AI资本支出热潮考验信贷市场

欢迎收听《市场观点》。

Welcome to Thoughts on the Market.

我是摩根士丹利企业信贷研究主管安德鲁·希茨。

I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.

今天我们将探讨信贷市场面临的一种全新挑战。

Today, a look at a very different type of challenge for credit markets.

现在是新加坡时间11月21日星期五下午6点。

It's Friday, November 21 at 6PM in Singapore.

自全球金融危机对信贷市场造成根本性冲击以来，已过去整整十五个年头。

It's now been well over fifteen years since the global financial crisis shook the credit markets to its very core.

那段时期的极端程度难以言表，无数常规关系和估值方法都土崩瓦解。

It's hard to state just how extreme that period was, how many usual relationships and valuation approaches broke.

它创下了八十年来最严重的信贷损失纪录。

It saw the worst credit losses in eighty years.

我希望并相信这个纪录在未来八十年内都不会被打破。

I think and hope that this record will hold for the next eighty.

然而，这次冲击确实为信贷市场带来了一线希望。

This shock, however, did have a silver lining for the credit market.

在经历了由银行资产负债表过于庞大复杂引发的危机后，这些资产负债表得以收缩和简化。

After a crisis that was driven by bank balance sheets being too large and complex, these shrank and simplified.

当企业目睹资本市场突然关闭后，它们提高了现金储备，并往往采取更为保守的管理方式。

After companies saw capital markets suddenly shut, they increased their cash levels and often managed themselves more conservatively.

长期作为美国债务增长引擎的房地产市场，贷款标准大幅收紧，整体借贷规模减少。

The housing market, long the engine of debt growth in The US, saw much tighter lending standards and less overall borrowing.

所有这些趋势都有一个共同主题：债券供应减少。

And so all these trends had a common theme, less bond supply.

此后多年间，信贷市场经历了多次波动，但这些波动通常由宏观经济担忧引发，如欧元区危机或新冠疫情，或是源于公司特定问题，比如2010年代中期石油行业的疲软，或2023年硅谷银行的倒闭。

The credit market has seen numerous bouts of volatility in the years since, but these have generally been driven by concerns around the macro economy, like the eurozone crisis or COVID, or they've been driven by company specific issues, such as weakness around the oil sector in the mid twenty tens or the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.

关于借贷规模超出需求水平导致市场疲软的观点，实际上从未成为现实问题。

The idea that there would be too much borrowing for the level of demand and that this causes market weakness, well, it just hasn't been an issue.

直到现在，情况才有所改变。

Until, that is, now.

正如我们在本节目中所讨论的，科技公司正在大幅增加资本支出，以建设支持其云计算和人工智能雄心的基础设施。

As we've discussed on this program, there is an enormous increase underway in the amount of capital expenditure by technology companies as they look to build out the infrastructure that supports their cloud and AI ambitions.

摩根士丹利股票研究估计，最大的支出者今年将投入约4700亿美元，明年将达到6200亿美元。

Morgan Stanley Equity Research estimates that the largest spenders will commit about $470,000,000,000 of spending this year and $620,000,000,000 of spending next year.

这仅仅两年内的支出就超过1万亿美元，而且还在持续增长。

That's over $1,000,000,000,000 of spending in just a two year period, and it's still growing.

我们看到这些支出背后有强劲动力，因为实施这些计划的公司不仅拥有雄厚的财力，还将其视为实现未来雄心的核心。

We see a lot of momentum behind this spending as the companies doing it have both enormous financial resources and see it as central to their future ambitions.

然而，所有这些支出都需要有资金来源。

But all this spending, however, will need to come from somewhere.

这些公司通常盈利能力很强，因此我们预计约一半资金将来自其现金流。

These are often very profitable companies, and so we think about half will be funded from their cash flows.

另一半资金，债务市场将发挥重要作用，特别是因为这些公司通常信用评级很高，具备大量举债能力。

The other half, well, debt markets will play a big role, especially as these companies are often highly rated and so have significant capacity to borrow more.

而过去几周，这些资金闸门已经开启。

And over the last few weeks, those spigots have now turned on.

几家大型科技超大规模企业已开始连续借入数百亿美元资金，且借款频率相当密集。

Several large technology hyperscalers have been borrowing tens of billions at a clip, and they've been doing this in short succession.

这里有个好消息。

There is some good news here.

这些新发行的债券存在折价现象，发行方愿意向投资者支付比现有债务略高的收益以吸引他们承接。

This new borrowing has been coming at a discount with the issuers willing to pay investors a bit more than their existing debt to take it on.

相应地，市场对这些债券的需求非常旺盛。

Demand, in turn, has been very high for this debt.

在大多数情况下，这类借款规模仍远低于可能触发评级机构采取行动的阈值。

And in most cases, this borrowing is still well below anything that could feasibly trigger rating agency action.

但这正在引发一个截然不同的问题。

But it is raising a very different type of issue.

在经历了投资者很少担忧供应过剩的漫长时期后，这些巨额折价交易正在撼动整个市场。

After a long period where, generally speaking, investors have rarely worried about excessive supply, these are very large deals coming at very large discounts, and they are moving the market.

如果一家AA评级企业愿意支付与现有A级债券相同的收益率，那么现有的A级债券自然就显得不那么吸引人了。

If a double A rated company is in the market willing to pay the same as a current single A, well, that existing single A credit just simply looks less attractive.

就问题而言，我们认为这是市场面临的一个相对不那么令人担忧的问题。

As far as problems go, we think this is a generally less scary one for the market to face.

但这确实是一个新挑战，是我们许久未遇的情况。

But it is a new challenge, something we haven't encountered for some time.

基于前述的支出计划，这种情况可能还会伴随我们一段时间。

And based on the aforementioned spending plans, it may be with us for some time to come.

一如既往感谢您的时间。

Thank you as always for your time.

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前述内容仅供参考，基于制作时可获取的信息。

The preceding content is informational only and based on information available when created.

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It is not an or solicitation, nor is it tax or legal advice.

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It does not consider your financial circumstances and objectives and may not be suitable for you.