地缘冲突叠加与市场窄幅震荡
在过去的一周里，全球金融市场呈现出显著的波动特征。地缘政治局势再度升温，美国与伊朗之间的冲突虽未演变成全面战争，但局部冲突不断；同时，乌克兰对俄罗斯境内能源基础设施的持续打击，直接推高了柴油和汽油等精炼石油产品的价格，原油价格亦因中东局势的紧张而出现反弹。然而，尽管宏观不确定性加剧，期权市场的仓位分布限制了整体市场的波幅，波动率交易员指出在下周选择权到期日（OPEX）之前，市场大概率将维持窄幅震荡格局。在这一背景下，最值得关注的深远变化来自于美联储（Federal Reserve: 美国的中央银行系统）内部的政策转向信号。
Original English Source
Hello my friends. Today is July 11th and this is Markets Weekly. All right, so last week was a pretty volatile week in markets. We had the resumption seemingly of the US Iran conflict. There were some strikes but not a return to full-blown war. At the same time, I think it's worth noting that it seems like things are heating up on the Russia Ukraine front with Ukraine striking a lot of energy infrastructure in Russia. So overall that's contributing to higher refined product prices like diesel and gasoline and of course crude jumped a bit on the heating up of the Middle Eastern war. However though overall the markets were pretty subdued. The smart people who follow volatility and option stuff are saying that we are at a time in the year and due in large part to options positioning that the market is just kind of going to be rangebound at least until we have opex next week. But what we're going to talk about today though is news on the Fed front. So finally, last week we had Kevin announcing the appointments of the task force leaders and so based on that we can have a pretty good idea of what the Fed will look like in the future.顾问机制下的美联储意志重塑
在最近的联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC）会议上，凯文（Kevin Warsh: 潜在的下任美联储主席人选）宣布成立了多个工作组。从组织行为学的角度来看，这种机制类似于企业CEO在推动重大变革时引入外部极具资历的顾问团，旨在通过一份符合管理层预设结论的详尽报告，向股东、员工及董事会推销其改革愿景，并在变革遭遇失败时将责任归咎于顾问。当前任命的工作组领袖明显倾向于凯文的政策主张：即美联储过于频繁地与市场沟通、过度依赖前瞻性指引、资产负债表规模过大，且过度高估了生产力繁荣对通胀的平抑作用。这批精选的学术与实操专家已在公共舆论中表达过与凯文高度一致的观点，预示着美联储未来的政策逻辑将发生本质转向。
Original English Source
All right. So at the most recent FOMC meeting, Kevin announced a whole bunch of tasks force. And as we noted back then that is actually what happens when you're going to make big changes to any organization. So if you're the CEO of a company for example and you want to make big changes what you would sometimes do is you would hire outside consultants very credentialed people to write long reports that come up to the conclusion that is the same as the CEOs. The CEO can then take that report and use it to sell his vision to shareholders, to employees, and to the board of directors. And should the changes prove to be unsuccessful, the CEO can always blame the consultants, right? So when I look at the task force, I view this as a similar endeavor. Basically like basic leadership guys just trying to sell your idea. And now that we have the nominees, well, the appointments of the task force leaders, it becomes pretty clear that that's actually what's happening. So Kevin's view of the Fed is are very public. So he's been in the public spotlight for some time. And of course, we have some writings from project 2025. Kevin thinks the Fed talks too much, doesn't like forward guidance, thinks the balance sheet is too large, and in recent months has been seeing a lot of stuff about the productivity boom, suggesting that inflation is going to trend lower because of all this productivity. Now, when we look at the people selected for these task force, it becomes clear that they are obviously tilted towards Kevin's conclusion, right? It's not like he's um you know it's not like he's forcing a conclusion, but he's selecting panelists, appointees that are always already predisposed to come to Kevin's point of view. So, let's go through each of these people and talk about what they believe based on their public comments and what this could mean for the Fed. Now, first I'll also note though that this panel is by all accounts a very distinguished panel of people. I don't know all of them, but I'm familiar with a few. And these people are are very smart, thoughtful people who that I have learned from. So, it's it's not like he's finding hacks. He's he's finding legitimate experts that are in many cases just kind of predisposed to think like Kevin.告别点阵图与削减前瞻性指引
美联储沟通工作组的核心使命是减少对前瞻性指引（Forward Guidance: 中央银行对未来利率路径的公开承诺）的依赖。自大金融危机利率降至零以来，美联储通过承诺在达到特定经济指标前维持超低利率来控制中长期收益率曲线。然而，这种沟通机制在新冠疫情期间演变成了自我束缚的枷锁。当时美联储向市场承诺将长期维持低利率，但当通胀迅速升温时，打破这一指引会严重损害央行的信誉，导致加息滞后，进而加剧了通胀飙升。工作组的核心成员彼得·费舍尔（Peter Fisher）和前英格兰银行行长默文·金（Mervyn King）均极度反对前瞻性指引。默文·金强调世界处于极端不确定性（Radical Uncertainty: 无法通过概率模型量化的未知风险）之中，且经济学中的因果关系是非平稳的（Non-stationary: 经济规律随技术、人口和政策不断演变，不像物理学定律那样恒常不变），这使得任何基于统计学模型的利率预测都失去意义。美联储理事沃勒近期也对前瞻性指引表达了温和保留的态度，预示着明年美联储极有可能取消点阵图这一标志性预测工具。
