低迷油价正在蕴含巨大机遇

“没有人再掏钱买石油了。”这是我从彭博社评论员汤姆•基恩听到的第一句话。当时快到下午五点，我刚打开电视机，耳边就传来他的这句点评。

媒体总会跟随情绪而动，而基恩表达的正是全球原油贸易商的情感——充满了绝望。

没有买家，只有卖家。这种时候终于还是来了！

作为一名社会经济学家，以及研究信心如何改变我们的偏好、决定和行为的研究员，我想在此提出一个不同的观点。随着市场陷入绝望，行情触底。这意味着现在可能不适合卖出，却正是准备投资的好时机——不仅要投资原油，还要关注其他矿物产品。

原油投资者感觉绝望是有道理的，尤其是考虑到最近许多新闻报道传达出的消息。随着如今美国原油供过于求，国会投票决定解除原油出口禁令。由于油价暴跌，俄罗斯的卢布也在疯狂贬值。而巴黎气候变化会谈传来的消息也表明，其最终协约标志着“化石燃料时代落幕的开始”。

引人注目的是，在油价暴跌65%之后，许多人估计接下来还会有50%的跌幅，并将在未来几年中持续保持低位。例如，高盛集团就预计，未来原油价格将跌至每桶20美元。雪上加霜的是，投资者目前认为石油输出国组织（OPEC）根本不愿意、也没有能力去做点什么，来改变油价暴跌的悲惨趋势。曾经实力强大的垄断联盟，如今在明争暗斗、越演越烈的国家利己主义和全球供应过度的背景下，已是日薄西山。

不过原油的坏消息还不止于此。从美国不同寻常的温暖天气到美联储（Federal Reserve）决定加息来减缓全球增长，一切似乎都对原油的需求不利。与此同时，原油还存在产能过剩和供给过多的问题。现在的原油太多了，我们已经没有仓库来存储它们了。就像一篇文章的标题所说：“油轮里装满了油，全球的存储空间十分紧缺。”

依我之见，投资者如今有充分的理由卖出，完全没理由再去买入。不只是现在的情形令人恐慌，将来的情形更加不容乐观。

不过请注意，同样的预测在其他许多矿产领域也存在，尤其是金属行业。黄金最近被比作“宠物石头”（pet rock）。矿业公司正在削减资本支出和工作岗位。巴西、南非等依托矿产的国家的货币开始暴跌，这两个国家都宣布任命了新的财政部长——南非甚至换了两任，因为第一任在阻止货币暴跌上毫无建树。

此外，国际能源署也在最新发布的报告中称，“煤炭的黄金时代似乎已经结束了……考虑到太阳能和风能成本的急剧降低，以及更严格的气候相关政策，我们不禁怀疑煤炭价格能否恢复原来水平。”

该停下来想想了。专家现在说煤炭已死，再也回不来了，言论中充满了绝望。

矿产投资者、外汇投资者、股票和债券投资者、公共政策制定者、采购者、供应商，甚至依托矿产的国家的选民，所有人都感觉到了——更重要的是表达出了——一种极端绝望的情绪。不过根据我所看到的，无论你是不是担心油价暴跌，我们都身处原油和其他矿产长达几个月甚至可能几年的价格低迷中。

我意识到，在这种情况下买入会显得十分可笑，不过这恰恰是很好的时机。买入的最佳点就是投资者仿佛重新回到中学食堂，不得不再次体验那种最孤独、最尴尬的时刻。在这时候买入，就意味着与所有那些大声嚷嚷的人背道而驰。

尽管很少人愿意去做，但历史证明，如今充满绝望的情况，正是买入的大好时机。（财富中文网）

彼得•亚特华德是Financial Insyghts LLC总裁、著有《情绪与市场》（Moods and Markets）一书。

译者：严匡正

“There is no bid for oil.” Those were the first words I heard recently from Bloomberg’s Tom Keene when I turned on the television a little before five.

The media follows mood, and Mr. Keene was expressing the sentiment of crude oil traders around the globe—saturating hopelessness. No one buying. Only selling.

Finally!

As a socionomist and a researcher who studies how changes in confidence alter our preferences, decisions, and actions, l’d like to propose a different response. Markets bottom on saturating hopeless. That means now might not be the time to sell, but instead to get ready to invest–and not just in crude oil, but across the commodity space.

That crude investors feel hopeless makes sense, especially when you consider the backdrop of many recent news stories. With the U.S. now awash in crude, Congress voted to reverse its peak-in-the-price ban on oil exports. Due to collapsing oil prices, the Russian ruble is in freefall. And reports coming out of the Paris climate change talks suggested that last week’s pact marked the “beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”

Remarkably, after a 65% decline, many are projecting another 50% decline in oil prices, with the cost of crude expected to remain low for years to come. Goldman Sachs GS -0.26% , for example, is forecasting $20 a barrel crude prices ahead. Even more, investors now believe that OPEC is completely unwilling and unable to do anything to change the downward trajectory for the price oil. The once all-powerful cartel has been upended by bitter infighting, intense national self-interest and global oversupply.

But the bad news for crude doesn’t stop there. From the unusually warm weather in the US to the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates to slowing global growth ahead, everything is seen as a demand headwind for crude. Meanwhile, crude oil overcapacity and oversupply reigns. There is so much crude out there we’ve now run out of places to put it. As one headline put it recently, “Oil Tankers Are Filling Up As Global Storage Space Runs Low.”

As I see it, investors now have every reason to sell and absolutely no reason to buy. Not only are current conditions horrific, but they’re forecast to just get worse.

But please appreciate that the same can be said for many other sectors of the commodity space, especially the metals. Gold was recently analogized to a “pet rock.” Mining companies are slashing capital expenditures and jobs. The currencies of commodity-driven countries like Brazil and South Africa are in freefall, with both countries announcing new finance ministers–and in the case of South Africa, two finance ministers, as the naming of the first replacement did nothing to stem the country’s currency collapse.

Then there was this from a new report from the International Energy Agency last week: “The golden age of coal seems to be over . . . Given the dramatic fall in the cost of solar and wind generation and the stronger climate policies that are anticipated, the question is whether coal prices will ever recover.”

Just pause to think about that. Experts are now saying coal is dead and will never come back. Talk about expressing hopelessness.

Everyone from commodity investors to foreign exchange investors to stock and bond investors to public policymakers to purchasers to suppliers to even the voters in commodity-driven countries feels—and more importantly is expressing—a sense of extreme of hopelessness. But based on what I see, with or without one final scare-the-lights-out of you whoosh lower, we’re within moments of a multi-month, if not multi-year low in crude oil and other commodity prices.

I realize that to buy under these conditions would be laughable, but that’s precisely why the opportunity is great. The best time to buy is when investors have to relive their loneliest and most awkward middle school lunchroom moments. To buy commodities now means to go against the entire and very vocal cool crowd.

While few will be willing, history suggests that today’s saturating hopelessness makes this is a great time to buy.

Peter Atwater is the president of Financial Insyghts LLC and the author of Moods and Markets. He is a frequent writer and speaker on the role of confidence in decision making.