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  • This graph makes a lot of people nervous

  • Why?

  • It appears to predict that America is about to go into recession

  • It's based on an economic indicator called the yield curve

  • So if you care about the economy, you should probably care about...

  • ...what's going on with the yield curve

  • That's Alice Fulwood, The Economist's Wall Street correspondent

  • And the reason people get sort of so het up about this...

  • ...is that each time the yield curve has inverted...

  • ...it has immediately preceded a recession in America

  • In fact only on one occasion in the last 70 years has there been a false alarm

  • And here's the thing...

  • It inverted in March of this year

  • So what is it about this curve...

  • ...that seems to make it such a good indicator...

  • ...of where the economy is heading?

  • The line illustrates the return, or yield...

  • ...investors get from investing in government bonds...

  • ...from short-term investments on the left...

  • ...to longer-term ones on the right

  • Usually the longer the time frame the higher the interest rate...

  • ...as investors demand a bigger return...

  • ...if they're to lock their money up for longer

  • However, if investors fear the economy is slowing down...

  • ...then the long-term rates can drop below short-term rates...

  • ...the curve inverts

  • So when the yield curve inverts something strange is going on

  • Here's why

  • When the outlook is gloomy investors are more likely to buy safe assets...

  • ...like long-term bonds, pushing their price up...

  • ...so the interest rate for holding them falls

  • Higher bond prices are also a signal...

  • ...that there are fewer exciting investment opportunities elsewhere...

  • ...such as the stockmarket

  • Of course there are plenty of other indicators you could look at...

  • ...to get a sense of what's happening to the economy

  • A lot of people look at the stockmarkets

  • Survey dataso you can go out and ask businesses what they feel

  • You can look at consumer behaviour

  • You could also look at sort of various metal prices like...

  • ...if copper prices are very high

  • Copper is an industrial metal it implies that...

  • ...lots of manufacturing companies are buying copper to make goods

  • Then there's the rate of change in unemployment...

  • ...which correlates closely with recessions

  • And even monitoring the number of times that newspapers...

  • ...publish the wordrecessioncan help to anticipate a downturn

  • But bear in mind that when you're trying to predict a downturn...

  • ...you're often trying to get a read on people's expectations...

  • ...of where the economy is heading...

  • ...which is why that curve is so useful

  • Everyone invests in the US Treasury market...

  • ...from the Chinese central bank to pension funds in Canada and Europe...

  • ...hedge funds in America

  • Everyone is exposed to and invests in the US Treasury market

  • So if you're looking for an aggregate opinion of everyone in the world...

  • ...what they think might happen to the US economy...

  • ...and by extension the global economy...

  • ...you'd be very hard pressed to find something more important to look at...

  • ...than the Treasury market and the yield curve

  • But these are extraordinary times for the US economy

  • Which is always a dangerous thing to say...

  • ...but it really could be different this time

  • The US economy has undergone a lot of very experimental...

  • ...and sort of extraordinary monetary policy over the last ten years

  • In particular people highlight quantitative easing

  • Quantitative easing was a policy followed by the Federal Reserve...

  • ...to stimulate the economy after the 2008 financial crisis

  • The Treasury bought companies' debt to reduce long-term interest rates

  • Some experts believe it's distorted the yield curve

  • And some people argue that that means that long-term interest rates...

  • ...can't quite signal what they used to in the past

  • They're no longer this sort of clean...

  • ...look at what investors are thinking about growth and inflation...

  • ...because quantitative easing and that process has sort of...

  • ...systematically or fundamentally changed...

  • ...what long-term interest rates show you

  • So should investors worry about the inverted yield curve?

  • While you can debate whether...

  • ...the yield curve inverting in the US in March of this year...

  • ...necessarily means that there will be a recession in the US soon

  • What you probably can say is that...

  • ...it's not a great signal that growth next year will be strong

  • The flattening that's taken place over the last year...

  • ...suggests that growth should slow from 3% next year to 2%

  • In other words predicting America's next recession...

  • ...just got a little harder

  • But the indicators...

  • ...are starting to flash red

This graph makes a lot of people nervous

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這條線能預測美國的下一次經濟衰退嗎?| 經濟學家》雜誌 (Does this line predict America’s next recession? | The Economist)

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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