Markets Weekly February 10, 2024

Hello my friends, today is February 10th and this is Markets Weekly. So this week was super exciting in markets so we have a lot to talk about.

大家好，今天是2月10日，欢迎收看本周市场周报。本周市场行情非常精彩，我们有很多话题要讨论。

First, we have to talk about the equity market. S&P 500 was making records throughout the week, finally crossed 5000 and closed above it for the first time ever. Again, this should not surprise any of you. We've been talking about the potential for a crash up for the past two months. However, I am very cautious on the equity market right now. So let's talk about what might be driving this surge and why I am cautious.

首先，我们要谈谈股票市场。标普500指数在整个这周不断创纪录，最终突破了5000点并首次收于此以上。再次，这对你们中的任何一位都不应该感到意外。我们过去两个月一直在谈论股市出现大幅上涨的潜力。然而，我现在对股票市场非常谨慎。那么让我们来讨论一下可能推动这一涨势的因素以及我为什么谨慎。

Okay, secondly, let's talk a little bit about the labor market. So on the one hand, the Non-Aform Payrolls report is showing that we have strong job gains. On the other hand, we're seeing all these big layoff notices in the news every single day. Again, we also seem to have a rise in multiple job holders. Let's talk about the dynamics and labor market and why it might not be as concerning as it might appear to be.

其次，我们来谈谈劳动力市场。一方面，非农就业报告显示我们有强劲的就业增长。然而另一方面，我们每天在新闻中看到很多大规模裁员的消息。再者，我们似乎也有多份工作的人数增加。让我们来探讨劳动力市场的动态以及为什么它可能并不像看上去那么令人担忧。

And lastly, let's talk a little bit about the prospect of a Fed rate cut in March. So we've been talking about this for some time, but it looks like more and more that the Fed is really going to be united in pushing against a March rate cut. Let's look at how the market has been pricing this over the past few weeks and why at the moment it's still not fully given up yet.

最后，让我们稍微谈谈三月份联邦储备局（Fed）降息的前景。我们已经讨论了一段时间，但看起来越来越多迹象表明，联储局真的将团结一致反对三月份的降息。让我们看看市场在过去几周如何定价，并且为什么现在它还没有完全放弃。

Okay, starting with the S&P 500. So as we've been talking about, I look at this year as a year that should be pretty bullish for the equity market. But again, if I see something that goes up every single day, that's I think a cause for concern because oftentimes when you see something go up every single day, it tends to reverse sharply. So at the moment, it seems like the market is for me. I approach it cautiously.

好的，首先我们从标普500指数说起。正如我们之前所讨论的，我认为今年股票市场会比较看涨。但是，如果我看到某个股票每天都在上涨，我会感到担忧，因为通常情况下，当股票每天都在上涨时，它最终会急剧逆转。所以目前来看，对我来说市场还是很有风险的，我会谨慎对待。

But in order to better understand what might be driving the market higher and higher, let's listen to some stories that people tell in explaining this price action. After all, at the end of the day, markets is just buying and selling and people buy and sell for many different reasons. So these stories could be helpful.

为了更好地理解市场为何不断上涨，让我们听听人们在解释这种价格波动时讲的一些故事。毕竟，归根结底，市场只是买卖，而人们买卖的原因千差万别。因此，这些故事可能会有所帮助。

The most obvious story of course is that the Fed is about to cut rates, which indeed it is maybe, maybe not March, but the Fed is pretty clear that they're going to be embarking on a rate cut cycle this year. When that happens, maybe the market doesn't really care, but usually when they hear rate cuts, asset prices go up. Now, we've already seen this though for the past two months, so that to me is not a persuasive story. In fact, more recently, the market has been pricing in fewer cuts this year.

最明显的故事当然是美联储即将降息，确实在3月可能会，可能不会，但美联储已经非常明确，他们将在今年开始降息周期。当这种情况发生时，也许市场并不在意，但通常当他们听到降息时，资产价格会上涨。现在，我们在过去的两个月已经看到了这一点，所以对我来说并不具有说服力。事实上，最近市场已经在预测今年的降息会减少。

Another story is that asset managers, the active asset managers that have to manage to a benchmark like this in P500 are piling in because they are afraid of missing out. And this makes a lot of sense to me. If you are asset managers sitting out this rally watching this in P500 go to the moon, well that means that you are underperforming. If you are underperforming, maybe your clients are unhappy and they fire you. If you look at surveys on active manager equity exposure, you can see that it ticked down a little bit in December, but now it's ticking back up again. So that does seem to be part of the reason pushing stocks higher.

