原标题：拜登赢了，然后呢？| 巴伦封面
来源：巴伦周刊
文 | 阿维·萨尔兹曼 (Avi Salzman)
编辑 | 康娟
本文为双语阅读，附英文原文
核心看点：
任何诉讼都不会逆转拜登赢得选举团胜利。
在任何一党都没有完全控制政府的时期，标准普尔500指数平均上涨60%。
选举结果将未来两年的经济和市场的图景指向了一个熟悉的情景：低增长、微薄的财政支持、宽松的货币政策和较低的企业税。
投资者的常规认知也可能出错：全面的“通货再膨胀交易”似乎也是可能的。
经济正在反转，股市严重高估，对于金融市场而言，这是一个极其危险的组合。
美国摇摆州在过去这周一直在清点剩余的选票，选票还没数完的时候，投资者似乎就已经认为，美国第46任总统将是他们在20世纪90年代和21世纪初就认识并广受欢迎的人——“美铁乔”(Amtrak Joe，拜登曾因每天乘美铁从威尔明顿到哥伦比亚特区上班而得到了这个绰号)。“美铁乔”相信渐进式改革，并经常支持被认为对华尔街有利的立法。
这是本周美股大幅上涨的原因之一——因为这一周的逐日计票结果显示，这位77岁的民主党人取得胜利、参议院仍掌握在共和党手中的可能性越来越大。标准普尔500指数周三（11月4日）上涨2.2% ，创下选举后当天的最佳表现，并在连涨4天后，有望创下4月以来的的最佳单周回报。股市上涨的另一个原因是，尽管特朗普总统试图在法庭上挑战计票结果，但投资者认为“有争议的选举”情景——选举结果几周内都不得而知——的可能性很低。
特朗普不服：逆转不了结果
美国东部时间周六上午11:30左右（北京时间周六晚11点：30左右），美联社宣布拜登拿下宾夕法尼亚州，这样拜登获得的总统选举人票超过了270张。拜登在内华达州、亚利桑那州和佐治亚州也领先，计票工作周六继续进行。到目前为止，特朗普的法律诉讼策略似乎不太可能推翻选举结果。
加州大学欧文分校(University of California，Irvine)的选举法专家里克 · 哈森(Rick Hasen)周四写道，“这些诉讼声称可能存在轻微违规行为，但只是小打小闹。”他认为，提起的任何诉讼“都不会逆转拜登赢得选举团胜利。”
分裂的政府：市场涨得更多
拜登是一位在民主党内年轻派力量推动下中偏左的制度主义者（institutionalist）。但根据目前的趋势，在接下来两年的大部分时间里，他都会被一位熟悉的对手——参议院多数党领袖米奇 · 麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)——推着向右偏。民主党在缅因州和蒙大拿州输掉了关键的参议院竞选，使他们重新夺回参议院席位的可能性降低。众议院似乎很可能仍掌握在民主党手中。即使特朗普最终获胜，也会有一个分裂的政府。
亚德尼研究公司(Yardeni Research)的数据显示，从历史上看，政府分裂对市场有利，在任何一方都没有完全控制的时期，标准普尔500指数平均上涨60%。在民主党掌握两院时，指数上升了56% ; 在共和党完全控制下，指数上升了35% 。
DataTrek Research的联合创始人尼古拉斯•科拉斯(Nicholas Colas)写道：“美国选民在大选中维持了华盛顿的权力平衡，即便在经济和社会条件已经足以创造更戏剧性的变化的情况下。”
中间派拜登：熟悉的剧本将上演？
摩根士丹利银行业分析师贝茜•格拉塞克(Betsy Graseck)认为，拜登是一位“中间派民主党人”。她写道：“如果他入主白宫，我们预计他的内阁成员会偏向中间派。”贝茜特别提到了“银行业的克星”、参议员伊莉莎白·华伦，认为她不会在潜在内阁成员候选人名单上。
万亿美元的财政刺激计划也可能被搁置。投资者原本预期民主党大获全胜的“蓝色浪潮”会带来经济增长、通货膨胀和更高的利率。随着这些预期消退，美国国债收益率下跌了。
从表面上看，选举结果将未来两年的经济和市场的图景指向了一个熟悉的情景：低增长、微薄的财政支持、宽松的货币政策和较低的企业税。这种背景下的操作剧本也很熟悉。在最近低增长和低利率的时代，投资者倾向于投资那些可以实现有机增长的科技股。科技行业也可能从分裂的政府中受益，因为这可能会降低拜登采取激烈反垄断行动的可能性。
科技股在进入选举前处于弱势地位。分析人士之前曾敦促投资者转向周期性投资，因为民调显示，民主党将赢得全面胜利，并大举投资以提振经济。无论拜登的新政是绿色(帮助可再生能源)还是混凝土灰色(帮助基础设施股票和原材料) ，投资者此前的持仓都在为更多的政府支出和更高的利率做准备。不过，美国国债收益率在大选前上升，大选后就急剧下降了。
挑战常规认知：两党政策趋同，更多刺激计划?
