out the top-performing sectors of 2014 was an unlikely pair: tech (+16%) and consumer staples (+13.2%)—the most aggressive and most defensive areas of the market, running side-by-side toward the finish line, with confounded spectators struggling to concoct a narrative for this. Why would the least cyclical sectors—healthcare, staples and utilities—lead the markets in a year in which unemployment plummeted and GDP growth gained momentum? Much to the chagrin of the pundit class, sometimes there are no satisfying answers. To quote Kurt Vonnegut: ????Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; ????Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’ ????Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; ????Man got to tell himself he understand. ????If you thought that getting sector over- and under-weights correct at the outset proved difficult, switching between them throughout the year was nearly impossible. A quantitative analyst from Nomura Securities explained to Barron’s in November that “industry leadership has been reversing from month-to-month at a rate unseen in decades of stock-market history. ‘Even if you’re picking the right stocks in a sector,’ he says, ‘things are moving around so much that your performance doesn’t persist.’” ????It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness… ????Getting sector calls right was the least of any investor’s problems this year because, outside of the brilliance of U.S. stock gains, the lights were off around the world. ????With both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq returning over 14% while the Dow and MidCap 400 each kicking in close to 10%, you would assume that passive investors would have an awful lot to celebrate this year. And indeed, they would have, if it weren’t for those pesky overseas stocks that did nothing but drag on the performance of any diversified portfolio. ????With the majority of professional advisors (myself included) preaching the benefits of global diversification to their clients, 2014 looks more like a draw than an outright victory in the harsh light of December’s low winter sun. Consider the fact that, through last week, the MSCI World Index gained just 2% on the year, with nearly 5% drops for both the MSCI Emerging Markets index and the EAFE index of developed markets outside of the United States. Ironically, the single best-performing foreign market in the world, the Shanghai Composite of mainland Chinese equities (up 45%) is the only one that U.S. investors could not actually put their money into. ????Over 10- and 20-year stretches, geographic and asset class diversification have proven beneficial for returns and risk management. Unfortunately, you are not guaranteed to see the benefits of such a strategy during any 12-month period. In an era of 140-character writing and two-minute video, should we be surprised that investors have trouble judging the success of their portfolios over long periods? |