另一个故事是，那些被强制以S&P 500作为参照标准进行管理的主动资产管理人，正在加入市场，因为他们害怕错过机会。这对我来说很有道理。如果你是一位坐在这场涨势中的资产管理人，看着S&P 500股指一路飙升，那么这意味着你的表现不佳。如果你表现不佳，可能会让客户不满意，他们可能会解雇你。如果你看看关于主动管理人权益暴露的调查，你会发现在去年12月份略微下降了一点，但现在又开始回升了。所以这似乎是推动股市上涨的原因之一。

Now what I find most persuasive of course is looking at the underlying options activity. So at a high level, when you look at the SFP 500 and break out the performance by its sub components, you notice that a lot of the gains have come from communication services or tech, basically the Mac 7, like Facebook, like Google, and of course, NVIDIA. When I look at NVIDIA and looking at its option implied volatility, what I see is that there's a lot of people who seem to be yoloing in this stock.

现在我认为最有说服力的当然是看基础的期权交易活动。所以从一个高层次来看，当你看着SFP 500并将其绩效细分成各个子部分时，你会注意到很多收益来自通信服务或者科技，基本上就是Mac 7，比如Facebook、Google，当然还有NVIDIA。当我看NVIDIA并观察它的期权暗含波动率时，我注意到有很多人似乎在这支股票上进行了冒险投资。

For example, the way that I look at this is looking at the options implied volatility surface. Now normally you would expect volatility to be more expensive, uh, in skewed towards the left. So, uh, structurally speaking, if you're an asset manager, in order to prudently manage your exposure, you would buy some insurance. You would buy puts. Because of this structural demand for puts, you would expect, uh, implied volatility, to be higher to the left of the strike. But for NVIDIA, you can see it's not the case at all. It's very much skewed to the right. And that tells me that there's a lot of people buying calls, uh, probably trying to yolo this. And as we know, uh, when you yolo something, um, your loan call, oftentimes a market maker is short the call and so they hedge by buying the underlying and you can, uh, make the asset prices go up a lot. You've seen this happen over and over again over the past few years. And so it seems to me that there's a lot of people who are yoloing these MAG 7 stocks and pushing the indexes higher. And you know, these can, I'd have no idea how high can go, but usually though, usually it seems like, uh, this eventually reverses and sometimes violently.

举个例子，我观察这个问题的方式是看看期权波动率曲面。通常情况下，你会预期波动率更高、更偏向于左侧。因此，从结构上来说，如果你是一位资产管理人员，为了谨慎管理你的风险敞口，你会购买一些保险，即购买期权。由于对于购买期权的这种结构性需求，你会预期隐含波动率在行权价左侧会更高。但对于NVIDIA来说，事实并非如此。它的波动率明显偏向于右侧。这告诉我有很多人在购买看涨期权，很可能是冒险投机。而众所周知，当你冒险投机时，通常市场做市商会空头卖出期权，并通过购买相关的资产进行对冲，从而推高资产价格。在过去的几年里，你一次次看到这种情况发生。因此我觉得有很多人正在冒险投机这些MAG 7股票，推动指数上涨。对于它们能涨多高，我不知道，但通常情况下，这种情况最终会出现逆转，有时甚至是剧烈逆转。

When I look at the vol surface on an index level, the vol skew, it looks like looking at fixed strike wall, it looks like, um, Friday compared to the past that it looks like more and more of the market participants are selling calls on S&P 500 futures and buying puts. Now, uh, that tells me that it's likely that going forward, uh, the upside is more limited and more people are afraid of, uh, a sharp reversal. So again, I have no idea how high the S&P 500 is going to go and I'm very positive on it's going forward, but, you know, I think this is getting a little bit ridiculous. So I'm very cautious here. Um, again, I don't have a crystal ball.

