经济周刊：哇，第一季度真不错

William Blair Once again, we are ending a quarter that looks remark-ably different from how it started. This past quarter hasbeen dominated by three major thematic events: 1) spec-ulation about AI’s impact on computer software andSaaScompanies in particular; 2) yet another war in the Middle East; and 3) fears that dislocation in some parts of the pri-vate credit market could prove to be a systemic threat tothe broader financial system.In thisEconomics Weekly, At the start of the year, much of the market discussionwas taken up by who would be appointed as the nextFed chair, how many rate cuts we could expect to see Exacerbating this decline was undoubtedly the fact thatthe P/E multiple for the software index at the start of thequarter was a lofty 40x earnings. The multiple currently Investors seem to be more comfortable with this leveland are pausing to take a more objective view of what anAI future might actually mean for the industry. What weare discovering that software is far from dead, thoughgrowth and revenue models will require further tweaking From the end of January, however, the market started toreassess how much of an adverse impact AI was likelyto have on the software industry. The threat began withNovember’s release of the AI agent OpenClaw, whichmany people seem to have spent their December holidaystinkering with. They soon discovered that AI agents caneffectively be viewed as personal technology butlers. AIagents could be a type of private concierge service that The U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran on Febru-ary 28. It is easy to see Israel’s goal in this conflict—theelimination of a major nuclear and terrorist threat on itsdoorstep; however, it has been less clear what the U.S.ultimately hopes to achieve here: the elimination of thenuclear threat, the elimination of its military capabilities,the removal of a constant fomenter of terrorist activity, Furthermore, if AI agents are going to enhance produc-tivity and require fewer white-collar workers tappinginformation into keyboards, the result will likely meanfewer seats to fill. For software companies that charge on later, the result has been a 24% decline in the S&P 500software index over the first quarter—the largest quar-terly drop since fourth quarter 2008, when we were in the The importance of the Strait of Hormuz has been put intostark relief this past quarter, as 20% of the world’s energyresources pass through it, or equivalent to approximately The war and the strait’s closure have been a massive glob-al supply shock. Those first and foremost being impacted Richard de Chazal, CFA +44 20 7868 4489 William Blair other areas). These measures cushion the shock to con-sumers, who then do little to reduce demand. The trade-off here is that while there is less immediate demanddestruction, prices are likely to stay higher for longer and are Iran and countries in the Middle East that have beenattacked by the Iranians, and who also depend on rev- The second layer of global disruption has been for theSoutheast Asian countries, including Australia, Pakistan,and China, that depend on clear passage through the Most economists view energy price shocks as a tax onconsumption and a relative price change—as oil pricesrise, consumers are forced to spend more on gasoline andhave less to spend on other more discretionary goods and To help illustrate just how disruptive this is, exhibit 2shows the global production and consumption of crudeoil and other liquid fuels. When production declines butdemand remains the same, consumers face two near-termchoices: reduce consumption or pay higher prices. Overthe longer term, consumers can opt for more energy ef- For supply shocks to be inflationary, typically two thingsneed to happen: either the price increases destabilize in-flationary expectations, which causes workers to demandhigher wages and sets in motion a wage-price spiral,and/or governments respond to the shock with stimulus,which promotes and extends the inflationary shock. Spain Central banks, meanwhile, will similarly often attempt todo nothing and look through the shock. Again, they knowthat if energy prices act as a tax on consumption, priceswill eventually move lower if those prices are not sup-ported by fiscal measures. What they cannot do is start Hence, for central bankers, step one must necessarily be toaddress the higher inflation (i.e., by sounding more hawk-ish and dampening any increases in inflationary expecta-tion). They can then proceed to the second step of actually The fact that production has been outpacing consump-tion for the last few years has meant that some countries(such as China) have been building large energy stock- Unfortunately, it is not possible to skip step one andjump straight to step two, as some are proposing. This iswhat makes dealing with stagflationary growth shocks anightmare scenario for the policymakers, as their initial Those Southeast Asian countries that may not have thefiscal space to