资产轻型时代的崛起与市场前景解析

Key Points:

• The asset light era is reshaping companies, making them less leveraged and more cash-rich.
• Higher multiples are justified based on innovation and productivity.
• The bull market will be driven by tech while welcoming other sectors for balanced growth.
• Positives in innovation may outweigh concerns about tariffs and inflation.
• Client advisement on crypto focuses on risk management and institutional demand.

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Let’s bring in Chris Heisy of Merill and Bank of America Private Bank. Good to see you! Do tell more, please.

Well, our whole thesis is not just next year, but next year's a launchpad, Scott, for what we call the asset light era.

Simply put, companies are becoming more asset light: less measured, less leveraged to fixed costs, less labor intensive, and less fixed asset heavy intensive—so higher multiples make sense.

They are less credit sensitive and have the cash to buy the asset-heavy things like power generation. It's almost the perfect marriage, Scott.

When you think about it, if the supply of assets is going to go down and the demand for assets is going to go up while we become more asset light, that's where you get rising asset prices over a much longer period than most people expect. That’s our general thesis for what we call the asset light era.

When you say higher multiples make sense, are you suggesting higher multiples from here, or that these currently make sense?

So, no worry about those who suggest valuations are already too stretched? Yeah, right now they are stretched for looking back. But as it relates to where we're going and how innovation is happening—much more rapidly—a transportation or trucking company today is really not what it used to be; it's a computer with wheels.

So, from my perspective, and our perspective here in the CIO office anyway, we're looking at these high multiples as not being stretched. They actually make sense for now.

Now, should you expect more multiple expansion? That would only come if there's another reversion to the upside as to what the growth looks like on a go-forward basis. I think we've good where we're at; we should not expect more stretched valuations from here. Let's just keep where they're at and allow the growth in the profits to come forward next year.

And I think that's why you see a very good first half of next year.

What stocks are going to drive this bull market that lasts for a long time, Chris?

It becomes characteristic driven. Overall, we've had our movement up, where the narrow leadership drove the higher market cap areas of the S&P. Then there was some rebalancing that took place—the best of the rest, as we call it—are now starting to see more positive earnings.

They had negative earnings for most of last year collectively, so you get a little bit more rebalancing, but it's still going to be those companies that are going to drive this asset-light theme.

So, we would expect Tech to continue to participate, perhaps slow down in how big and enormous their outperformance was, but then bring others into the equation to help lift the S&P for more normal returns.

You know, we're going to potentially print 25% or better this year again, and it's hard to see that happening again next year. We would say let's look at profit growth of double digits, and that should be your expectations for all of 2025—double-digit returns low.

I assume you're alluding to next year and maybe more robust in the years that follow because of all the reasons you just suggested?

That's right. I think what we have to look at is we’re all patterned to look at the negatives that are the known unknowns.

How about some of the positives? What we're witnessing in innovation right now is happening on top of a technology stack versus creating the ground floor of a technology stack.

So, if you can build on something that's already been built, you don't have to spend much CapEx. If you do that, ROI on that CapEx comes quicker. That’s what our whole thesis is: rapid, more demonstrative innovation that goes across all sectors.

And here's where it gets really interesting, Scott. We think that a good portion of this productivity theme is not just about operating leverage at the top and bottom line, but when you get rapid innovation that could hit at the bottom line where your costs are heavy, that lasts a lot longer. That's what we believe is happening right now, and it's just beginning.

Are you thinking about possible negatives or at least all the positives needing so very much to offset whatever negatives there are—spending cuts, tariffs, higher rates, stickier inflation? What do you think?

Yeah, you know, much of the positives outweigh some of the ones that we're worried about. Let's just start with tariffs.

I mean, we don't know what ultimately is going to come down and how much and where, but generally speaking, a tariff is a tax. You give it time, and it becomes a tax on growth. So, we'll have to watch that very closely.

But our view is pretty simple: nominal GDP growth split between real growth of three and perhaps inflation of two and a half to three gets you to about 5.5—almost 6% nominal GDP. On a real basis, about 2.4 or 2.5.

Now that's enough to create some revenue growth. And if you get productivity on the cost line to the downside, that’s your margins. Actually, frankly, the surprise could be that they could expand.

On the overall geopolitical front, again, splintering unknowns—we’re getting used to it. It's not good, but we're getting used to this world of that area still being very much elevated.

Finally, inflation—the 1990s we averaged 2.5 to 3% inflation, give or take what year you're talking about, and growth was good. That's what we expect this time around, and a more normal yield curve still flat and a little bit steeper, but not the inversion that we just went through.

When it comes to the private bank, what are you advising your best and wealthiest clients to do as it relates to crypto? How are you thinking about that as not just a young asset class, but one that's going to be much more mature in the years ahead and maturing much faster than maybe some thought because of the stance that this administration is going to take regarding it?

Well, whether it's the private bank or Merill, we don't provide guidance on the crypto space overall from our CIO office perspective.

But what we look at is the general risk-taking that's going on. It's an emerging asset class. A lot of the asset management industry is trying to figure out new ways to get exposure to it. They're opening up some of their mandates, and it appears that demand continues to rise simply on the basis of institutional demand.

As all of this outgrowth continues, it'll be absolutely critical that anyone looking at full portfolios runs risk management metrics as much as they can. Because you can get overexposed to areas of asset classes that are highly correlated with each other—i.e., technology, NASDAQ, and the areas of this emerging asset class.

They're all very highly correlated, so it's really important to watch your overall exposure to all those risk factors together.