熊市注定要来临，必须关注这5种数据

汽车贷款

美国的另一个次贷问题

美国汽车销售早已从大衰退时的低点反弹，但购车一族的情况并不是那么好。纽约联储银行的数据显示，2018年底有700多万美国人“严重拖欠”汽车贷款，也就是逾期90天，这是一个前所未有的数字。如果它进一步上升，就有可能对整个经济产生令人不安的影响。

正如纽约联储银行所说，这个数字表明火热的就业市场“并非惠及所有美国人”。在各年龄段中，18-29岁的贷款购车者的拖欠率最高。这再次表明年轻成年人的自立之路是如何的困难——他们的可支配收入往往都消耗在了学生贷款上。

但手头吃紧的借款人并非唯一的不稳定因素。摩根大通和富国银行等大型银行已退出这个领域，专营汽车金融业务的非银行贷款机构则填补了这些空缺。财务咨询公司MRV Associates负责人维拉·罗德里格斯·瓦拉达雷斯介绍说，其中许多机构“受到的监管都不像银行那么谨慎”，而且“一直在降低贷款标准”。

因此，美国汽车贷款规模达到了历史最高点——截至2018年底，汽车贷款余额为1.27万亿美元，而且有风险的借款人所占百分比也异乎寻常的高。纽约联储银行的数据显示，约22%的车贷属于次级贷款，在汽车金融公司的贷款中，这个比例则为50%。新泽西州普林斯顿市汽车保险公司CURE Auto Insurance首席运营官埃里克·坡说：“我们看到有人为已经开了10年的[二手]车贷款，而且利率是29%。”华尔街对汽车贷款类资产支持证券的偏好在这方面起到了推波助澜的作用。美国证券业与金融市场协会的数据表明，2018年此类证券的流通在外总价值已达到创纪录的2228亿美元。

贷款过多的年轻人、松懈的监管以及面向投资者的问题贷款“证券化”。对于这样的“组合”，感觉似曾相识的人可不只你一个。分析师都认为这种情况类似于上次衰退前飞速扩张的次级抵押贷款。好消息是汽车贷款市场要比抵押贷款市场小得多（2007年，抵押贷款市场中约有1.3万亿美元的次贷，比目前整个汽车贷款市场的规模还大）。如果出现车贷危机，其影响也会较小。不过，对从事车贷业务的银行的投资者、部分保险公司，当然还有汽车厂商来说，拖欠贷款人数增多可能是个坏消息。请大家系好安全带，并且注意路况。—Rey Mashayekhi

Auto Loans

America’s other subprime problem

U.S. auto sales bounced back long ago from their Great Recession lows, but car buyers aren’t doing so well. At the end of 2018, more than 7 million Americans were in “serious delinquency,” or 90 days past due, on their auto loan payments, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That total represents an all-time high—and a further spike could send troubling ripples through the broader economy.

As the New York Fed noted, the numbers indicate “not all Americans have benefited” from a strong labor market. Borrowers between the ages of 18 and 29 had the highest delinquency rate of any age group, in another sign of how younger adults—often saddled with student debt obligations that sap their disposable income—are struggling to establish themselves.

But cash-strapped borrowers aren’t the only destabilizing factor. As big banks like ¬JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have stepped back from the sector, nonbank lenders that specialize in auto finance have filled the void. Many of them are “not regulated as prudently as banks are,” according to Mayra Rodríguez Valladares, managing principal at financial consultancy MRV Associates, and “have been loosening their underwriting standards.”

As a result, there is more borrowing than ever—with $1.27 trillion in loans outstanding at the end of 2018—and an unusually high percentage of borrowers are risky. Some 22% of auto loans, and 50% of those underwritten by auto-finance companies, qualify as subprime, according to the New York Fed. “We’re seeing loans where people are paying 29% interest for a loan on a 10-year-old [used] car,” says Eric Poe, COO of CURE Auto Insurance, based in Princeton, N.J. Wall Street has fueled this dynamic via its appetite for auto loan asset-backed securities, whose total outstanding value reached a record $222.8 billion in 2018, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).

Overstretched young borrowers, loose regulations, iffy loans “securitized” for investors. If that pattern gives you a queasy sense of déjà vu, you aren’t alone: Analysts agree that the dynamics are similar to the subprime mortgage lending boom that preceded the last recession. The good news is that the auto loan market is far smaller than the mortgage market. (Subprime mortgages alone represented around $1.3 trillion of the mortgage market in 2007—larger than the entire auto loan market today.) And the effects of any crisis would be smaller too. Still, a spike in delinquencies would likely be bad news for investors in banks with auto loan exposure, for some insurance companies, and, of course, for the automakers themselves. Buckle up, and watch the road. —Rey Mashayekhi