一張圖說明美國經濟爲何可能走向衰退

It’s been a pretty miserable couple of weeks for the U.S. economy.

近幾周，美國經濟表現相當慘淡。

Last week, the Commerce Department announced that GDP growth in the first quarter of 2015 fell dramatically to 0.2% on an annualized basis. But after new data released Tuesday showed that the trade deficit in March was far higher than economists had expected, it’s likely that GDP in the first quarter actually shrank.

之前美國商務部宣佈的數據顯示，2015年一季度GDP初值環比僅增長0.2%。但隨後發佈的新數據顯示，三月份美國貿易赤字要遠比經濟學家預期的更高，因此一季度GDP實際上有可能是萎縮的。

For now, most economists expect that the economy will bounce back in the second quarter of 2015, just like it did last year, and that overall real growth will beat last year’s performance of 2.4%.

目前，大多數經濟學家預計，美國經濟將在第二季度和去年一樣出現反彈，GDP全年實際增長率將超過去年的2.4%。

But a new analysis from Jodi Gunzberg, global head of commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, argues against this consensus, and instead makes the case that we’re headed for another berg points to the outstanding performance of commodities in April as measured by the S&P GSCI index, which gained 11.1% that month, the 19th best month since the index first starting tracking these commodities back in 1970. Two groups of commodities–energy and industrial metals–did particularly well, rising by a combined 12.67% in April. It’s not common for these two groups of commodities to surge in value at the same time. According to Gunzberg, the two indices have only moved in tandem about 30% of the time since 1983. And there have only been 12 months in which the energy and industrial metals sectors have risen more than they did in April:

不過，這個觀點遭到了標普道瓊斯指數公司大宗商品部全球負責人朱迪o岡茲伯格的反駁，他在一份新的分析報告中表明，新一輪衰退即將到來。岡茲伯格指出，以標普高盛商品指數來衡量，大宗商品表現出色，該指數4月上漲了11.1%，漲幅在1970年該指數創立以來的所有月份中可排到第19位。其中，能源和工業金屬兩類大宗商品的表現尤其突出，四月份平均增長12.67%。這兩類商品在同一時期出現價格激增並不常見。據岡茲伯格說，自1983年以來，只有大約30%的時間裏能源指數與工業金屬指數的表現是同步的，而漲幅高於今年四月的情況，過去幾十年裏只有12個月出現過。（如下圖）

As you can see, the months in which these sectors did well are clustered around times leading up to a recession. Gunzberg argues that this is because firms that rely on these materials—like oil and natural gas in the energy sector, and copper and aluminum in the metals sector—start buying up these materials in bulk when they sense their performance is about to start waning. “When you look at broad economic cycles,” says Gunzberg “equities lead the cycle, while commodities are on the cycle.”

可以看出，兩類商品均表現較好的月份往往集中在經濟衰退前。岡茲伯格認爲，這是因爲依賴這些原材料（如能源類的石油、天然氣和金屬類的銅、鋁）的企業，通常在感覺業績要下滑時開始大量購進原材料，他說：“如果多觀察幾輪經濟週期就會發現，股市先於經濟週期而動，而大宗商品則與經濟週期基本同步。”

In other words, as the market nears a top, and companies are flush with cash and capital, but short on faith in their future performance, they start to hoard the basic commodities that power the global economy. But eventually their performance takes a turn for the worse, and so does demand for raw materials.

換言之，市場接近頂部，企業現金和資本也很充足的情況下，如果對未來業績缺乏信心，企業就會囤積對全球經濟發展較重要的基礎原材料——大宗商品。但隨着他們的業績惡化，市場對原材料的需求最終也會減弱。

Of course, Gunzberg’s data goes back by just 30 years, and it predicts only three recessions. It’s possible that these data only point to strange coincidences rather than something with real predictive power. But with the U.S. in its 70th month of economic expansion–the sixth longest the U.S. economy has had since 1850–the slowdown in the first quarter may very well be more than just a blip.

當然，岡茲伯格的數據僅包括過去30年，涉及的經濟衰退也只有三次。有可能出現這樣的數據只是偶然的巧合，並不能作爲預測的依據。但眼下美國經濟已連續第70個月增長，持續時間已達到1850年以來的有史第6長，這麼看來第一季度的經濟增長放緩很可能不僅是個偶發異常現象。