These tailwinds have turned. Covid-19 messed up supply chains; war and sabre-rattling are undermining globalisation. Manoj Pradhan, formerly of Morgan Stanley, points out that China's working-age population has peaked.
但现在这些顺风已经转向了。新冠肺炎扰乱了供应链;战争和武力威胁正在削弱全球化进程。曾就职于摩根士丹利的马诺杰·普拉丹指出,中国的劳动年龄人口已经达到顶峰。
Jeremy Grantham, a bearish hedge-fund investor, fears that the switch to renewables will be slow and costly, and that lower investment in fossil-fuel production will make it hard for energy firms to ramp up supply, increasing the risk of energy-price spikes.
看空对冲基金的投资者杰里米·格兰瑟姆担心,向可再生能源的转变会费时又费钱,化石燃料生产投资减少将使能源公司难以增加供应,从而增加能源价格飙升的风险。
All this, the structuralists argue, means the current inflation shock is likely to be the first of many: central bankers will be playing whack-a-mole for a while yet. Recurrent inflation would upend 20 years of portfolio-management strategy.
结构主义者辩称,这一切意味着,当前的通胀冲击很可能只是一连串冲击的开端而已:央行官员们还得再打一会儿地鼠。反复出现的通胀将颠覆20年来的投资组合管理策略。
If the correlation between stocks and bonds shifts from -0.5 to +0.5 the volatility of a "60/40" portfolio increases by around 20%. In a bid to avoid being wrong-footed once again, investors are updating their plans.
如果股票和债券之间的相关系数从-0.5变成+0.5,"60/40"投资组合的波动率就会增加20%左右。为了避免再次措手不及,投资者正在更新他们的计划。
As Barry Gill of UBS's asset-management arm puts it, the task is "to realign your portfolio around this new reality".
正如瑞银资产管理部门的巴里·吉尔所说,投资者需要"围绕这一新的现实情况重新调整投资组合"。
What assets will allow investors to sleep soundly in this new reality? Cryptocurrencies once looked like an interesting hedge, but this year they have fallen and risen in lockstep with stocks.
什么样的资产才能让投资者在这种新的现实情况下睡个安稳觉?加密货币一度看起来像是一种有趣的对冲工具,但今年它们的涨跌与股市同步。
A recent paper by KKR, a private asset-management firm, argues, perhaps unsurprisingly, that illiquid alternatives, like private equity and credit, are a good way to diversify.
私人资产管理公司KKR最近的一篇论文认为,私募股权和信贷等非流动性的替代选择是扩大业务范围的好方法,这或许并不令人意外。
But that may be an illusion: illiquid assets are rarely marked-to-market, and are exposed to the same underlying economic forces as stocks and bonds. There are other options.
但这可能是一种错觉:非流动性资产很少按市值计价,可能受到的经济力量影响还与股票和债券相同。还有其他选择。
AQR suggests stock-picking strategies where success has little to do with broader economic conditions, such as "long-short" equity investing (going long on one firm and short on another).
AQR建议采用几乎不依靠整体经济状况就能成功的选股策略,例如"多空"股票投资(即做多一家公司,做空另一家公司)。
Meanwhile, commodities are the natural choice for those worried about a disorderly green transition, since a basket of them appears to be uncorrelated with stocks and bonds over long periods.
与此同时,对于那些担心无序绿色转型的人来说,大宗商品是自然而然的选择,因为从长期来看,一篮子大宗商品似乎与股票和债券无关。
In the search for new ways to minimise risk, investors dreaming of high returns will have to get creative. That, at least, should tire them out by the end of the day.
在寻找将风险降至最低的新方法时,渴望高回报的投资者将必须发挥创造力。总之,这至少会让他们在一天结束之时筋疲力尽。