Original English Source
All right, starting with the communications panel. So, a lot of this is about trying to reduce the use of forward guidance that the Fed has been relying on for some time. So after the great financial crisis when interest rates were cut to zero the Fed relied increasingly on communications as a way to influence interest rates. So at that time what the Fed would do is they would commit to keeping interest rates at zero until a period of time until economic targets were met and so forth. So that was a way for them to exert more control on the medium and longer part of the curve and I actually talk about this in my book central banking. It's basically a way with how monetary policy is implemented and that was that's one that's a tool and also note though that it's become more of a problem because sometimes you implement forward guidance and it becomes a constraint on your own actions. So during the pandemic now the central banks basically told everyone they're going to keep interest rates low for for a period long period of time thinking that it would be an economic disaster. Uh not just the US but notably in Canada as well. Now after giving this guidance the economy kind of didn't react didn't evolve in the way that the central banks thought. inflation began to heat up a lot and the central the forward guidance the communication the central banks gave beforehand became kind of a constraint uh because you know they said they would keep interest rates low for some time but yet economic conditions are changing but if they were to break their forward guidance that impacts their credibility maybe the markets won't believe them as much in the future and so a lot of people think that this central bank's communication kind of constrained themselves and prevented them from raising interest rates fast enough which in turn contribute to a rise in um the co inflation spike. So looking at on the people on the panel you see you have say let's see um you have Peter Fiser who was a professor somewhere and you have Armenio Fraga who was the former president of um the central bank of Brazil and you have Mvin Keen who was the star of this task force. Mvin Keen was a former governor on the Bank of England. Also someone who is been actively commenting and writing about central banks for some time now. I'm not really too familiar with what Armeno believes about forward guidance, but in the public writings of Peter and Mvin King, they're very clear that they don't think that forward guidance is a good thing. So Mvin King in particular is lays out his views and he calls it radical uncertainty. So if you are a central bank economist oftentimes what you would do is you would build a model as to what you think the economy will evolve and monetary policy would be conducted in part due to how these modelbased measures of the world look. So for example during the pandemic maybe your economic model said things are going to be really really bad for some time and so that influences the central bank's decision to communicate to everyone that hey we're going to keep interest rates low for a long time. basically uh guiding towards lower interest rates through forward guidance. But what Marvin Keem is saying is that in a radical uncertainty view of the world uh you just don't know right the variable inputs you put into the model you can't quantify them to any degree of uncertainty any degree of uncertainty. So for example, of course, who was thinking about the pandemic in 2019? No one, right? So that was like far far far away from any probability distribution in anyone's probability distribution that was but yet it happened. So one is that the variables that you you you it's really difficult to uh know the future diff very difficult to have probability distributions of any variables that you would input into your model. The thanking he would note and this is super important is that in the economic world relationships are not stationary. So what does that mean? So in physics for example relationships are stationary. If you drop something it will fall to the ground due to the force of gravity at 9.8 m/s squared. That