通膨底下, 投資策略

 

Not ‘automatically’ bad for equities

So how long will inflation pressures persist? Anyone making projections should do so with a large sense of humility given the largely unprecedented nature of the post-pandemic restart, Boivin prefaced, saying it would be reasonable to expect high inflation to persist through the first half and perhaps into the second half of 2022.

 

It’s more important, he said, to recognize the “nature” of the current inflation rise than the time frame. Inflation is likely to remain well above target in 2022 and will remain above target, on average, over the next five years, Boivin said.

 

For investors, that’s not a bond-friendly environment, he said, with the BlackRock Investment Institute favoring inflation-protected securities over nominal bonds. It’s not an environment that’s “automatically” bad for equities or other risk assets however, “which leaves us net-net underweight government bonds but overweight global equities” as investors see some inflation with a muted policy response.

Fidelity sector strategist Denise Chisholm has looked at previous periods of stagflation and says history provides an ambiguous guide for investing when growth is weak and inflation high. Defensive stock sectors such as consumer staples and health care have historically performed well in recessions but less so when growth has been merely slow. Similarly, while technology has benefited from low inflation, it hasn't done badly when inflation has risen. That history suggests that the best approach is to be diversified and remember that inflation by itself is not necessarily a bad thing for stocks.

 

As Pineault says, "The price of a stock reflects how profitable a company is and if you have inflation, revenue can be higher. That means stocks typically are the most effective hedge against inflation."

 

With that in mind, this may be a good time to put some Doobie Brothers or Captain and Tennille on the 8-track player and review your asset allocation.

炒一年半載 通貨膨脹 !! 其實通貨緊縮( deflation) 機會比較大

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/stagflation-todays-market

 

Two big reasons why '70s-style stagflation appears less likely today are energy and labor. In the 1970s, the US was an oil importer and the economy was still based on energy-intensive manufacturing work performed by unionized workers. That left the US acutely vulnerable to higher oil prices after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut off shipments to the US during the 1973 war between Israel and its neighbors. Meanwhile, powerful private-sector unions won cost of living increases for their members, driving wage inflation. More than 40 years later, the US can produce as much oil as it needs. While the price of oil has been volatile over the past year, the chance of a 1970s-style oil shock appears minimal according to Fidelity's Asset Allocation Research Team, despite the federal government's warning of sharply higher heating costs this winter.

(沒錯! 美國目前經濟生產結構跟1970年代不同, 但這次2021嚴重供給面阻塞, 會讓物價短期急遽漲, 像急性盲腸炎, 1970s像慢性糖尿病)

 

Disdressed investing evoluted - Howard Marks

 

Key factors affecting the credit cycle have changed since our founding. For one, debt has become much less expensive, as interest rates have trended downward for four decades. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note topped 15.0% in the early 1980s, fell to 7.88% by the beginning of 1995, and is 1.58% today.

Additionally, the default environment has become more benign. Default rates for high yield bonds and leveraged loans fell rapidly after spiking during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 and have spent the majority of the last decade well below their long-term historical averages (see Figure 1)

“GOOD COMPANY, BAD BALANCE SHEET”

Distressed debt investors have traditionally bought the liabilities of companies that are in bankruptcy or otherwise appear unlikely to meet their financial obligations. The preferred target is a business with too much debt but also a strong underlying business, valuable assets, and/or the ability to generate cash. Such companies may struggle to service their debt during economic downturns. These overleveraged companies often reduce their debt by going through a restructuring either within or outside of bankruptcy court, whereby most creditors agree to exchange old debt for new securities worth less than 100 cents on the dollar.

Cheques and imbalance - Is the world economy entering a wage-price spiral? 世界經濟是否陷入通膨 -工資漲 惡性循環

 2021/10/16  Economist 經濟學人

The rich world is used to wages and prices growing slowly. In the decade after the global financial crisis, inflation rarely exceeded central banks’ targets, and wages seemed unable to grow much faster. The spending power of average hourly pay in Britain, Italy and Japan was about the same at the start of the pandemic as it had been in the mid-2000s. The fact that American wage growth averaged 2.9% from 2015 to 2019 while average inflation stayed below 2% seemed a rare triumph.( 薪資成長率要壓贏 通膨率)

 

 The recovery from the pandemic has brought about a startling change: prices and wages are both surging. American hourly pay rose by 4.6% in the year to September while consumer-price inflation of 5.4% is more than wiping out those gains (這次通膨略高於薪資成長). In Germany inflation has reached 4.1% and the main public-sector union is asking for a pay increase of 5%. Wages and prices have even picked up modestly in Japan.