尽管如此，随着市场继续找到方向，仍然值得思考一下，投资者的常规认知可能在哪里出错。
首先，通胀和高收益率并非完全不可能。刺激计划的规模真的可能会超出预期。10月份的就业增长超过预期，但经济并没有站稳脚跟，1300万人将在12月31日失去失业救济金。一个月以来，新冠肺炎的新增病例一直在稳步攀升，周四（11月5日）创下了121888例的新纪录。参议院领袖麦康奈尔表示，当国会冬季会期重新开始时，推出新的经济刺激方案是他的首要任务。他最近的经济刺激计划是一项价值5000亿美元的“瘦身版法案”，但被民主党否决了。Evercore ISI 的经济学家Ernie Tedeschi 说，下一步的努力可能会大得多，尽管它可能不会一下子全部实现。
他写道: “在接下来的几个月中，几项法案累计的新增援助可能达到1.5万亿到2万亿美元，尽管我们不指望在今年年底前看到所有这些。显然，两党在理想方案上仍存在很大分歧，但他们在本周的选举之前不可能调整立场。”
事实上，此次大选可能会迫使共和党内部进行更广泛的重组，从而可能导致另一个出人意料的结果——有针对性的增税。欧亚集团(Eurasia Group)董事总经理、前麦康奈尔(McConnell)工作人员乔恩 · 利伯(Jon Lieber)告诉《巴伦周刊》 ，特朗普释放的民粹主义信号，以及他扩大选民基础、吸纳更多拉丁裔选民的做法，可能会导致共和党吸引到更广泛的选民。
“共和党能否从代表乡村俱乐部和商会的政党转变为一个多民族、工人阶级的联盟? ”他问道。
“如果确实如此，是否意味着你会看到他们在某些情况下接受高收入税的增加以及特朗普所支持的更加严格的移民和贸易政策？如果这种情况真的发生，那将是一个非常有意思的调整，这意味着共和党与民主党在政策协议上可能有更多的重叠。”
即使这种政治局面不会出现，全面的“通货再膨胀交易”似乎也是可能的。尽管科技股上涨，美国国债收益率在选举后第二天下跌，但随着拜登获胜的机会增加，第三天的涨势更为广泛。就连材料行业也涨了。Truist/SunTrust Advisory的首席市场策略师基思•勒纳(Keith Lerner)对《巴伦周刊》表示: “所以不只是科技股在涨。资金也在流入周期性股票。”
市场不确定性：小企业撑不到疫苗到来
投资者应该保持警觉的还有其它原因。首先，参议院仍然悬而未决。民主党在试图从共和党手中夺取控制权的过程中，似乎少了两个席位。但是，佐治亚州的胶着选情可能会迫使该州在明年1月举行两个席位的决选，参议院的命运仍然不确定。外汇经纪商Oanda的分析师爱德华•莫亚(Edward Moya)写道: “民主党似乎仍不太可能重掌参议院，但在完全剔除蓝色浪潮定价的过程中，华尔街可能会变得紧张起来。”
人们对本周大选的全部关注，转移了投资者对未来一年乃至更长时间内经济中最重要的变量的关注——新冠病毒。
莫亚写道，投资者开始意识到“新冠病毒在美国传播的严酷现实将令美国重新停工，令今年剩余时间的经济停摆”。“鉴于每天新增病例超过10万例，一些卫生专家预计，这个数字可能只需几周就会翻倍。停工是有可能的，因为如果我们看不到政策的改变，每天的新增病例数量可能会激增至50万。”
总部位于科罗拉多州的Janus Henderson Investors的全球资产配置主管阿什温•阿兰卡尔(Ashwin Alankar)表示: “市场目前正在忽视新冠病毒这一风险。”。
“忽视它并不意味着问题已经解决。”阿兰卡尔表示，科罗拉多州的医院正开始突破容量限制，这种情况可能导致停工和学校取消。
他认为，拜登将更好地应对疫情，即使现在疫情传播明显失控，至少“他会接受专家的意见”。
“特朗普淡化了病毒的严重性，”他补充说。“拜登不会淡化这一点。与特朗普执政时期相比，拜登上台后在应对流行病方面会好得多。”
尽管如此，接下来的几个月还是充满了忧虑。市场一直认为这种病毒只是一个暂时的问题，很快就会过去，让大多数企业能够恢复到疫情前的水平。从长期来看，多头在这一点上是正确的。但中期风险是，在大规模疫苗接种之前，许多苦苦挣扎的企业将被迫关门。截至10月，按照破产法第11章申请商业破产的数量比2019年增加了30%。如果没有更多的刺激措施，2021年商业破产和消费者破产都可能激增。
