Pasívne investovanie

Svetová banka zverejnila nedávno štúdiu o príčinách nevídaného nárastu cien komodít v poslednej dekáde a následnom spľasnutí bubliny. Príčinu neúmerného rastu cien vidia ekonómovia Svetovej banky v rôznych faktoroch – ekonomický rast, slabý dolár, expanzívna monetárna politika, fiškálna expanzia, štátne dotácie, podpora biopalív, činnosť investičných fondov atď.

Mňa zaujal tento graf zo spomínanej štúdie:

Potraviny, kovy, ani energetické suroviny neboli vhodnou investíciou za posledných 62 rokov a pochybujem, že niekedy budú. Investícia do komodít je len čistou špekuláciou. Komodity totiž nemajú čo by ich z dlhodobého pohľadu hnalo neustále hore ako je tomu pri akciovom trhu (rast dividend a ziskov, či inými slovami rast hospodárstva). Neberúc do úvahy poslednú dekádu, ktorá vyústila do dnešnej krízy, ceny poľnohospodárskych komodít od roku 1948 neustále klesaly. Ceny kovov boli prakticky nezmenené a energetické suroviny sa okrem prvej ropnej krízy tiež nevyvíjali priaznivo pre investorov. Mylsím, že investor, ktorý ma svoje portfólio zložené len z akciovej a dlhopisovej zložky nespraví žiadnu chybu.

English summary (partially from the original article): The World Bank has recently published a study on sources of the enormous rise in the commodity prices during the last decade. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the price boom was fueled by numerous factors including low past investment in extractive commodities, weak dollar, fiscal expansion and lax monetary policy in many countries, and investment fund activity. On the other hand, the combination of adverse weather conditions, the diversion of some food commodities to the production of biofuels, and government policies (including export bans and prohibitive taxes) brought global stocks of many food commodities down to levels not seen since the early 1970s, created a “perfect storm” further accelerating the price increases that eventually led to the 2008 rally.

However, I found this graph very interesting:

Agriculture, metal and energy commodities have not been a good investment for the last 62 years. And I doubt that they will ever be a good investment. Investing in commodities is a pure speculation. When it comes to commodities there is no internal rate of return that is inherent in for example equity market (rising dividends and earnings, with other words the economic growth). Apart from the last decade which ended with the current financial crisis the price of agriculture commodities had been falling since 1948. The metals remained  more or less unchanged. Moreover, the energy commodities have not gone the investors’ way (except for the first oil crisis in the 70s). In my opinion, an investor whose portfolio consists only of stocks and bonds do not have to bother with commodities.