Inversiones y colocaciones a largo plazo. De haberlo sabido...

Contra lo que dicen los chartistas, la bolsa no es siempre mejor inversión que los bonos. Lean a John Authers, en su articulo en el que resume lo que ha pasado los últimos 10 años. Si hubiéramos sabido... 

My decade started as the credit bubble was reaching bursting point, continued through the worst financial crisis in living memory, and then gave way to an anxious and disliked stock market rally, underpinned by historically low interest rates that have driven ever greater anger. 

How should we have positioned ourselves for this ten years ago? 

If Hindsight Capital LP, my imaginary hedge fund blessed with perfect foresight, had put on a trade in September 2006 when I took over the Long View, it would have invested heavily in the US (up 69.4 per cent compared with a fall of 8 per cent for the world outside the US, according to MSCI), and avoided Europe (down 12.6 per cent). I should also have told my readers to invest in developed (up 28 per cent), more than emerging markets (up only 14 per cent), although a ten-year bet on Brazil would still be looking good (up 60 per cent in dollar terms).

Hindsight also preferred long-dated Treasury bonds to stocks, but it was close; long bonds returned 8.4 per cent per year, against 7.65 per cent for the S&P 500. Outside the US, readers would have been far better off in bonds. It is true that stocks usually beat bonds, but not over the past decade. And we would all be very grateful if we could receive the returns of either US stocks or bonds over the next decade. 

To sum up ten years in one paragraph: a historic speculative bubble in credit finally burst, and the US came out ahead thanks to looser monetary policy and swift action to fix its banks, while emerging markets slowed down, and Europe was left behind thanks to its bloated banking system and badly designed currency.

Los bonos americanos ha dado unas ganancias del 8,4% anual, frente al 7,65% de la bolsa, eso suponiendo que no se cometieran errores de gestión a corto plazo: es posible que la bolsa es una inversión rentable, pero su volatilidad no la hace segura. El resumen es: no ha valido la pena, tanto chartismo y tantos gastos de gestión - que se llevan un buen mordisco -. Un simple y aburrido bono te hubiera hecho más rico, sensiblemente más rico. Claro que había saber qué iba a pasar. Los ingeniosos  austriacos, esos que encajan la realidad a martillazos en su esquemita, apostaron que la política monetaria expansiva IVA a provocar hiperinflación, y que por lo tanto los tipos de interés de los bonos iba a subir a rascar el cielo: quien tuviera bonos se iba a quedar pelado (el precio de los bonos cae al subir el tipo de interés). Gran error de nuestros amigos los magos de Oz.