最佳投资策略：中性组合，防御对冲
总体而言，最佳策略可能是创建一个不偏袒任何一方的投资组合(在这种情况下，选择一些遭受疫情重创的股票和一些科技巨头) ，其中包括一个小小的缓冲区，以应对意外情况。(有关具体的方法，请关注《巴伦周刊》此前的相关文章和接下来的进一步分析。)
阿兰卡尔表示，投资者需要保护自己的投资组合，防止企业破产和其它风险的可能性上升。债券已经很昂贵了，现在看起来不像是明智的选择。他表示，最有效的方法是利用期权对冲尾部风险，即罕见但引人注目的事件。
对于那些不喜欢使用衍生工具的人，阿兰卡尔建议押注于日用消费品。他表示: “短期内，这些行业的主要产品和制药行业将保持防御姿态。全球布局的沃尔玛(WMT)、好市多(COST)、辉瑞(PFE)，这类行业的公司会给你一些缓冲。”
无论选举结果如何，没有人会真的指望，未来四年预示着开启两党合作的时代。但即使是那些喜欢立法者被束手束脚的投资者也开始说，是时候放松束缚了。
JonesTrading 首席市场策略师迈克尔•奥洛尔克(Michael o’ rourke)写道: “一般情况下，政治僵局状态拥有广泛拥趸，因为许多新政策都存在缺陷。不过，我们现在正处于全国性的医疗危机之中，我们的经济正在反转，股市严重高估。对于金融市场而言，这是一个极其危险的组合。”
以下为英文原文：
As the last remaining votes were counted in toss-up states this past week, investors seemed to think that the 46th president of the United States would be the man they knew and mostly liked in the 1990s and early 2000s—Joe Biden, the old Amtrak Joe, who reached across the aisle, believed in incremental change, and often supported legislation considered favorable to Wall Street.
It’s one reason that the stock market rose sharply during the week, as the day-by-day vote count made it increasingly likely that the 77-year-old Democrat would pull off a victory and the Senate would remain in Republican hands. The S&P 500 index rose 2.2% on Wednesday, its best-ever result for the day after an election, and was on track for the best weekly returns since April after four days of gains. Stocks were also rallying because investors put a low probability on a “contested election” scenario—in which the results remain unknown for weeks—despite President Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the vote count in court.