is a stationary relationship that you could you know use throughout the world on any objects. Right? So because you have that stationary relationship, you can build mathematical models and make predictions about certain things. And that is kind of how we have such a developed understanding of physics of engineering and so forth because the physical world is has stable relationships that we can predict and exploit. But when it comes to the economy or to financial markets, the relationships are not stationary. Sometimes for example good jobs report is bad for the markets because that means the Fed is going to hike. Sometimes a good jobs report is uh good for the markets because the markets thinks that you know we have economic growth. So you know the markets reactions change and so does the economy due to things like technology, demographics, changes in fiscal policy, trade policy, immigration or even just the regulatory structure of the banking sector for example. Now because relationships in the economy are not stationary, you cannot build statistical models. They just don't work. They're not predictive. And we kind of have many many decades of history showing of showing that economic models don't work. Uh yet some people do them very strange. But in any case, Burvin Fischer being a smart person realizes again can't really quantify can't come to have any reasonable probability uh distribution of variables and of course noticing that things are non-stationary in the economy says that we you know these models are not useful way of thinking about the world and because we can't really predict the future it's best that we not give guidance right so forward guidance is is not useful in a world where there is heightened uncertainty about what the future future looks like you could end up basically being wrong and having to change your mind impacting your credibility which is what happened during the pandemic and Peter the other academic is also on record saying something similar. Now I would also note that I think a couple weeks ago governor Waller came out and b give a pretty short statement on his views on forward guidance basically saying that sometimes it's helpful sometimes it's not. So it's kind of a lukewarm thing that tells me that he is okay with say getting rid of things like the dot plot which are in practice forward guidance right it's the FOMC telling you what they think the world will look like and that impacts market pricing so I think that this task force is very obviously going to come to Kevin's conclusion that the Fed talks too much and probably shouldn't be using things like the dot plot um so I'm guessing next year we probably won't have the dot plot anymore are all right on to the next task force.资产负债表瘦身与流动性陷阱的反噬
美联储资产负债表政策工作组聚焦于如何缩减过度庞大的资产负债表，核心成员包括哈佛教授卡伦·戴南（Karen Dynan）、前美联储理事杰里米·斯坦（Jeremy Stein），以及作为核心人物的前印度央行行长拉古拉姆·拉詹（Raghuram Rajan）。拉詹提出了极具洞察力的流动性反馈假说：央行在大规模释放流动性时，金融系统并不会被动持有这些“超额流动性”，而是会基于“流动性将永久存在”的预期进行杠杆扩张和业务重构，使最初的富余流动性固化为系统运行的必需品。因此，当央行尝试通过量化紧缩（Quantitative Tightening: 缩减资产负债表规模）回收流动性时，系统会出现严重的收缩反应，导致金融市场不同领域频发流动性痉挛。尽管美联储内部对于彻底回到金融危机前的“稀缺准备金”模式存在阻力，但在该工作组的推动下，美联储长期来看将倾向于维持较小的负债规模，这客观上大幅提高了未来再次实施量化宽松（Quantitative Easing: 央行通过购买资产注入流动性）的政策门槛。
Original English Source
It's on balance sheet policy and on the balance sheet policy we have Karen Dynan a professor somewhere and we have Rag Raj who is not just a professor of finance somewhere but also the former governor of the bank of India and also someone who uh writes papers and does podcasts about um the Fed's balance sheet and so forth and I think he is the star on this panel. Oh, in addition with Jeremy Stein who is a former governor at the Fed, also a smart person. So, I'm not as familiar with with Karen, but Raj is very very vocal that he thinks that the Fed's well central bank balance sheets are too big and he has his argument is that so you expand your balance sheet, right? You you put liquidity into the financial system and it looks like you have a lot of excess liquidity. But the way that the financial system works is that it, you know, it assumes that this liquidity will always be there and expands to take use of it such that what initially appears to be excess liquidity quote unquote eventually does not because then everyone just kind of expands, leverage leverages up, relied upon this liquidity. And then