 

Cameco - Uranium

 

Suppy - Demand deficit is continuing, because the numbers of largest Uranium mines are running out of ore, 2 of them in Australia is closed, vast Uranium producer in Kazakhstan by the nature of deposit, they have a depletion tail, the rate of production from big deposit start to decrease. The gap of Suppy - Demand would be widen further

1. World largest economy- USA committed to carbon neutral by 2050

2 The growth of electricty itself in "electricfication" of everything

in foreseeable future that economy is transforming into digital pattern, also for "electrification" of transport

3. China have big potential for Uranium consumption by 2040

Uranium Has That Healthy Glow Again

Uranium’s future demand growth is hard to predict, but a couple of years’ worth of supply discipline has provided reason for optimism

It has been just over a decade since the Fukushima disaster and the nuclear-fuel industry is cautiously betting prospects for its products have finally recovered.

Some of the optimism can already be seen in the share price of Canadian company Cameco, CCJ +2.39% one of the largest miners of uranium behind No. 1 producer Kazatomprom, a state-run company in Kazakhstan. Cameco’s U.S.-listed shares have risen almost 180% over the past year, to levels not seen since 2014.

The last time Cameco saw year-over-year net income growth was 2015, when the spot price of uranium oxide hovered above $35 a pound for most of the year. Since then, the commodity’s price has mostly stayed below $30 a pound, though it seems to be recovering quickly. As of Monday, the spot price was $29.60 a pound, up 7.3% in one week, according to data from nuclear fuel market research firm UxC. Uranium is mostly sold on contracts with utilities rather than via the spot market. Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, notes that among nonsubsidized mines, the all-in cost of production can range anywhere from $10 a pound up to $38 a pound.

The supply-demand picture appears unchanged from last year, but this masks the underlying dynamics of an opaque and long-cycle industry. In 2021 global uranium demand is expected to shrink slightly to 178 million pounds from 2020’s 181 million pounds, with supply—both from mining and from secondary sources—staying constant around 166 million pounds, according to UxC. Though the numbers make it seem like demand exceeds supply, there are significant uranium sources that utilities, suppliers and intermediaries have stockpiled over the years.

Another source of uncertainty is in fuel supply from secondary sources, including so-called tailings from previously processed uranium that can be enriched. Some countries also supplement their uranium needs by reprocessing used fuel rods rather than buying uranium newly mined from the ground.

While estimating the exact global stockpile is tricky, there are some indications that inventory is starting to get depleted. Over the past five years, roughly 815 million pounds of uranium oxide equivalent have been consumed in reactors, while 390 million pounds have been locked up under long-term contracts with the uranium producers, according to UxC’s estimates. Expectations for so-called uncovered uranium requirements, the amount that nuclear power plants require but don’t have contracts for, aren’t very high for 2021 but are expected to reach 33% of demand in 2025 and 81% by 2035.

The panic is a reminder that modern life needs abundant energy: without it, bills become unaffordable, homes freeze and businesses stall. The panic has also exposed deeper problems as the world shifts to a cleaner energy system, including inadequate investment in renewables and some transition fossil fuels, rising geopolitical risks and flimsy safety buffers in power markets. Without rapid reforms there will be more energy crises and, perhaps, a popular revolt against climate policies.

 

Tight markets are vulnerable to shocks and the intermittent nature of some renewable power. The list of disruptions includes routine maintenance, accidents, too little wind in Europe, droughts that have cut Latin American hydropower output, and Asian floods that have impeded coal deliveries. The world may yet escape a severe energy recession: the glitches may be resolved and Russia and opec may grudgingly boost oil and gas production. At a minimum, however, the cost will be higher inflation and slower growth. And more such squeezes may be on the way.

That is because three problems loom large. First, energy investment is running at half the level needed to meet the ambition to reach net zero by 2050. Spending on renewables needs to rise. And the supply and demand of dirty fossil fuels needs to be wound down in tandem, without creating dangerous mismatches. Fossil fuels satisfy 83% of primary-energy demand and this needs to fall towards zero. At the same time the mix must shift from coal and oil to gas which has less than half the emissions of coal. But legal threats, investor pressure and fear of regulations have led investment in fossil fuels to slump by 40% since 2015.

 

Gas is the pressure point. Many countries, particularly in Asia, need it to be a bridge fuel in the 2020s and 2030s, shifting to it temporarily as they ditch coal but before renewables have ramped up. As well as using pipelines, most import liquefied natural gas (lng). Too few projects are coming on stream. According to Bernstein, a research firm, the global shortfall in lng capacity could rise from 2% of demand now to 14% by 2030.

Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil shales, bitumens, tar sands, and heavy oils. All contain carbon and were formed as a result of geologic processes acting on the remains of organic matter produced by photosynthesis

The second problem is geopolitics, as rich democracies quit fossil-fuel production and supply shifts to autocracies with fewer scruples and lower costs, including the one run by Mr Putin. The share of oil output from opec plus Russia may rise from 46% today to 50% or more by 2030. Russia is the source of 41% of Europe’s gas imports and its leverage will grow as it opens the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and develops markets in Asia. The ever-present risk is that it curtails supplies.

 

The last problem is the flawed design of energy markets. Deregulation since the 1990s has seen many countries shift from decrepit state-run energy industries to open systems in which electricity and gas prices are set by markets, supplied by competing vendors who add supply if prices spike. But these are struggling to cope with the new reality of fossil-fuel output declines, autocratic suppliers獨佔供應者(類似俄羅斯天然氣公司) and a rising share of intermittent不穩定 solar and wind power. Just as Lehman Brothers relied on overnight borrowing, so some energy firms guarantee households and businesses supplies that they buy in an unreliable spot market.

 

Governments need to respond by redesigning energy markets. Bigger safety buffers ought to absorb shortages and deal with the intermittency 供應量和價格上不穩定 of renewable power. Energy suppliers should hold more reserves, just as banks carry capital. Governments can invite firms to bid for backup-energy-supply contracts. Most reserves will be in gas but eventually battery and hydrogen technologies could take over. More nuclear plants, the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, or both, are vital to supply a baseload of clean, reliable power.

 

A more diverse supply can weaken the grip of autocratic petrostates such as Russia. Today that means building up the LNG business. In time it will require more global trade in electricity so that distant windy or sunny countries with renewable power to spare can export it. Today only 4% of electricity in rich countries is traded across borders, compared with 24% of global gas and 46% of oil. Building subsea grids is part of the answer and converting clean energy into hydrogen and transporting it on ships could help, too.

 

All this will require capital spending on energy to more than double to $4trn-5trn a year. Yet from investors’ perspective, policy is baffling. Many countries have net-zero pledges but no plan of how to get there and have yet to square with the public that bills and taxes need to rise. A movable feast of subsidies for renewables, and regulatory and legal hurdles make investing in fossil-fuel projects too risky. The ideal answer is a global carbon price that relentlessly lowers emissions, helps firms judge which projects would make money, and raises tax revenues to support the energy transition’s losers. Yet pricing schemes cover only a fifth of all emissions. The message from the shock is that leaders at cop26 must move beyond pledges and tackle the fine print of how the transition will work. All the more so if they meet under light bulbs powered by coal

USA 土地交易 第三章 第1节 在哪里获取清单

 

https://dna.firstam.com/property-research

https://www.agentpro247.com/index.aspx

USA 土地交易 第一章 第九节 ：把美国梦卖给美国人 第10節: 土地交易最後流程

 

你随便打开Zillow上的几个卖地的信息，你一定会遇到那种仅仅放一两张现场照片的情况。看起来就是一堆杂草而已。

嘿！你要让我说，这样的地长时间卖不出去就对了啊！谁会想买一堆杂草呢？！

告诉你一个新知识：大部分美国的房产经纪人不知道怎么卖土地！他们接了业主的活儿，就只是拿手机去现场拍两张照片而已，以为这就是卖地。

你学完了我的这门课，你绝对比绝大多数经纪人更懂得如何卖地。我向你保证。

现在我就告诉你这其中的秘密：买地的人买的不是杂草和廉价的土，他们买的是故事和梦想。

你作为卖家，要向他们展示的，不是一片杂草，不是一片荒地，而是故事和梦想。

什么意思？你看，你还记得我们在入手土地的时候制定的筛选条件吗？这些土地必须位于人口正在增长的大城市的外围。那你想啊，随着人口的流入，城市会发生什么变化？它会变得越来越大，向外扩张。也许，今天这块地位于郊区，但城市以每年0.5英里的速度向外扩张，那我问你，10年以后，20年以后，这块地是不是就有可能被城市吞并。被城市吞并，它的价值会发生什么变化？它就会跟城市的土地一样值钱。还记得我前面见过的那位uber司机的奶奶的故事吗？

至于梦想，这个更容易。实际上，我相信任何人，当他面对一片空地的时候，都会开始做梦。他们会想象这块地能够拿来做什么，他们会想象自己拥有一块地的时候的那种随心所欲。也许在这里建一栋自己梦想中的房子？也许，把这块地开发了再卖出去？也许，把这里作为自己野营的营地？也许，可以来这里狩猎？也许，可以把它分割成小块再出售？也许，它能扩大我家已有的土地的面积？也许，它能加入到我的房地产投资组合之中？也许……太多了也许了。这些也许就是梦想，这梦想就是人们买地的驱动力。

