摩根大通资产与财富管理CEO Mary C. Erdoes：投资者在2023年应留意的7个要点

在全球财富管理论坛2023年北京年会上的演讲

非常感谢全球资产管理论坛北京年会的主办方邀请摩根大通以及我本人参加此次重要盛会。

我很荣幸今天和大家进行交流。我是摩根资产与财富管理行政总裁 Mary Erdoes，我谨代表摩根全体人员感谢大家今天邀请我们参与其中。 

我多希望我能现场参与此次会议。事实上，到访中国将是我今年最重要的优先事项之一。今年1 月，在虎年即将结束之时，我们收到了关于获批 100% 控股上投摩根的好消息。上投摩根是我们于 2004 年在上海合资创立的基金管理公司。我很期待与在中国的同事一起庆祝这一关键里程碑。 

过去一个世纪以来，我们公司一直对于中国的业务感到骄傲，并期待未来更多的发展。我们非常自豪的是，早在1921年，摩根大通的前身 Equitable Eastern Banking Corporation就在上海成立了第一家分行，为本地和海外机构客户提供金融服务。  

在过去的100年里，从David Rockefeller的多次访问到现在Jamie Dimon大力投资这个地区，我们对于能继续协助世界各地的客户投资中国市场感到自豪，并非常感谢许多中国客户的信任并委托我们协助他们投资于世界各地的市场。我们非常感激这些合作机会，并期待未来继续帮助中国内外的客户管理辛苦积累的资产，为他们争取更好的长期收入。

当我们迎接兔年之时，我们亦盼望这是和平与繁荣的一年——这正是兔子的象征。我们希望这也带来创造财富的机会。

在去年的全球资产管理论坛上海苏河湾峰会上，我对2022年的市场展望提出了八个观点，我认为是所有投资者都应该时刻关注的。今年，同样地，我想分享投资者在2023年应该留意的7个要点： 

一、金融资产重新定价。资产价格和政策利率之间的巨大反差终于收窄。这成为不盈利的创新公司重新定价的催化剂，然后蔓延到整个股票市场。进入2023年，一些公开估值回到了疫情前的水平，而许多私募股权和私募信贷市场尚未重新定价。预计我们将在2023年早期看到适度的调整，随着增长放缓，估值将接近长期平均水平。我们也预期一些其它趋势持续，包括实物资产的增长将超过数字资产，传统能源超过可再生能源，一些年轻且尚未盈利的公司（YUC）将努力在新时代顺应市场要求开始盈利。 

二、美联储和通货膨胀。我们预计通胀压力将在2023年消退，使得美联储可以在5%的水平暂停加息，适度观望，并预计10年期美国国债收益率将长期保持在4%以下。从10年期通胀保值债券（TIPS）市场可见，通胀预期将从高点回落，因此希望美联储能够在有史以来最快的加息周期之后宣告胜利。如果通胀像市场预期的那样立刻降温，那是不寻常的，因为通常发达市场通胀飙升需要更长的时间才能消退。短期内，通胀方面大家避而不谈的话题是住房，从长远来看，将是能源转型的影响。

三、全球化逐步消退。全球化进程正在倒退。这并不意味着全球化将崩溃，只是从顶峰状态回落。区域贸易和跨境投资在新冠疫情后有所反弹，目前势头良好。在贸易项下，随着全球旅行重启，服务业有恢复的空间。此外，货物贸易下跌的部分原因是2011年至2020年的大宗商品价格下降，而不是贸易量下降；货物贸易额与峰值相比的降幅有40%可能是国际供应链重新本地化的结果。 