when you actually try to withdraw it, you find that the financial system has already expanded to adapt to this new certain this new equilibrium and it actually becomes contractionary and you could have uh hiccups in various parts of the financial markets. So he is someone who would prefer to have a smaller balance sheet. Um, I I think that, you know, I think Jeremy Stein and Karen's views are not as clear as his, but it's it's very clear that he is someone who who shares um Kevin's beliefs. And to to be totally clear, you know, there's a lot of wiggle room in this. It's not just the size, but it's also the composition uh of the balance sheet. Is it all treasury or mortgage? And even if it's treasury, it's also whether or not you should have longer dated or shorter dated. So this is something that has a few levers in but you know just based upon the current FOMC composition I think the trend is towards maybe a smaller balance sheet but but not one that is going to go towards the one that we had preg GFC because there are active opponents on the FOMC to returning to scarce reverbs. I think some people very very clearly think that it's stupid and this panel although we have Raj on here uh I'm not sure that they'll come to a strong enough conclusion to to really shrink it significantly but uh I do think though it makes it difficult for there to be QE again in the future.数据革命：引入私营实时经济画像
美联储数据工作组的成立，旨在打破传统官方经济数据滞后和频繁修正的弊端。该工作组罕见地引入了非经济学界精英，包括哈佛大学著名教授拉杰·切蒂（Raj Chetty）和沃尔玛（Walmart）前CEO董明伦（Doug McMillon）。拉杰·切蒂在疫情期间建立的实时经济学数据库展示了高频追踪的价值；而董明伦治下的沃尔玛则拥有全球最先进的供应链和物流数据系统，能够实时监测消费者行为的变化。例如，消费者因财务压力从购买牛肉转向购买鸡肉，在大型零售商的数据中是立即可见的信号，而官方的就业或通胀指标却要经历数月的延迟和修正。工作组将探讨如何利用Paychex或ADP等支付和薪酬处理公司的实时流水，以及Truflation（基于区块链和海量私营数据的实时通胀指数）和MIT发起的“十亿价格项目”（Billion Prices Project），为货币政策提供高频、无延迟的现实微观镜像。
Original English Source
All right, the next panel is um data panel. And here is where it's kind of interesting in that you have your first non uh economist, non-central banker people showing up. So you have Raj Teddy, which is a famous professor at Harvard. And here you have Doug Mimillion, a former president and CEO of Walmart, the ginormous retailer. And you have Kevin Murphy, a professor somewhere. Now Raj is someone who has a public profile because during the covid pandemic he actually created this entire data apparatus where he was collecting real-time data as to what was happening in the economy and he put it on his uh website and it's a project I guess that is done in partnership with some people at Harvard and so in there he was basically trying to give a more up-to-date view of what was happening during the co economy because at that time it was a time of significant change right no one knows what was going on and he was trying his best to get a handle over it. Now the Walmart former Walmart CEO person is super interesting because Walmart is someone who has a very advanced data system. So, Walmart is a ginormous retailer uh in the United States and also in the world and they have a very sophisticated logistics system that is well known, super advanced where they basically can move it. They know where the inventory is being depleted and be able to move it uh throughout their supply chain in real time. So that real-time system gives them a very good glimpse as to what's happening with the US consumer. So for example in their earning calls and not just them you have other big box retailers like Target can also provide similar information. They are basically saying they can basically tell you that hey they're seeing in their data maybe uh some of the low well less well-off consumers are struggling. Uh you also have various versions of this. I believe in Costco for example they would talk about whether or not customers would substitute away from beef towards chicken as a sign of consumer distress. So the signal here is that there's a huge trend towards building a more realtime measurement of what's happening in the economy. So the impetus of this of course is that there's a sense that maybe the way that the traditional way the be uh is measuring stuff is maybe not as good. uh a salient part would be in employment for example whereas revisions of employment numbers basically revise the way all the jobs created in the past and as we have changes in immigration and stuff like that it also becomes more difficult to measure so Kevin