Around 11:30 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Biden, giving him more than the 270 electoral votes needed for the presidency. Biden was also leading in Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia as counting continued Saturday. So far, Trump’s legal strategy does not appear likely to overturn the result.
“These lawsuits are tinkering on the edges, claiming potentially minor infractions,” wrote Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, on Thursday. None of the lawsuits filed “would reverse any electoral college win for Biden.”
Biden is an institutionalist who has been pushed left by the youthful energy in his party. But based on current trends, he would spend much of the next two years being pushed right by a familiar sparring partner—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Democrats lost key Senate races in Maine and Montana, making it less likely that they’ll retake the Senate. The House of Representatives appears likely to stay in Democratic hands. Even if Trump ultimately wins, there will be a split government.
Divided government has historically been good for markets, with the S&P 500 rising 60% on average during periods when neither party had full control, according to Yardeni Research. Under Democratic control, the index has risen 56%; under Republicans, it has risen 35%.
“Election 2020 was about American voters keeping a balance of power in Washington even when economic/social conditions were ripe to create more dramatic change,” wrote Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.
Betsy Graseck, a Morgan Stanley analyst who covers banks, considers Biden a “centrist Democrat.”
“If he wins the White House, we expect his cabinet to skew to centrists,” she wrote. In particular, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, nemesis of the banking industry, she adds, is “not on the likely list for a potential cabinet position.”
A trillion-dollar fiscal stimulus plan could be off the table, too. Investors had expected stimulus under a blue wave Democratic sweep to lead to economic growth, inflation, and higher interest rates. As those expectations waned, Treasury yields fell.
On its face, the results point to a familiar scenario for the economy and markets in the next two years—low growth, slim fiscal support, accommodative monetary policy, and low corporate taxes. The playbook for that backdrop is familiar, too. In recent eras of low growth and low rates, investors tend to do well with tech stocks that can grow organically. Tech could also benefit from a split government, because it could make Biden less likely to take dramatic antitrust action.
Tech stocks came into the election on a weak footing. Analysts had urged investors to shift into cyclical names, as polls suggested that Democrats would earn sweeping victories and spend heavily to boost the economy. Whether Biden’s New Deal was green (helping renewable energy) or concrete-gray (helping infrastructure stocks and materials), investors were positioned for more government spending and higher interest rates. Treasury yields had risen before the election, and dropped sharply afterwards.
Still, as the market continues to find its direction, it’s worth considering where the conventional wisdom could go wrong for investors.
For one thing, inflation and higher yields aren’t entirely off the table. The size of the stimulus could indeed be larger than expected. October jobs growth beat expectations, but the economy is by no means on stable footing, and 13 million people are set to lose unemployment benefits on Dec. 31. New Covid-19 cases have been steadily climbing for a month, reaching a new record of 121,888 on Thursday. Sen. McConnell has said that a new stimulus deal is his top priority when Congress returns for its winter session. His most recent stimulus package—blocked by Democrats—was a “skinny bill” worth $500 billion. Evercore ISI economist Ernie Tedeschi says that the next effort could be a lot bigger, though it may not arrive all at once.
“Over the course of the next several months and multiple bills, that additional aid could reach $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, though we would not expect to see all of that by calendar year’s end,” he wrote. “Obviously, the two parties are still far apart in their ideal packages, but the election may have ossified their positions before this week.”
In fact, the election may force a broader realignment within the Republican Party that could lead to another unexpected outcome—targeted tax hikes. Trump’s populist message and expansion of his base to include more Latino voters could lead to Republicans appealing to a broader array of voters, Jon Lieber, managing director of Eurasia Group and a former McConnell staff member, told Barron’s.