当我看着指数级别的波动曲面，波动率偏斜，它看起来像是在观察固定行权价的墙壁，看起来，嗯，与过去相比，越来越多的市场参与者在卖出标普500期货的看涨期权和买入看跌期权。现在，这告诉我未来很可能上涨空间更有限，越来越多的人害怕剧烈反转。所以再一次，我不知道标普500指数会涨到多高，但我对其前景非常乐观，不过，你知道的，我认为这有点荒谬。所以我在这里非常谨慎。嗯，再说一遍，我没有水晶球。

Okay. Um, so let's talk a little bit about the labor market. So when I turn on the news every day, I'm seeing these big mass playoff reports, a lot of them from tech companies and even recently from UPS, but at the same time, the official job reports is saying that job market is booming. A lot of jobs are created. Um, so what's going on here? I think an important way to reconcile this is to understand that if you are the US or any big country, you know, uh, any company actually, every day their jobs created and every day there are people laid off. So again, there's job cuts and job growth. And at the end of the day, though, what we want to see is are there more jobs created than jobs destroyed?

好的。嗯，那让我们稍微谈谈劳动力市场。所以当我每天打开新闻时，我看到很多关于大规模裁员的报道，其中很多来自科技公司，甚至最近还有UPS，但与此同时，官方的就业报告却说就业市场正在蓬勃发展，创造了很多工作岗位。嗯，这到底是怎么回事呢？我认为一个重要的解释方式是要了解，无论是美国还是其他大国，实际上任何一家公司，每天都会有岗位的创建和解雇。所以，再次强调，有裁员也有增长。但是最终，我们想要看到的是，创造的工作岗位是否多于被破坏的工作岗位？

So we've been seeing a lot of very visible layoffs and it seems like the tendency for companies is, uh, as they go on, gradually hire a few people every day or if every month and so forth, but if they get into a situation where they suddenly don't need a lot of people, the economic circumstances change, then they tend to lay people off a lot. So you don't often see people hiring, let's say 20,000 people at a time, but from time to time, you can see people get laid off 20,000 people at a time. So there is asymmetry here to keep in mind.

最近我们见到了很多明显的裁员，似乎企业的倾向是，在逐渐招聘一些人员过程中，每天或者每个月雇佣几个人，等等。但是，如果遇到突然不需要太多人员的情况，经济环境发生变化，那么他们往往会大量裁员。因此，你很少见到有公司会一次性雇佣2万人，但是偶尔会看到有公司一次性解雇2万人。所以这里存在不对称需要记住。

Now the jobs report that we get every month basically looks at everything, looks at hires and fires. And at the end of the day, uh, taking that stuff into account, it tries to figure out the amount of net jobs created every month. So even though we're seeing a lot of people being fired in the news, there's still a lot of people under the surface that are being hired. And again, these don't happen in mass so they don't get as much attention. And so all in all, uh, this is important to keep in mind when we're looking at job layoffs, we're only looking at the firing. So we're not looking, we're not hearing about the hiring. And so that skews our perception as to what's happening in the labor market.

现在我们每个月得到的就业报告基本上会考虑到各个方面，包括招聘和解雇。最终，通过考虑这些因素，它试图计算出每月净新增就业岗位的数量。因此，即使我们在新闻中看到很多人被解雇，仍然有很多人在幕后被雇佣。而且，这些雇佣不是大量发生，所以没有引起太多关注。总而言之，当我们看待裁员时，要牢记这一点很重要，我们只看到被解雇的情况，而不是雇佣的情况。因此，这扭曲了我们对劳动力市场发展的看法。

Now when you dig a little bit deeper into what's happening with the layoffs, one thing that I'll notice is that they seem to be focused in the tech sector. And I don't think that's surprising. Now over the past few years, we've seen tech absolutely boom. And of course, we also know that the economy is slowing. It was running far above trend. Now it's slowing towards trend. So it would make sense to me to think that, you know, some of these companies, maybe they over hired and maybe they don't need as many people. But the point is that it seems like AI might be playing a role in automation. So for example, looking at the UPS announcement, it's, you would think that they're laying off a whole bunch of UPS drivers, but that is actually not the case. What the management there is saying is that they're laying off a lot of middle management because they think that they can replace those guys with AI. I suspect looking at the tech layoffs. A lot of automation is happening in tech companies as well. Obviously, these guys are good at AI. And of course, I mean, a lot of what AI does is what your standard white collar person would do, be it a code or be it to, say, create some kind of image or synthesis. So it would make sense that maybe the tech companies are finding using AI to replace some of their own workers. Now eventually this will probably get down to boot collar workers as well. You can imagine one day we'll have self-driving delivery trucks and so forth. But at the moment, it seems concentrated in white collar. And these tech people and these white collar workers, I think, tend to be overrepresented in social media and in the news. And so we tend to hear about this a lot more and that colors are perception.