四、积极投资的重要性。央行的金融压制始于2009年经济衰退之后，导致风险溢价崩溃，股票和风险信贷市场的相对估值和利差下降。在欧洲尤其如此，欧洲央行购买（各机构评级结果不统一）接近垃圾评级的债券，这缩小了好公司和坏公司之间的信贷利差，并且使资不抵债的公司依赖各种形式的流动性继续维持业务。因此，在这十年的金融压制中，普通股票管理人和对冲基金管理人难以跑赢，这并不奇怪。如果我们现在回到一个正实际利率的市场环境，价值导向的投资组合经理比过去将遇到更为理想的选股和选债的条件。

五、金融科技监管。金融科技公司出现了监管浪潮，与传统银行相比，金融科技公司已经回吐了新冠时期的所有收益。2022 年 11 月，美国财政部发布了一份长达 128 页的报告，呼吁对金融科技监管套利、数据隐私、风险控制、定价透明度、混合商业和银行活动、欺诈和掠夺性定价等问题加强监管与执法。此外，货币监理署（OCC）将在2023年初建立一个金融科技监督部门。在区块链和加密资产的新闻头条中，我们应该清楚地区分二者：一是区块链技术，这旨在提高效率并降低现有证券的交易、处理和托管的执行成本，二是加密货币，是指拥有、交易、投资和出借各种投机性的“代币”——摩根大通在前者有少量投资，但后者几乎没有。

六、全球固定收益产品为寻求收益的投资者带来机会。基于我们的展望，自2023年初起，部分固定收益产品会更具吸引力。例如，我们偏好中等久期的美国市政债券、合格抵押债券、美欧中政府债券、资产支持票据、浮动利率票据等，而不是高收益债等产品，因为没有足够的利差来证明后者风险的合理性。即使经济增长速度慢于预期，我不认为金融行业目前的偿债风险和系统性风险能与2009年时相比。不过，需要谨慎地指出，虽然我们看到有些固定收益市场的投资价值，但市场深度和流动性接近历史低位。因此，特别是在美联储缩表或重演1995年和2011年国债限额谈判时，我们可能会在2023年看到“小型闪崩”和高波动。

今天，我非常荣幸能够在此发言。感谢大家抽出宝贵时间，希望兔年能为所有人带来无比的力量、活力和成长。

Thank you so much to the organizers of the Global Asset Management Forum’s Annual Conference in Beijing for asking me and J.P. Morgan to be part of this very important event.

I wish I could be there in person, and in fact visiting China will be one of my most important priorities this year. As we close the Year of Tiger in January, we have received the great news of the regulatory approval on our 100% acquisition of China International Fund Management, the local Fund Management Company in Shanghai that we co-founded in 2004. I am looking forward to celebrating this critical milestone with my colleagues onshore. 

Our firm has proudly done business in China for the past century and we look forward to many more centuries to come. We are proud to have established our business in China in 1921, when the predecessor firm of JP Morgan, Equitable Eastern Banking Corporation, established its first branch in Shanghai, providing financial services to local and foreign institutional clients.  

And for these last 100 years, from the many visits of David Rockefeller to today’s countless investments in the region by Jamie Dimon, we are proud to continue to help our clients from around the world to invest into China and tremendously grateful for the many Chinese clients who entrust us to help them access other parts of the world. We thank you all for this business partnership and we look forward to continuing to help clients inside and outside of China to help manage their hard earned assets for long term income and prosperity, for many years to come.

As we welcome the year of the Rabbit, we hope for a year of peace and prosperity -- something the Rabbit symbolizes. And we hope that translates to good financial fortune as well.

In last year’s Global Asset Management Forum Shanghai Summit, I gave 8 points for the year of 2022 in the markets that I thought all investors should keep at the forefront of their minds. This year, similarly, I would like to share 7 suggestions on areas that investors should be keeping tracking in the year of 2023: 

1) THE REPRICING OF FINANCIAL ASSETS. The extraordinary gap between asset prices and policy rates is finally closing. This was the catalyst for the repricing of profitless innovation, which then spread broadly to the entire equity market. As 2023 begins some public valuations are back to pre-COVID levels, while many private equity and private credit markets have yet to reprice, I suspect we will see a modest correction early in 2023 that brings valuations closer to long-term averages as the growth slows down. Some other trends we might expect to continue include physical assets outpacing digital assets, traditional energy outpacing renewables, and some Young, Unprofitable Companies (YUCs) will be trying to become now profitable in the new era as the market requires them to be. 