“Can the Republican Party move from being the party of country clubs and the Chamber of Commerce to being a multiethnic, working-class coalition?” he asked. “And, if they do, does that mean you see them embrace, in certain cases, high-income tax increases” as well as the more restrictive immigration and trade policies that Trump embraced? “That would be a really interesting realignment if it happens, and it means there’s potentially more overlap for policy agreement with Democrats.”
Even if that political scenario doesn’t play out, a general reflation trade does seem possible. While tech stocks rose and Treasury yields fell the day after the election, the next day showed a much broader-based rally as Biden’s chances of victory increased. Even materials caught a bid. “So it’s just not technology leading,” Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist/SunTrust Advisory, told Barron’s. “Money is also flowing into cyclicals.”
There are other reasons that investors should stay on their toes. For one thing, the Senate remains up in the air. Democrats appear to have fallen two seats short in their attempt to take control from Republicans. But tight margins in Georgia will probably force runoff elections for two seats there in January, with the fate of the Senate in the balance. “It still seems unlikely for the Democrats to pull a Senate comeback, but Wall Street might grow nervous in completely pricing out a blue wave,” wrote Edward Moya, analyst at currency broker Oanda.
All of the attention on the election this week has distracted investors from the most important force in the economy over the next year and possibly much longer—the coronavirus.
Investors are waking up to the “harsh reality that coronavirus spread in the U.S. will bring back lockdowns that will cripple economic activity for the rest of the year,” Moya wrote. “With new cases coming in over 100,000 per day, some health experts anticipate it might only take a few weeks to double. Lockdowns are likely, as daily cases could surge to 500,000 if we see no change in policy.”
“Covid is a risk that the market is just ignoring right now,” said Ashwin Alankar, Head of Global Asset Allocation at Janus Henderson Investors. “Ignoring it doesn’t mean it’s resolved.” Alankar, based in Colorado, said his state’s hospitals were starting to push up against capacity limits, a scenario that could lead to lockdowns and school cancellations.
Alankar says Biden will better manage the country’s virus response, even though the spread is now clearly “out of control.” At the very least, “he’ll embrace the experts,” Alankar said.
“Trump downplayed the severity of the virus,” he added. “Biden is not going to downplay this. We’re in much better hands when it comes to the pandemic with Biden than under Trump.”
Still, the next several months are fraught. The market has viewed the virus as a temporary problem that will pass, allowing most businesses to rebound back to prepandemic levels. In the long term, bulls are right about that. But there’s a medium-term risk that many struggling businesses will be forced to close in the gap between today and a mass vaccination. Through October, Chapter 11 commercial bankruptcies were up 30% from 2019, and both commercial and consumer bankruptcies could spike in 2021 without more stimulus.
Overall, the best strategy may be to create a portfolio that doesn’t pick sides—in this case, some Covid-battered stocks and some tech stalwarts—and that includes a small buffer for the unexpected. (For a more detailed approach, see “How to Position for Uncertainty—and Gridlock.”)
Alankar says investors need to protect their portfolios from a potential rise in corporate bankruptcies, as well as other risks. Bonds, already pricey, don’t look like a smart bet now. The most effective way is to use options to hedge against tail risk—rare but dramatic events—he says.
For those uncomfortable using derivatives, Alankar suggests betting on consumer staples. “In the short run, staples and pharmaceuticals—those types of sectors—will retain their defensive posture,” he said. “The Walmart s [ticker: WMT] of the world, the Costco s [COST] of the world, the Pfizer s [PFE] of the world, those types of industries will give you some cushion.”
However the election winds up, no one honestly expects the next four years to herald an era of bipartisanship. But even investors who like it when lawmakers’ hands are tied have started to say it’s time to loosen the binds.
“In general, we are massive fans of gridlock because so much of new policy is flawed,” wrote Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading. “That said, we are in the midst of a pandemic, a national health crisis, and we have an economy that is rolling over and a significantly overvalued equity market. That is an extremely dangerous mix for financial markets.”