现在当你深入了解裁员情况时，有一件事我注意到的是，裁员似乎集中在技术行业。我认为这并不奇怪。在过去几年里，我们看到技术行业蓬勃发展。当然，我们也知道经济正在放缓。以前经济增长远超趋势，现在趋近趋势。所以对我来说，认为一些公司可能过度雇佣了员工，也许不需要那么多人，这是有道理的。但关键是看起来人工智能可能在自动化中起到了作用。例如，看看UPS的公告，你可能会认为他们正在解雇大批的UPS司机，但事实并非如此。那里的管理层表示，他们正在解雇大量的中层管理人员，因为他们认为可以用人工智能来替代他们。我怀疑在技术公司的裁员中，自动化也在大量发生。显然，这些人对人工智能很擅长。当然，人工智能所做的很多工作，都是普通白领所做的，无论是编写代码，还是创建某种图像或合成。所以技术公司可能会利用人工智能来替代一些员工是有道理的。现在最终，这可能也会波及到体力劳动者。你可以想象未来会有无人驾驶送货车等等。但目前看来，这种情况集中在白领阶层。这些技术人员和白领工人在社交媒体和新闻报道中被过分关注，我们往往会听到更多这方面的消息，这就影响了我们的观念。

Now, the last thing I want to talk about with regards to labor market is that I hear many people talking about the surge in multiple job holders. When we look at a graph of multiple job holders, you can, you'll notice that it has been rising. But to make this a bit more even in comparing, we should look at multiple job holders as a percentage of the employed and we should zoom out a little bit. When you do that, you can see that the rise in multiple job holders as a percentage of the employed really is a remarkable at all. It's very much in line with what we've seen over the past few years. Another point related to this is that when people look at multiple job holders, they often just assume the worst. They assume that people are really desperate and so they're getting multiple jobs in order to get by. And that's definitely the case for some people. But there are also other possibilities as well. You could also have multiple jobs if you are ambitious.

现在，我想要谈谈劳动市场的最后一个问题，那就是许多人谈论到多份工作持有者的激增。当我们观察多份工作持有者的图表时，你会发现它一直在上升。但为了更公平地比较，我们应该以多份工作持有者在就业人数中的比例来观察，并且应该放大一些视野。当你这样做时，你会发现多份工作持有者在就业人数中的比例实际上并没有显著增长。它非常符合我们在过去几年中所看到的情况。与此相关的另一个观点是，当人们看多份工作持有者时，他们经常会假设最糟糕的情况。他们认为人们真的是非常绝望，所以才会拿多份工作来维持生计。对于一些人来说，这确实是情况。但也有其他可能性。如果你雄心勃勃，你也可能会有多份工作。

Now a big structural change since 2020 is that there is a lot more opportunity to work remotely. So you can have a lot of people who because not necessarily out of hardship, but because they just want to make more money, maybe to buy a bigger car or something like that to go and work multiple jobs. In fact, there is a form on Reddit called over employed that's dedicated to teaching people how to have multiple online jobs and make a lot of money sometimes without telling your employer. So this is a structural change in how employment works. And so I would actually expect structurally speaking for there to be more multiple job holders as a percentage of the employed. So there's a different way to interpret this and I would not immediately reach for the doomer interpretation.

自2020年以来，一个重大的结构性变化是有更多的机会可以远程工作。因此，你会发现很多人之所以选择同时从事多个工作，并非出于困境，而是因为他们想要挣更多的钱，也许是为了买一辆更大的汽车或其他类似的东西。事实上，Reddit上有一个专门教人们如何同时从事多个在线工作并赚很多钱的专栏，它叫做"过度就业"。有时，你甚至可以在不告诉雇主的情况下赚很多钱。因此，这是就业方式发生的结构性变化。所以，从结构上来看，我认为员工中同时拥有多个工作的比例会更高。因此，我们可以采取一种不同的解释方式，并不立即选择灰暗的解释。

So the last thing that I want to talk about is the prospect of a Fed cut in March. Now a couple months ago, I was thinking that we would most likely have a Fed cut and the market was pricing that as well. So if you look at a time history of the markets pricing of a March cut, you'll see that initially it was very unlikely. And then a few weeks ago, it was basically certain and now it's sitting at about 20%. So what's the driver for that? The driver for that is that the Fed seems to be coordinating a campaign to dissuade the market in pricing in any March cut.

