Zero Rates Wrecked Your Savings? Relax on a $17,000 Footstool
By REUTERS

FRANKFURT — It doesn't look like much, but a boxy wooden vintage Swedish footstool isn't just a place to rest your weary feet after cross-country skiing. It is the latest competition to hedge funds or high end real estate. And that means it will cost you $17,000.

A global glut of cheap money is prompting investors to take unprecedented risks in order to earn returns. From the United States to the 19-country euro zone, central banks have lowered interest rates to zero since the financial crisis started in 2007 and still haven't been able to raise them back.

Nearly a decade of free money helped these countries through the worst of the crisis, but at a heavy cost for savers, sapping earnings from traditional investments such as bonds and pushing many to look at riskier, unconventional alternatives.

Interest in hedge funds, property, paintings and wine has risen sharply.

This shift is pronounced in Sweden, a country where interest rates have long been at rock bottom. Bukowskis, a trendy Stockholm auction house, has seen rising demand for Swedish art and Scandinavian designer furniture.

The prices of humble-looking vintage carpets that capture the country's 1950s zeitgeist of social equality have risen more than ten-fold within five years. One sold for $82,000.

The $17,000 footstool is typical of the sort of minimalist, utilitarian furniture you might find at a Nordic summer cottage. For an extra $15,000, you can buy a small solid wood coffee table to go with it.

“Sales online in Sweden are exploding,” said Paulina Sokolow, Bukowskis creative director. “The prices are really increasing. I don't think we've seen the peak.”

Wine has been a big money maker. A 12-bottle case of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild from the 2000 vintage has risen in value from roughly $2,800 at the time to around $18,600 now. Bonus: whatever happens to prices, you can always drink it.

“The returns look attractive in the current climate,” said Tom Gearing, managing director of Cult Wines, a British wine investment firm. “And if everything goes wrong, you are still going to have a tangible asset.”

CASH HOARDING

Hans Peterson, chief investment strategist at Sweden's SEB bank, says many customers want new ways to invest.

“Clients are frustrated,” he said. “It results in having to buy into cyclically sensitive assets such as equities, which can make those markets more volatile. People are also investing in property.”

The soaring prices for Swedish footstools and rugs come in a country where property prices shot up by 36 percent since the end of 2013. The sale last year of a $12 million apartment in Stockholm set a new record, though it would barely be noticed in London or New York. The boom has been fuelled in part by tax breaks but also by Sweden's zero interest rate that turned negative in 2015.

A negative rate increases the cost to banks of hoarding cash, designed to fire up lending.

But this heady environment, especially after a recent stock-market swoon, looks vulnerable.

“Are the risks too high?” said Peterson. “Only time will tell.”

CAUTIONARY TALE

The experience of Japan, which has been struggling through two “lost decades” of stagnation, provides a cautionary tale.

Like many cities in Europe now, Tokyo too saw a sharp rise in property prices and in demand for art in the early 1990s.

An abrupt tightening of property investment rules by the Japanese government triggered a collapse in home prices, dragging down the art market with it.

Japan's subsequent slashing of borrowing rates, which reached zero around 2000, failed to reanimate the economy.

During nearly 20 years of deflation, consumers have postponed spending, believing prices will continue to fall. The country's debt meanwhile grew to twice the size of its economy.

This is precisely the fate that the European Central Bank is determined to avoid. Its chief means of doing so, however, involves keeping borrowing rates low.

In Switzerland, negative rates, which see the central bank charge banks to hold their money, are being passed on to some customers, forced to pay to keep money on deposit.

Some people prefer to stuff money under a mattress. The amount of cash stashed in homes or vaults from the euro zone has topped 1 trillion euros, much of it in 500-euro notes.

“It's become clear to everybody that we have negative interest rates, they seem to be here for a while and this affects preferences of investors,” said Alfred Roelli, a senior portfolio manager at Pictet, a Swiss bank which introduces its clients to art and collectibles at special events.

He said the low rate environment “forces people to be more adventurous and more open to new investment ideas”.

Robert Ketterer, who runs an auction house in Germany, said the low rates “are good for business because it prompts some, who say they can't get a return on their savings, to buy art.”

“Owners, on the other hand, are reluctant to sell because they don't know what to do with the money.” 

($1 = 8.4873 Swedish crowns)

負利率怪象 瑞典一張凳炒到56萬

路透報導，許多國家實施零利率或負利率，導致全球資金過剩，投資人轉向高風險投資，避險基金、房地產、藝術品和葡萄酒的價格都被炒高。而已實施多年零利率，並在去年調降為負利率的瑞典，投資人開始瘋買古董家具，一張瑞典風的木製舊腳凳飆漲到17,000美元（約台幣56萬8000元）。

瑞典Bukowskis拍賣公司看到瑞典藝術品和設計師家具的行情看漲。代表20世紀50年代瑞典社會平等精神的不起眼舊地毯，5年漲了10倍多，現在一張要8萬2000美元。

17,000美元的腳凳是在北歐夏日小屋裡常見的典型極簡風實用家具。若再花15,000美元，可以買一張木製小咖啡桌來搭配。

Bukowskis創意總監索柯勞說：「瑞典的網購大爆發，價格驚驚漲，我不認為我們已看到了頂。」

葡萄酒也是賺錢的投資，一箱12瓶2000年份的法國木桐侯奇堡酒莊紅酒當年售價2,800美元，現在值18,600美元。

瑞典SEB銀行首席投資策略家彼特森說，許多客戶想要新的投資方法。「客戶很沮喪，被迫買景氣循環的資產，例如股票，使市場波動加劇。人們也投資房地產。」

瑞典房地產自2013年底以來，已漲了36%。去年斯德哥爾摩一間公寓以1,200萬美元成交價刷新紀錄，當然仍無法與紐約或倫敦相比。

減稅和負利率都助長瑞典的房地產榮景。銀行放在瑞典央行的準備金要付給央行利息，鼓勵銀行放款。在瑞士，負利率已轉嫁到部分銀行存戶身上，把錢存在銀行，還要付銀行利息。一些歐洲人把錢藏在家裡，歐元區民眾的家中或保險箱內藏了一兆歐元，多半為500歐元大鈔。

在德國經營拍賣公司的凱特爾說，低利率促使一些人買藝術品，而藝術品的主人也會惜售，因為他們不知賣得的錢要如何處置。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/02/21/business/21reuters-rates-impact.html

2016-02-23．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯田思怡