2) THE FED AND INFLATION. We expect inflation pressures to subside in 2023 and allow the Fed to pause at 5% to see where things go from there, and expect the 10 year Treasury to remain below 4% over the long term. Inflation expectations derived from 10 year TIPS markets are back down from their peak, so hopefully the Fed should be able to claim victory on that front after the fastest tightening cycle on record. If inflation cools as much as the market expects, it would be quite unusual as the average developed market inflation spike takes longer to recede. The elephant in the room on inflation in short term will be housing, and in the longer term to watch will be the impact of energy transition. 

3) GRADUAL DECLINE OF GLOBALIZATION. The unwinding of maximum globalization is underway. This does not refer to the collapse of globalization but a recession from its peak. Regional trades and cross-border investment are alive and well after rebounding from COVID. Within trade, services have room to recover with a resumption of global travel. Furthermore, part of the traded goods decline reflects declining commodity prices from 2011 to 2020 rather than declining trade volumes; only 40% of the decline in traded goods values since the peak levels might be the result of reshoring international supply chains. 

4) PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVE MANAGERS. Financial repression by Central Banks began after the 2009 recession and led to collapsing risk premia and falling relative valuation and spreads in equities and risky credit markets. This was particularly true in Europe where the ECB bought bonds on the edge of junk (split-rated), which narrowed credit spreads between good companies and bad, and where liquidity in all forms kept insolvent companies alive.  It’s therefore no surprise that the average equity manager and hedge fund manager struggled to outperform during this decade of financial repression. If we are now in fact heading back to a world of positive real interest rates, value-oriented portfolio managers may be facing more positive stock-picking and bond-picking conditions than they have seen in some time.

5)  REGULATIONS IN FINTECH. There’s a regulatory wave coming to Fintech, which has given back all COVID-era gains vs traditional banks. In November 2022, the US Treasury released a 128-page report calling for greater oversight and enforcement of issues related to Fintech regulatory arbitrage, data privacy, risk controls, pricing transparency, mix of commerce & banking, fraud and predatory pricing. In addition, the OCC will establish a Fintech oversight unit early in 2023. As the hot topics on headlines around blockchain and crypto, we should be clearly differentiated in two ways: (a) blockchain technology designed to try and improve efficiency and reduce execution costs in the trading, processing and custody of existing securities, and (b) crypto refers to owning, trading, investing and lending in various speculative “tokens”-  which JP Morgan has invested a little in the former, but almost none in the latter.

6) GLOBAL FIXED INCOME FOR YIELD ORIETNED INVESTORS. Given our outlook, certain fixed income options are looking interesting since the beginning of 2023. For example, we prefer intermediate duration US municipals, conforming mortgage bonds, US-Europe-China government bonds, asset backed paper, floating rate notes all of those over the likes of High Yield which there’s not enough spread yet to justify the risk. I don’t think that financial sector solvency and systemic risks that we see are comparable to 2009 even if growth slows more than we expected. On a cautious note, we will see value in some fixed income markets, market depth and liquidity are close to very low levels. As a result, we could potentially see “little flash crashes”  and high volatility in 2023, particularly as the Fed shrinks its balance sheet or if there’s a disruptive replay of 1995 & 2011 when we got into debt limit negotiations of United States of America.

7) Last but certainly not least point 7 – EFFECTIVE RISK MANAGEMENT. Recent events of the market has reminded us the banking is not a commodity business. We at JP Morgan always strive to do first class business in a first class way. We’ve been doing this for over 200 years, and it’s a core of what we do. You can count on our fortress balance sheet to weather the storm.