所以，我想谈谈三月份美联储削减利率的前景。几个月前，我认为我们很可能会进行美联储削减，并且市场也在定价这一点。如果你看一下市场对三月份削减的定价的时间历史，你会发现最初是很不可能的。然后几周前，它几乎可以确定，现在它大约是20%。那是什么原因呢？原因是美联储似乎正在协调一场活动来劝阻市场对三月份削减的任何定价。

Now that began with Chair Powell basically categorically, well not categorically, but very strongly pushing against that in the most recent FOMC meeting last week. Chair Powell also did an interview with 60 minutes and basically said the same thing. Let's listen to what he said. We wondered about an interest rate cut in the next committee meeting in March. I think it's not likely that this committee will reach that level of confidence in time for the March meeting, which is in seven weeks. The next committee vote then would be in May. We just want to see more good data along those lines. It doesn't need to be better than what we've seen or even as good. It just needs to be good. And so we do expect to see that. So again, Chair Powell is telling you that he thinks things are good. He just wants to see more good data to be sure. And so he's trying to discourage the market from pricing in a rate cut in March. And I think he seems to be sending out all the other Fed presidents to come and say the same thing. But notwithstanding that though, you still see the market pricing in about a 20% chance of a cut. And I think that's because the data plus what the Fed has communicated about how they look at the world is strongly suggesting that a cut may be appropriate.

现在，鲍威尔主席最近的FOMC会议上明确表示，不，不是明确，但非常有力地反对这一点。鲍威尔主席还在接受《60分钟》节目的采访中基本上说了同样的话。让我们听听他说了什么。我们对三月份下一次委员会会议上的降息感到好奇。我认为，这个委员会在三月份会议之前很可能不会达到那种程度的信心，而三月份会议还有七个星期。下一次委员会投票将在五月份进行。我们只是希望看到更多的好数据。它不需要比我们已经看到的更好，甚至不需要和之前一样好。它只需要是好的。所以我们确实希望能看到这些。因此，鲍威尔主席再次告诉您，他认为情况是好的。他只是想看到更多的好数据来确保。所以他试图阻止市场在三月份定价降息。我认为他似乎正在让其他联邦储备系统的主席们也发表同样的观点。但尽管如此，你仍然可以看到市场对降息有大约20%的机会。我认为这是因为数据和联邦储备系统在如何看待世界上的表达强烈暗示降息可能是适当的。

On Friday, we got the revised CPI data, which usually no one cares about, but because Goprun and Waller, once upon a time said, I'm going to be looking carefully at the revised CPI to make sure that it is good. So now everyone has to care about it. And the revised CPI showed slightly lower headline inflation and unchanged core, which basically affirms that the disinflation we've been seeing is indeed true. But notwithstanding that though, unless we get some serious, serious change in the data this month, I think that the Fed really doesn't want to cut in March. That being said, the market continues to suspect that the Fed is going to embark upon a relatively quick cutting cycle with five cuts priced in throughout this year. Let's see how that happened. Let's see if that actually happens, depending on how the data unfolds.

星期五，我们得到了修订后的消费者价格指数（CPI）数据，通常没有人关心，但是因为Goprun和Waller曾经表示，我将仔细关注修订后的CPI，以确保它是良好的。所以现在每个人都必须关心它。修订后的CPI显示出略微较低的总体通胀率和不变的核心通胀率，这基本上证实了我们一直看到的通缩确实存在。但尽管如此，除非本月数据发生了一些重大的、重大的变化，我认为联储并不真的想在3月份进行降息。话虽如此，市场继续怀疑联储将会启动一个相对快速的降息周期，今年预计将进行五次降息。让我们看看这是如何发生的。让我们看看根据数据的发展情况，情况是否真的会这样发展。

Okay, so that's why I prepared for today. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you're interested in my thoughts, check out my blog at FedDie.com. And if you're interested in learning more about markets, check out my courses at centralbreaking101.com. Talk to you all next week.

好的，这就是为什么我为今天做好了准备。非常感谢你们的关注。如果你们对我的想法感兴趣，请访问我的博客FedDie.com。如果你们对了解更多市场知识感兴趣，请访问我的课程网站centralbreaking101.com。下周再见。