债券避风港安全性反不如股票？

卜丁

自2008年市场危机以来令投资者感觉最安全的投资方式，在2010年代却将成为愚蠢的投资之举。

戴维斯基金（Davis Funds）负责人戴维斯(Chris Davis)近期说，因投资者持续将几乎所有现金投入债券以便避开股市下跌带来的惨痛，债券正成为不断增长的泡沫，并注定在下个10年下跌。

戴维斯在美国特许金融分析师学院(CFA Institute)年度会议上说，全球唯一真正的泡沫是债券，往前看10年后的情形，人们是在自找送命。

对众多投资者来说，戴维斯可能并非一个家喻户晓的名人，但在基金界，他代表一个长期的辉煌品牌，其公司经营着650亿美元的资产，他是这家公司的第三代基金经理，他的管理才能受到广泛推崇，被视为理性思考的典范。

因而，如果你是大量投资债券基金的投资者中的一员，他的观点可能会令你心生畏惧。

戴维斯并没预测债券市场会马上发生内爆，而是说可能还要等多达两年的时间，但他认为债券下跌不可避免。

他说，当赤字这么高而利率这么低时，某个方面必须让步，在目前这种局面下，他不认为赤字将会很快让步。

加息环境对债券型基金不利，因随着利率上升，债券价格会下滑。债券型基金必须在每个交易日结束时按市值结算，这意味着在账目上要以出售价给证券定价。因而，债券价格下滑时，债券型基金也会遭殃。

这并非是个新思路。事实上，大批特许金融分析师学院年度会议的出席者及专家在考虑同样的问题，这个问题就是全球债务太多了，是付出代价的时候了。

股票是安全避风港

但戴维斯的观点有点不同。他认为，大多数投资者的问题是将债券视为安全避风港，而在当前条件下，最安全之处实际上是股票。他并不是提倡牛市中的一再“买入”主导思想，并非建议普通投资者赎回全部基金，将全部家当都投入股市，而是基于数据特别是收益率来发表这番言论的。

戴维斯说，当前的股息收益约为3%，相当于或略少于投资者从债券所得的回报。戴维斯敦促投资者将投资视为为一家公司融资，不仅要透过派息看盈利收益，还要看公司自已留存的收益。

他说，采取这种方法来看待投资，在政府处于深度财政危机之时，投资债券要比购买雀巢(Nestle)等公司的股票风险高多了。雀巢的股票有7.5%的收益率，而该公司将一半的收益重新投资于公司运营，另一半才用于派息。

此外，公司收益通常会随通胀自动调节，大公司可通过提高价格向客户进行传递，而若市场发生通胀，债券收益就落后了。

戴维斯说，如果人们拿到报表看看股息收益与盈利收益，那他们的投资举动马上就会不同了。不过你必须要做到对股价的变化无动于衷，而大多数人做不到这一点。

这里是他对债券走势所做的可怕预期。大多数投资者投资债券是出于安全、收益与稳定的考虑。尽管债券可能安全，但当利率变化时，受影响的债券基金将不会非常稳定和安全，表现却更像是股票型基金。因债券型基金的收入构成不可能好于用来购买优质股票的资金产生的股息，那么假以时日，为投资者带来其购买债券型基金时预期收益的实际上会是股票基金。

戴维斯承认，许多观察者认为股市会有大幅长期下滑，因而他提出了一个最糟糕的场景预期，即另一次大衰退，1929年至1954年长达25年时间的大衰退期，市场基本上乏善可陈。

那段时期，仅在每年年初投入一笔资金并持有不动的投资者，股息收入带来的年化收益率达13%。

戴维斯说，大量资金涌入债券型基金的问题在于，它使人们走上了他们想走的那条路，却并非市场建议他们走的那条路。投资者自我感觉安全了，但其所为却非常非常危险。

Chuck Jaffe

ranchgirl

Opposite opinion follows

ranchgirl

Vanguard Group founder still believes in bonds


THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: 06/08/1012:05 am

At a recent investment conference where star fund manager Chris Davis made dire forecasts for bond-fund investors, he was seated on the dias next to Jack Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group.