查询城市信息的网站有很多，我向你推荐areavibes.com。在这家网站上，你可以很方便地查询到关于一个特定城市的描述，以及这个城市有哪些亮点，那些亮点人家都给你总结好了

我们要放几张城市的照片。然后土地周边有什么大公司和景点。我们可以通过谷歌地图查询这些信息，然后截取谷歌地图的鸟瞰图，在图上把这些信息标注出来。我相信这个作图的过程对大多数年轻朋友都不是什么问题。如果你不知道用什么工具的话，我也可以向你推荐一个，它的网址是：sketch.io/sketchpad。

接下来，我们在Zillow上查询这块土地附近其他土地的售价，以及周边房屋的售价。你在谷歌地图上把相应的区域截取出来，并用箭头标示出那些价格，这是为了跟你的要价做比较，让人知道你的要价是非常合理的，很有吸引力的。你只需要标注三四个价格即可。

除了这些，我还想告诉你一个小技巧。你想一下，你手上的土地，谁有最大的可能性会购买的呢？给你几秒钟时间，想一想……

不知你想到了没有，一块土地最有可能的买家，就是它附近的邻居。既然他们已经住在了这里，那么他们对这个区域是最为了解和认可的，他们也最有可能有现实的需求。我的公司在操作中，会给一块地周边的一百名邻居寄信，告诉他们，我们手上现在有这块地，如果你想要的话，可以联系我们……我告诉你，这样做的效果相当不错。

第10節: 土地交易最後流程

讲到这里，我似乎已经听到一些细心的朋友在问：那些合同和notes，我怎么起草呢？需要找律师吗？

我给大家推荐一个网站，网址是rocketlawyer.com，这家网站很方便。你只需要付一个小的费用，2019年的价格是40美元，就可以自助起草房地产买卖合同，并且在线请买家签字。

对了，这里要提一句：美国的房地产买卖协议，不需要用手签的，现在很多在线的电子签名都是法律上认可的。所以，这些事操作起来是非常方便的，你的所有步骤都可以在线完成，你足不出户就可以做这个生意。哪怕你人在中国，只要你能上得了美国的网站，你就可以做这个生意。

唯一可能需要你出门的环节，是你作为卖家，在签署地契和notes的时候，需要由美国的公证员见证签字。如果你居住在美国，这是非常便利的。基本上任何一家银行或者UPS快递站都可以办理公证。你有美国的社会安全号（SSN）的情况下，你甚至可以足不出户。因为有在线公证的网站可以用。不过，并不是所有的州都认可在线公证，你需要查询一下你所在的州是否承认。

如果你人在中国，公证这个环节需要到美国驻华大使馆或者领事馆去办理。这是可以在线预约的，在约定的时间你带着身份证件和需要签字的文档过去即可。

Assistive technology - 輔助性科技

 

Assistive technology has traditionally been considered external to the human body and non-invasive. The field is now converging with medical technologies. Several emerging assistive products include implants and other products that would qualify as medical devices, with many of those moving beyond assistance towards augmentation or recovery of missing human functions.

Our analysis reveals that all identified emerging assistive products use one or a combination of several enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, brain computer/machine interface (BCI/BMI) and advanced sensors. 

These allow for smarter and connected assistive products which learn from the user’s behavior and environment, optimize and customize their functions and support independent living and navigation, telemedicine and smart nursing.

 Our findings show that patenting activity in the area of conventional technology is nearly

eight times bigger than that of emerging assistive technology, with 117,209 patent

filings compared to 15,592. However, filings in emerging technology are growing three times faster than conventional, with a 17% average annual growth rate (AAGR) compared to 6%.

 

In the emerging assistive technology space, the most active domain over the period is hearing, followed by mobility, vision and communication. However, since 2014 mobility has taken the lead among emerging assistive technology filings too. Indeed, the fastest-growing areas for patent filings relate to mobility and environment both in conventional (9% and 7% AAGR respectively in 2013-2017), and emerging assistive technology (24% and 42% AAGR respectively).

Patent protection for assistive technology is sought primarily in five 

markets: China, the U.S., Europe, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

The previous dominance of the U.S. and Japan has declined in 

recent years as filings increase in China and the Republic of Korea. 

The widest patent protection being sought is for mobility

assistive technologies.

the geographical profile of top players in assistive technology

is also changing: traditional European, Japanese and U.S. players 

now face increasing competition from Chinese and Korean players

We find that big corporate players(Google, Panasonic, Honda) are leading the development of assistive technology (48% of conventional and 60% of emerging assistive technology), dominating in hearing and vision, and to some extent communication

The leading players are pursuing holistic strategies 整體性策略

to protect their innovations, using not only patents and utility models but also industrial designs to protect the ornamental aspects of assistive products.