最近，熊市肆虐華爾街、倫敦或巴黎金融市場的消息不絕于耳。

美國股市的疲軟，年初創歷史新低的油價以及中國經濟的繼續下滑，都為唱衰論分析師提供了大把證據。

在唱衰者中，興業銀行策略師艾伯特?愛德華茲可謂是無出其右。近些年來，他對世界經濟充滿了負面看法，而且最近發生的一些事情更讓他對自己的觀點深信不疑，即世界正走向災難，而且也將殃及股價。股價會下跌多少？愛德華茲預計，美國股市最多可能會下跌75%，高于金融危機期間慘不忍睹的62%的跌幅。

愛德華茲在最近發布的研究紀要中指出，自上次金融危機以來，美聯儲通過大規模購買債券來支撐股價、刺激新興市場增長，而全球經濟則對此舉產生了依賴性。愛德華茲在評論美聯儲降低長期利率的舉措時寫道，“商品泡沫和隨之而來的美國頁巖氣投資熱都是美聯儲量化寬松的產物?！睈鄣氯A茲稱，既然美聯儲已經停止購買債券而且已轉向加息，自上次金融危機以來出現的資產價格虛假增長現象將不復存在?！叭缃?，隨著高增長泡沫的破滅，繁榮的假象也將煙消云散?！?/p>

與其他愈發悲觀的分析師一樣，愛德華茲援引了中國最近發生的一些事情，來證明其“大事不妙”的觀點。他認為，中國的決策者們目前正處于絕境中。他指出，中國的貨幣實際上已被過分高估。盡管如此，如果中國為了讓人民幣貶值而采取過激措施，那么中國富人將從經濟中撤走更多的資金，而這也將導致局勢的進一步惡化。

此外，由于中國制造業近些年來在新增產能方面的投入過多，他們的出路只有一條：為爭奪不斷縮減的全球貿易市場而削減價格。但是，此舉將導致通縮。愛德華茲說：“這種外來的低價壓力將導致西方制造業的凋零。”盡管制造業在美國經濟中的占比很小，但制造業的不景氣最終也將拖累服務行業。

這篇分析文章稱，上述現象最終將導致新一輪的經濟衰退，隨后，央行將采取激進措施，遏制股價的下跌和經濟的負增長。但是，由于當前的利率基本已見底，而且美聯儲的資產規模在上一輪的刺激舉措中因購買債券而大增，因此，面對愛德華茲所謂的長期熊市，美聯儲也將是無計可施。愛德華茲稱，最后，股價的暴跌將導致標普500指數下探至550點，較近期的峰值（2015年夏天達到的峰值，剛超過2100點）下跌75%。

值得注意的是，愛德華茲多年來一直都在宣揚類似的觀點。2010年，他曾稱標普指數將跌至450點，但此事并未發生。如果投資者聽信了他的建議，他們便會錯過股市歷史上最為耀眼的輝煌——自那之后，標普500指數上漲幅度超過了80%。盡管最近有所下跌，但標普500如今仍處于略低于1900點的水平。

當然，這并不意味著愛德華茲的觀點就是錯誤的。其分析的正確之處在于，全球股市完全依賴于央行的刺激舉措，而且，當這些刺激舉措消失后，股價必然會以某種形式觸底。然而，如果你無法預測這一事件發生的時間，那么這篇分析文章就沒有什么實質性的意義。它實際上成為了對公共政策的抱怨，而不是令人信服的投資建議。

盡管如此，中國最近發生的事情也讓高頻經濟公司卡爾?維恩伯格這類牛市派分析師一改往日的鎮定。在他們發給客戶的紀要中，他將最近油價近40%的同比降幅稱之為是“不可想象的”，并提醒讀者，當經濟中的過剩產能累積到無以復加的地步時，全球的經濟衰退將拉開帷幕。

全球石油和商品市場的情況似乎和上述情形相吻合。因此，即便經濟不會惡化到愛德華茲所描述的那種程度，但這并不意味著投資者可以高枕無憂了。（財富中文網）

譯者：馮豐

校對：詹妮

You don’t have to listen very hard to hear the bears growling on Wall Street, London, or Paris these days. Indeed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down another 300 points on Wednesday to just under 16,200

With the U.S. stock market sagging, oil off to its worst start ever, and the China’s economy continuing to deteriorate, bearish analysts have a wealth of evidence to point to.

And they don’t come much more bearish than Albert Edwards, strategist at SociétéGénérale. He’s not had much nice to say about the global economy in years, and recent events have only hardened his convictions that the world is headed for disaster, and will take the prices of equities down with it. How much? Edwards predicts the U.S. stock market could plunge as much as 75%. That would be worse than during the financial crisis, in which stocks from their peak to trough dropped a brutal 62%.

In a research note published Wednesday, Edwards argued that ever since the last financial crisis, the global economy has been dependent on the Federal Reserve’s massive bond buying program to prop up equity prices and stimulate growth in emerging markets. “A commodity bubble and the resultant U.S. shale investment boom were all consequences of the Fed’s QE,” Edwards writes, referring to the U.S. central bank’s efforts to lower long-term interest rates. Now that the Fed has stopped buying bonds and has actually moved to raise rates, the artificial growth in asset prices that we’ve seen since the last financial crisis will come undone, according to Edwards. “The illusion of of prosperity is shattered as boom now turns to bust,” he writes.

Like other analysts who are increasingly bearish, Edwards marshals the recent events in China as evidence that something is seriously wrong. He argues that Chinese policy makers are in an impossible bind. Their currency is actually overvalued, he argues. Nonetheless, too bold an attempt to devalue the yuan would lead wealthy Chinese to remove even more of their money from the economy, destabilizing the situation further.

What’s more, the Chinese manufacturing sector, which has been over-investing in additional production for years now, has but one option: slash prices as it fights over a shrinking pie of global trade. And that’s going to lead to deflation. “The western manufacturing sector will choke under this imported deflationary tourniquet,” says Edwards. And even though manufacturing makes up just a fraction of the United States economy, the struggles of the manufacturing sector will eventually infect the services industries as well.

The end result of all of this will be another recession, followed by aggressive central bank action to fight falling equity prices and negative growth, according to this analysis. But with interest rates already so low and the Fed’s balance sheet already inflated from all the bonds it bought during its last stimulus efforts, there is little the central bank can do to stop what Edwards calls a secular bear market. The result, according to Edwards, will be a horrific drop that will leave the S&P 500 down 75%, to 550, from its most recent peak, hit last summer, of just over 2,100.

It should be pointed out that Edwards has been making similar calls for years. Back in 2010, he called for the S&P to collapse to 450. It didn’t. And had investors taken his advice then, they would have missed out on one of the greatest stock market booms in history—the S&P 500 has in fact soared more than 80% since then, and now, even with the recent dip, stands at just under 1,900. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Edwards is wrong. It’s plausible that Edwards is correct in his analysis that global equity markets are hopelessly dependent on central bank stimulus, and that prices will somehow, someway crash down to earth when that stimulus is removed.But if you can’t tell investors when this will happen, that analysis isn’t very meaningful. It amounts to complaints over public policy rather than sound investment advice.

That said, even more bullish analysts like Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics are sounding rattled by the events taking place of late in China. In a note to clients yesterday, he referred to the recent decline in oil prices of nearly 40% from a year ago as “the unthinkable,” and reminded readers that global recessions are typically triggered when an economy builds up excess capacity that must be unwound. Global oil and commodities markets appear to fit this description, and so even if things don’t get s bad as Edwards claims they will, that doesn’t mean that there are clear skies ahead for investors.