Bogle is the patron saint of low-cost, long-term index-based investing. He has more than 80 percent of his personal portfolio in bonds.

So when I wrote about Davis, who runs the Davis Funds, and his suggestion that investors will find stock returns bigger and safer than bond returns, readers wondered if I had somehow neglected the opinion of the industry legend sitting to Davis’ right.

Nope. Bogle appears to agree with Davis’ assessment of the bond and stock markets.

And he would also suggest that the right course of action – even for someone like him with an overwhelming portion of assets in bonds – is to stick with the asset allocation plan, and stop worrying so much about the market.

Bogle did a series of interviews this past week in which he talked about the market and asset allocation. It’s clear that he and Davis are of the same mind when it comes to the potential perils of bonds and the benefits of owning strong dividend-paying stocks.

Asked to forecast the future returns for stocks and bonds, Bogle said that over the next decade – the shortest time period he ever cares to discuss – he expects stocks to carry the weight, though not without stumbles.

Bogle said he believes an annualized average gain of 7 percent is reasonable in stocks over the next decade, while he expects bonds – a mix of corporates and Treasuries – to yield about 4.5 percent.

“So stocks should get the nod, but only if you can afford to fight your way through the turbulence that you will see in the coming decade,” Bogle said.

But Bogle himself would not advocate tilting toward stocks for the sake of snatching those higher expected returns, nor would he turn his back on bonds because of the lower return or the potential storm clouds he sees there.

“I do not believe that we should rethink the old principles of asset allocation,” Bogle said in one of the interviews. “You know, it’s fine to say, ‘Be opportunistic,’ and expand the list of your diversification options into commodities or gold or private equity or whatever else it might be. I don’t happen to buy that.

“First, anything that’s opportunistic is by definition, I believe, a market-timing issue when to do it and when not to do it. If you could do it perfectly, I strongly commend it, but I don’t think anybody is able to do that.”

Bogle’s solution is an asset allocation that he believes is appropriate for the tough times he sees ahead, but it is also the strategy he has more or less had at the heart of his own investment portfolio for decades now.

“I would emphasize an asset allocation that begins with this crude rule of thumb of having your bond position equal to something relating to your age,” Bogle said. “So if you’re 60, 60 percent bonds.”

Now in his 80s, Bogle follows that rule. Critics would point out that thanks to his long and successful investment career, he can live comfortably with this kind of strategy, not worrying much about how the volatility that he and Davis see ahead for bond funds actually hits home.

Bogle says he looks at long-term total return, not day-to-day market fluctuations. With a 4.5 percent bond return over the next decade, he noted that a patient investor who captures that gain will be up 60 percent over the decade, while the stock return of 7 percent is sufficient to roughly double your money over a decade.

Bogle has caveats on how you properly calculate the asset allocation, even using his simplistic age-based formula.

“You’ve got to take all of your assets into account, when you figure that asset allocation,” he explained, “because for example, your Social Security investment, when you’re say 60 or 65, has a capitalized value of something like $300,000, and it’s going to continue to pay. It may pay a little bit less. I hope we can solve that problem, but it’s not going to go away.

“And so, if you have a $100,000 to invest, I don’t see why you would not put it all in stocks at that stage of your life. That would be 25 percent then in equities and 75 percent in effect fixed income with an inflation hedge [via Social Security]. It’s a good investment.”

At the very least, it’s a strategy that many average investors could live with and profit from, provided you believe that the stock and bond stories will play out the way Bogle, Davis and other long-term thinkers are predicting.

BlueRiver

very insightful, the 2.8 T muni bond is probably a ticking bomb, Warren Buffet recently trimmed his bond holding, and  CDS ( the cost of insuring muni bond ) is going up. eventually Fed may bail out the states and local governments, but the ride could be too rocky for small investors.

The boomers lost a big trunk of their retirement savings on the stocks, when they parked the money in the "safe heaven", there could another bloodshed in the future