wants to take advantage of developments in technology and the private sector data to come up with better measurements of what's happening in the world bringing on people like Walmart big box retailers like them is a good start and we've also Alo had increasing reliance upon that in the market where we have for example the ADP data payix for example these payment processor companies have real-time up-to-date data because they literally process payrolls and so they can get a sense whether or not their clients are creating jobs and whether or not wages are growing. Uh the last person Kevin Murphy I I'm not really familiar with with his work. Um so we'll see. But I think it's a it's an interesting thing to be able to take advantage of real-time data. There have been many attempts at this after the great financial crisis. There was uh the billion price project with MIT. Uh there's also stuff more recently like true inflation. So I think this is something that we can definitely use to have a better sense of what's happening in the world.AI生产力效应与现实薪资的分野
美联储在生产力与技术方面的评估，由极其鹰派的科技投资人马克·安德森（Marc Andreessen）和曾在Anthropic休假的经济学教授查尔斯·琼斯（Charles Jones）主导。安德森是AI技术平民化与生产力爆发的坚定布道者。虽然理论上AI带来的全要素生产力飞跃应当在供给端释放产能，从而对核心通胀施加结构性的下行压力，但这一判断在现有的宏观统计中尚未得到证实。事实上，由于当前通胀的攀升速度超过了名义薪资的上涨，美国工人的实际薪资（Real Wages: 扣除通胀因素后的实际购买力）实际上呈现下降趋势，这与经典生产力繁荣所伴随的实际薪资上升模型相悖。尽管统计数据存在滞后，工作组领袖依然强烈倾向于“AI将引发巨大生产力繁荣并最终平抑通胀”的结论。随着企业层面AI应用程度的加深，这一理论预测预计在未来数年内逐步在宏观数据中显影。
Original English Source
Okay. Uh the next panel is super super funny and it's just [gasps] I can just tell you the names of who's on the panel and you can know what the conclusion they will arrive at. So, first off, the star of the panel, Mark Andre, tech billionaire and also super super strong advocate of AI, big technology boom, productivity guy. Uh, Charles Jones, uh, an economics professor somewhere who was also on leave at anthropic. So, you know, we we have kind of tells you what he thinks about AI. And you also have Ashish Sharma, uh, some person who works at Xbox, uh, that I'm not familiar with. So, you know, you're putting two people on who are just openly very bullish on the productivity gains of AI. So, you know, they're they're going to come to the same conclusion as Kevin. AI is going to be tremendously productivity enhancing. And, um, that's great for uh for inflation because that suggests downward pressure on inflation. And this is something that we don't actually see in the data at all. So productivity stats don't show it. A really important thing to note is that real wages have actually gone down because inflation has been increased more than wage growth. And that's not what you would assume in a productivity boom. In a productivity boom, you have increases in real wages. So we don't see that in the data. And it's possible it may come in the future. Um, but I'm guessing these guys are are going to tell everyone that actually there will be a big productivity boom and I actually think that's that's true. I've been, you know, learning more about what other people are doing with AI and it does seem to be changing the world. Uh, and eventually I think it will be more apparent in the data.重构通胀框架：超越2%的目标与财政视角
在最核心的通胀框架工作组中，美联储试图修正其对通胀驱动因素的底层逻辑认知。该工作组由主流经济学泰斗格里高利·曼昆（Gregory Mankiw）、诺贝尔经济学奖得主托马斯·萨金特（Thomas Sargent）和国际清算银行（BIS）前首席经济学家威廉·怀特（William White）组成。威廉·怀特指出，美联储执着于单一的2%通胀目标具有系统性危害。在金融危机前，由于低通胀表现，美联储长期将利率维持在极低水平，这虽然在名义上符合通胀目标，却直接催生了庞大的房地产资产泡沫并累积了高额债务，而债务泡沫在2008年的破裂最终带来了长期的通缩冲击。萨金特则从财政价格理论（Fiscal Theory of the Price Level: 主张通胀不仅受货币供应影响，更取决于政府的财政预算赤字与债务可持续性）出发，挑战了米尔顿·弗里德曼关于“通胀纯粹是货币现象”的经典论断。新冠疫情期间天量财政补贴直接引发高通胀的实证，印证了财政主导的力量。这意味着面对长期维持在6%以上的巨大财政赤字，美联储将被迫结构性提高名义中性利率，以应对财政赤字带来的深层通胀压力。
Original English Source
Um, okay. Now the last thing that last task force is the inflation framework task force and this is one that is you know I would say the most pivotal because inflation is kind of what the Fed does and so it's to revisit the title of the task force is to revisit how the Federal Reserve understands and responds to the drivers of inflation. Now on this panel you really have really three very very prominent people. You have Gregory Manua, a professor of economics. He is like super establishment and if you study economics in the US, you probably use a textbook written by him. Uh that's what I did. And so he's going to be someone who's more about, you know, more establishment, more