Seth Klarman- allting har ett slut

Under de konstant stigande marknaderna de senaste åren har Seth Klarman tjänat stora pengar. Seth Klarman är en av världens absolut bästa investerare och benämns som "The Oracle of Boston", vilket är en anspelning på Warren Buffetts benämning ("The Oracle of Omaha"). Personligen tror jag att Seth Klarman är ännu skickligare än Buffett, vilket lär visa sig över tid. Seth Klarmans tankar är alltid oerhört intressant att  följa och hans förmåga att beskriva ekonomiska sammanhang är oslagbar. Jag kommer därför lägga in några utdrag från hans "brev till investerare" nedan.

För att klargöra vad Seth Klarman menar med somliga av sina påstående är QE beskrivet nedan.

Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional monetary policy used by central banks to stimulate the economy when standard monetary policy has become ineffective.^[1][2][3] A central bank implements quantitative easing by buying specified amounts of financial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions, thus raising the prices of those financial assets and lowering their yield, while simultaneously increasing the monetary base. (wikipedia)

2012
"It is clear that someday the Fed will decide that the economy has strengthened sufficiently to end and then potentially reverse QE and zero-rate policies. Any possible sale of trillions of dollars of securities owned by the Fed, at such time would most likely be at a substantial loss given that interest rates would likely have risen and bond prices have fallen. Also, when people with a 30 year, 3.5% mortgage seek to move at a time when new mortgages now cost 5% to 6% or more, buyers will pause, reducing demand and driving house prices lower.QE3 may deliver a dose of helium to housing prices, but eventually helium leaks out of balloons, and gravity pulls them to earth. What kind of policy is this: untested; inflationary; eroding free market signals; diverting more of the country's resources toward housing at the expense of priorities such as infrastructure, technology, or science and medical research; and inevitably only a temporary fix with no enduring benefit?

Finally, we must question the morality of Fed programs that trick people (as if they were Pavlov's dogs) into behaviors that are adverse to their own long-term best interest. What kind of government entity cajoles savers to spend, when years of under-saving and overspending have left the consumer in terrible shape? What kind of entity tricks its citizens into paying higher and higher prices to buy stocks? What kind of entity drives the return on retirees' savings to zero for seven years (2008-2015 and counting) in order to rescue poorly managed banks? Not the kind that should play this large a role in the economy." (Seth Klarman, Q3 2012 Shareholder Letter)

2013

"Investing, when it looks the easiest, is at its hardest. When just about everyone heavily invested is doing well, it is hard for others to resist jumping in. But a market relentlessly rising in the face of challenging fundamentals--recession in Europe and Japan, slowdown in China, fiscal stalemate and high unemployment in the U.S.—is the riskiest environment of all. 

… [O]nly a small number of investors maintain the fortitude and client confidence to pursue long-term investment success even at the price of short-term underperformance. Most investors feel the hefty weight of short-term performance expectations, forcing them to take up marginal or highly speculative investments that we shun. When markets are rising, such investments may perform well, which means that our unwavering patience and discipline sometimes impairs our results and makes us appear overly cautious. The payoff from a risk-averse, long-term orientation is--just that--long term. It is measurable only over the span of many years, over one or more market cycles. " (Seth Klarman, 2012 (end) Shareholder Letter)

"They also know that the only reason paper money, backed not by anything tangible but only a promise, has any value at all is because it is scarce. With all the printing, the credibility of our entire trust-based monetary system will be increasingly called into question. 

And when you tell the populace that we can all enjoy a free lunch of extremely low interest rates, massive Fed purchases of mounting treasury issuance, trillions of dollars of expansion in the Fed's balance sheet, and huge deficits far into the future, they are highly skeptical not because they know precisely what will happen but because they are sure that no one else--even, or perhaps especially, the policymakers—does either. " (Seth Klarman, 2012 (end) Shareholder Letter)

2014

"But if you have the worry gene, if you’re more focused on downside than upside, if you’re more interested in return of capital than return on capital, if you have any sense of market history, then there’s more than enough to be concerned about. A policy of near-zero short-term interest rates continues to distort reality with unknown but worrisome long-term consequences. Even as the Fed begins to taper, the announced plan is so mild and contingent – one pundit called it “taper-lite” – that we can draw no legitimate conclusions about the Fed’s ability to end QE without severe consequences. Fiscal stimulus, in the form of sizable deficits, has propped up the consumer, thereby inflating corporate revenues and earnings. But what is the right multiple to pay on juiced corporate earnings? Pretty clearly, lower than otherwise. Yet Robert Schiller’s cyclically adjusted P/E valuation is over 25, a level exceeded only three times before – prior to the 1929, 2000 and 2007 market crashes. Indeed, on almost any metric, the U.S. equity market is historically quite expensive." (Seth Klarman, Letter to investor (end) 2013)

"Whether you see today’s investment glass as half full or half empty depends on your age and personality type, as well as your “lifetime” of experiences in the markets and how you interpret them. Our assessment is that the Fed’s continuing stimulus and suppression of volatility has triggered a resurgence of speculative froth. Margin debt measured as a percentage of GDP recently neared an all-time high. IPO activity in 2013 was greater than it has been in years, with 230 offerings taking place, 59% more than last year and approaching 2007’s record of 288 transactions. " (Seth Klarman, Letter to investor (end) 2013)

"Someday, financial markets will again decline. Someday, rising stock and bond markets will no longer be government policy – maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. Someday, QE will end and money won’t be free. Someday, corporate failure will be permitted. Someday, the economy will turn down again, and someday, somewhere, somehow, investors will lose money and once again come to favor capital preservation over speculation. Someday, interest rates will be higher, bond prices lower, and the prospective return from owning fixed-income instruments will again be roughly commensurate with the risk.

Someday, professional investors will come to work and fear will have come to the markets and that fear will spread like wildfire. The news flow will be bad, and the markets will be tumbling." (Seth Klarman, Letter to investor (end) 2013)

Ingenting vara för evigt. Träd växer inte till himlen och detsamma gäller för aktier. Världens största ekonomiska experiment genom tiderna fortsätter, men detta kan ej pågå hur länge som helst. Vi närmar oss den dagen då räntorna i USA börjar höjas. Räntehöjningar lär leda till fallande aktiekurser och bostadspriser. När väl börsen börjar falla kommer snabbt kaoset från finanskrisen tillbaka. Stater och individer kommer vara mer skuldsatta än innan finanskrisen, men denna gången måste de nödvändiga åtgärderna genomföras.