近15年来表现最佳的投资策略就是购买防御性股票，尤其是购买必需消费品、医疗保健、公共事业等高分红版块的股票，然后坐等收益。因为这些版块的股票不仅波动性较小，而且在利率持续走低的情况下吸引了越来越多的投资者。但全球某些国家的利率已经出现回升的势头，于是瑞士信贷的私人银行和财富管理部门 (PBWM) 的 Marc Häfliger, Michael O’Sullivan 和Robert Cronin 开始研究防御性策略在当前的环境下还能否站得住脚。答案因地而异。对于欧洲投资者来说，防御性股票仍是赚取股息的最佳选择。但是对于美国和英国的投资者来说，两国的经济复苏程度更高、更有可能采取紧缩货币政策，因此投资者最好转投周期性股票。
1981年，联邦汇率达到20%，英国官方银行利率达到15%，随后利率便开始持续下降。随着国债收益的逐步减少，逐利的投资者逐渐把目光转向分红股票。转向分红股票的另一原因是他们害怕了，因为在15年中已经出现了两个大熊市。在2007年互联网泡沫崩溃时，全球股票下跌了48.8%，而在2008年金融危机期间更是暴跌了57.5%。如此大规模的损失使得投资者对商业周期过紧的公司充满了恐惧。
问题解决了一个，还有另一个亟待解决。在2015年，上述的任何一种方式都失效了。在汇率逐步增长的环境中，防御性股票表现欠佳。美联储和英格兰银行计划在未来的六个月中提高基准利率，这将缩小债券和分红股票之间的差距。此外，在最近的三年中，防御性股票的估值越来越高，而周期性股票的估值则逐渐下降，这种情况在美国最为明显。
再来看看欧洲，央行可能在2016年继续采取量化宽松政策，这还能提供些许助力。欧元区的股票分红收益和主权债券收益之间的差额约为3%，而美国则为0.4%。在估值方面，高分红股票的上市溢价是2012年以来的最低值。最近投资者正将资金投入到更广阔的市场中，如果利率持续走低，他们将继续这样做。
简而言之，美国和英国的分红投资者要三思，瑞士信贷 PBWM 部门认为走出防御性板块，多考察周期性股票的时候到了。而对欧洲的投资者来说，维持现状就可以了。
Time to Shift Dividend Strategies
It should surprise no one that one of the best performing investment strategies over the past 15 years has been to play defense, specifically by buying high-dividend paying stocks in sectors like consumer staples, health care, and utilities. Not only have those stocks proven less volatile than the broader market, they have drawn increasing investor interest as interest rates have remained stubbornly low. But as rates look set to increase at least in some parts of the world, Marc Häfliger, Michael O’Sullivan, and Robert Cronin of Credit Suisse’s Private Banking & Wealth Management division (PBWM) decided to investigate whether the strategy still holds promise today. The answer: It depends where you’re talking about. For European investors, defensive equities are still the best way to gain dividend exposure. But in the U.S. and U.K., where economic recoveries are more advanced and monetary policy is due to tighten sooner rather than later, investors are better off switching into dividend-paying cyclical stocks.
It’s been a good run, that’s for sure. In both the U.S. and U.K., interest rates have decreased gradually and significantly since 1981, when the Fed Funds rate briefly hit 20 percent in the United States and the official bank rate topped 15 percent in the U.K. As government bond yields slowly declined, income-seeking investors increasingly turned to dividend stocks. They also sought them because of fear, the kind that arises as a result of two significant bear markets in just 15 years. Global equities fell 48.8 percent in the dot-com crash of the early 2000s and 57.5 percent in 2008. Losses of that magnitude create consternation about companies yoked too tightly to the business cycle.
Solve one problem, though, and you’ve got another—and in 2015, neither of the above solutions seems so workable anymore. For one, defensive equities tend to underperform in a rising rate environment. Both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are poised to raise benchmark interest rates in the next six months, which will reduce the yield differential between bonds and dividend stocks. What’s more, that flight to safety has made safety expensive. In the U.S., in particular, valuations for defensive stocks have risen in each of the last three years, while those of cyclical stocks have fallen.
The environment in Europe, where the central bank is likely to continue its quantitative easing program well into 2016, is much more supportive. The difference between dividend yields and sovereign bond yields there is 3 percent, compared to 0.4 percent in the U.S. On the valuation front, the premium of high-dividend stocks to the broader market is at its lowest level since 2012. Investors have recently been funneling money into high-dividend European equities funds at twice the rate they have into broader market funds, and they should continue to do so as long as rates remain low.
In short, the dividend-seeking investor in the U.S. or U.K. needs to rethink their approach, and Credit Suisse’s PBWM thinks it’s time to move out of defensive sectors and into more cyclical ones. But in Europe, they can stick to the status quo.
文章翻译由兄弟财经提供
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