about, you know, trade-offs between inflation and employment, Philips curve kind of stuff. And the other two people are two people who are very smart and a little bit more non-conventional but still very influential. You have Thomas Sergeant, economics professor, Nobel Lauret, and you have William White who has also been in central banks in the BS for some time and someone I did a podcast with with Jack Farley I think a couple years ago. Also a very smart and thoughtful person. So I guess I'll start with William William White. So whim white is talked talk talks a lot about how you know focusing on the 2% inflation target is a bit myopic uh because he is aware that outside of just this real economy stuff you have an entire financial economy uh that is eventually going to have an impact on the real economy because what would happen if you focus narrowly on say a 2% inflation target and ignore what happens in the financial economy is that you could eventually have huge buildups in financial excesses and debt that when it implodes impacts the real economy and it makes it more difficult for you to achieve your 2% inflation target. So looking back at the great financial crisis oh so inflation around 2% everything is okay and at the same time the interest rates were low enough to inflate a enormous housing bubble. So heading up into 2008, you know, inflation seemed fine, you know, on target. Everything's okay. But the interest rates were too low in that it were allowed a buildup of huge leverage in the system. And when that leverage imploded, it led to a period of low inflation. So it actually made it more difficult in the medium-term for the central bank to achieve their inflation target by ignoring them. Now, this also reminds me of the president in his first term when he he was like, "We should lower interest rates to like 1% or zero because we don't have inflation, right? So, if you were just targeting inflation with and ignoring everything else, that makes total sense. Oh, interest in inflation's at 2% when that just cut interest rates massively, right? We don't have inflation." But from the William White perspective is that yes, that's true. But if you kept interest rates too low, huge buildup in financial excess when that bust, you'll have uh deflation or low inflation in the medium term. So you got to be a more thoughtful on how you manage that 2% target between what's happening today and what could happen in the medium term. uh Thomas Sergeant also very smart person and he takes the view that we have to pay more attention to what happens in the fiscal situation rather than just a monetary situation when talking about inflation. So Milton Friedman famous mantist would tell you that inflation is basically a monetary phenomenon which historically speaking over the past 20 years has not been accurate. Now Thomas Sergeant would say that it's actually more of a fiscal situation which is what you would see during COVID for example tremendous fiscal spending contributed to a lot of inflation. So I think that would argue for a view of inflation that would take more into account to what's happening with things like the fiscal deficit, fiscal spending and maybe you would see that oh my god fiscal deficits that's you know 6% maybe we'll get even larger maybe that would argue for structurally higher interest rates uh to kind of reach that target. So again these are pretty unconventional thinkers and people I think that are have a more accurate view of how the world works. So in any case this suggests that there will be a departure a change in how um the Fed Fed is will will look at is is going to operate change more towards what how Kevin views the world and this is an ongoing process. I think the task force are slated to conclude by the end of this year. So we're not really going to see any big differences I I think until next year. Again the Fed is a very slow and conservative organization. So this is something that I think will happen uh over the course of of the next few years. So in any case, very very interesting and surprising. Well, not just interesting, a little bit surprising. So glad to see that there are changes that are happening at the Fed and maybe it would be even better. All right, so that's all I prepared for today. Talk to you guys next week.📌 文中提及的人物和组织
公司/组织: Federal Reserve