凯雷：2025美国降息周期下的经济、资本支出与估值图景研究报告（英文原版+译版）（15页）.pdf_三个皮匠报告

THE CLARIFYING ROLE OF RATE CUTS The time for rate cuts has arrived but don’t expect the Fed to deliver the scale of easinganticipated by some market participants. Talk of interest rate “normalization” often elides questions about what level of rates is “normal” inthe context of current fiscal deficits, an industrial capex boom, and rising trade frictions. As M&A volumes rebound, expect a symmetry to return to markets that had trivialized the riskof “overpaying” for the most sought-after assets during the easy money era. Hole coupled lighthearted self-deprecation with implicitreaffirmation that inflation was “transitory” after all; it simplyrequired a more muscular policy response than initiallysurmised. With what Powell described as a temporary“collision” between pandemic-distorted labor and productmarkets in the rearview mirror, base rates should decline tomorenormallevels. The time for rate cuts has arrived. This is not just theassessment of Chair Powell and the Federal Open MarketsCommittee (FOMC), but virtually all analysts. When inflationdeclines, a central bank that doesn’t cut rates is effectivelytightening policy – a development no one could recommendfor the U.S. economy at this point in the cycle. Elevated interest rates have depressed residentialinvestment and housing transactions, increased theeffective cost of inventories, durable goods, and otheritems that need to be financed, and stressed householdswith high consumer credit balances. Cumulatively, this hasresulted in a dramatic fall in job openings relative to thepool of job seekers and depressed input costs and pricingpower (Figure 1). The post-pandemic inflation shock hasended; monetary tightening has done its job. Before assuming this means cash and bond yieldsthat prevailed in 2019-20, it may prove useful to pondersome questions: Who today believes in a globalized economic future,where the free and frictionless flow of capital and goodsacross borders allows costs to decline geometrically asevery component, part, and stage of the production processbecomes its own contestable market, open to all competitorsirrespective of geography? Perhaps base rates will fall as swiftly as they rose. ChairPowell hinted at this possibility. His speech at Jackson What share of societal resources will be consumed bycombatting climate change now that nearly everyonerecognizes the problem cannot be solved without developingthe green industries and employment opportunities foreconomies to remain competitive (viable?) during and afterthe energy transition? Central banks do not set policy in a vacuum or under self-selected circumstances. The world has changed since 2019in ways likely to ensure that price pressures emerge beforeinterest rates approach levels that prevailed during thepre-pandemic era. THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK: ECONOMICRESILIENCE IN THE FACE OF HIGH RATES How has the capital, computational, and energy intensityof Artificial Intelligence (AI) transformed the net cash flowprofile of the digital businesses that previously accounted formost of the disinflationary rise in corporate savings? In 2020, the Fed signaled to market participants that baserates would be held near zero until 2024. When inflationrose to nearly 6% in June 2021, they reconsidered, indicatingthat two hikes might be necessary – in 2023. Observingthe equivalent of 21 hikes over the next 24 months seemedless probable than alien contact (Figure 2). But even moresurprising – and informative – has been the economy’sresilience in the face of it. Will past underinvestment in housing and defenseprocurement sharply reverse in light of migration-relatedshortages and heightened geopolitical risk? To what extent will massive fiscal deficits constrainmonetary policy in the years to come? Figure 2. 2022 AS INFLECTION POINT In late-2018, the U.S. economy didn’t seem able to withstandbase rates of 2.4%. The last hike of that cycle triggered astock market sell-off of nearly 20% and signs of a potentialmeltdown in credit markets. The Fed relented, cutting rates by75bps the following year. The post-pandemic surge in industrial investment hasmany origins.1 The 2021-22 “supply chain crisis” revealed the fragilityof globally distributed production networks, which hadbecome too complex, too stretched geographically,and too sequentially dependent, all while operatingwith inventory levels that provided no buffer for theslightest perturbation to the system.2Russia’s 2022invasion of Ukraine effectively ended management teams’indifference to the geographic origin of components,parts, and other inputs, accelerating their plans to assertgreater control over supply chains. When base rates blew through these levels in Q3-2022, itwas natural that professional forecasters would call for arecession; that’s the result yielded by models calibrated onpre-pandemic data. Silicon Valley Bank’s failure in March 2023all but confirmed these suspicions. Markets expected the Fedto retreat much as they had in