股票大涨违背了一条神圣的投资准则 | 经济学人财经

财经| 梧桐树专栏

英文部分选自经济学人20230211财经版块

Surging stocks undermine a hallowed investing rule

股票大涨违背了一条神圣的投资准则

Sometimes it is a good idea to fight the Fed

有时候，对抗美联储是个好主意

注释：

hallowed：（通常因古老、重要或有名望而）受崇敬的，受尊崇的

If you are one of the many buyers of American stocks or Treasury bonds in the past four months, or indeed a buyer of most financial assets over the period, then this column has a message for you: congratulations. Not only have you achieved pretty healthy returns—the s&p 500 index of big American firms is up by 15%—but you have done so while violating one of Wall Street’s cardinal rules.

如果你是过去四个月美股或美债的众多买家之一，或者确实在这段时间内购买了大多数金融资产，那么本专栏想对你说：恭喜。你不仅赚的盆满钵满（标普500在此期间上涨了15%），而且还是在“逆行”的过程中完成这一目标的：你的策略和华尔街奉为圭臬的投资准则背道而驰。

注释：

cardinal：最重要的;最主要的;基本的。As a salesman, your cardinal rule is to do everything you can to satisfy a customer...作为推销员,你的首要任务是竭尽全力让顾客满意。

The phrase “don’t fight the Fed” is associated with Martin Zweig, an American investor renowned for predicting a crash in 1987. Zweig’s logic was simple. Falling interest rates are good for stockmarkets; rising ones are not. But the phrase’s scope has expanded over time. Zweig’s dictum is now used to suggest that betting against the institutions which print money and employ thousands of economists is always unwise.

“不要和美联储作对”是美国投资大师马丁·茨威格（Martin Zweig）的名言，他因预言了1987年美国股市大崩盘而闻名。茨威格的逻辑很简单：利率下降对股市有利，利率上升则不然。但随着时间的推移，这句话的适用范围已经扩大。到了今天，茨威格的名言意味着，与印发钞票、雇佣数千名经济学家的机构作对始终不是明智的选择。

注释：

1.Martin Zweig：马丁·茨威格，密歇根州立大学金融博士，20世纪90年代华尔街著名技术分析大师。20世纪70年代开始在《巴伦周刊》从事投资分析报告撰写工作，以其严谨的数据分析，迅速成为华尔街最成功和舆有影响力的投资顾问之一。他预言了1987年美国股市的大崩盘，从而确立了“茨威格预测”在业内的地位。

2.dictum：名言;格言;箴言

Most of the time, it is. Over the past four months, however, the Federal Reserve has raised rates three times and markets have surged. On February 7th, a few days after the publication of blowout labour-market data, Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chairman, warned that the fight against inflation would last longer than investors were anticipating. His warning had little effect. Investors elsewhere are also shrugging off central bankers’ words. The Bank of Japan (boj) had long promised to stand by its “yield-curve-control” policies, but traders betting that it would relax them triumphed in December, when officials unexpectedly raised their cap on the yield of ten-year government bonds from 0.25% to 0.5%.

大多数时间的确是这样的。然而，在过去的4个月里，美联储已经加息了3次，但股市却大幅上涨。面对数日前发布的大超预期的就业数据，美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）在2月7日警告称，对抗通胀的斗争将比投资者预期的持续更长时间，但这警告收效甚微。其他地方的投资者也对央行的话不屑一顾。日本央行（boj）长期以来一直承诺会践行其“收益率曲线控制”政策，但去年12月，押注该政策将放松的交易员取得了胜利，官方出人意料地将十年期国债的收益率上限从0.25%提高到了0.5%。

注释：

1.shrugging off ：shrugging off摆脱，抖去，不屑理睬 。

2.yield-curve-control”：收益率曲线控制（Yield Curve Control，简称YCC）本质是一种利率工具，通过设置各期限收益率目标水平，将收益率曲线维持在预期水平。1942年美联储首次运用此工具。

There is good reason to pick a scrap with a central bank now and again. Assessing the record since 1954, analysts at Truist Advisory Services, a wealth-management firm, find the s&p 500 has in fact performed fine, even well, on numerous occasions when the Fed has raised rates. Indeed, on average the index rises by 9% on an annualised basis between the bank’s first and last interest-rate rise.

有充分的理由认为，不时挑战央行的政策分析是有用的。财富管理公司Truist Advisory Services的分析师对1954年以来的记录进行了回测，发现标准普尔500指数多次在美联储加息的情况下表现良好，甚至出色。事实上，在美联储第一次和最后一次加息期间，该指数平均每年上涨9%。

注释：

picking scraps: A scrap is a fight or argument. To pick a scrap is to provoke fights or quarrels.

Traders defer to the Fed’s analysis in large part because they presume it is based on superior information. An influential piece of research, published in 2000 by Christina and David Romer, two economists, seemed to confirm that the central bank’s forecasts are more accurate than those of its commercial rivals. But subsequent studies have produced different results. One, published in 2021 by researchers at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, suggests that the superiority of the Fed’s forecasting has waned since the mid-2000s. Meanwhile, forecasts from other central banks have been bad enough to inspire gentle mockery. Every year since 2011 the Swedish Riksbank has forecast a climb in rates, only to cut them. The resulting pattern, which shows forecasts rising upwards over and over, like spikes, has been compared to a hedgehog.

交易员之所以听从美联储的分析，很大程度上是因为他们认为美联储的分析基于更好的信息。一项由经济学家克里斯蒂娜（Christina）和大卫·罗默（David Rome）于2000年发表的有影响力的研究，似乎证实了央行的预测相较于商业银行更加准确。但随后的研究却获得了不同的结果。一项由巴塞罗那经济学研究生院和旧金山联邦储备银行的研究人员于2021年发表的研究表明，自2005年左右以来，美联储的预测优势已经减弱。而同期其他央行的预测则更糟糕，甚至沦为嘲讽的对象。自2011年以来，瑞典央行每年都预测利率会攀升，但最终都会降息。一根不断下降的利率曲线，加上一根根如尖刺般上扬的预测曲线，难怪人们嘲讽这是一只瑞典刺猬。

注释：

1. Barcelona Graduate School of Economics：是位于西班牙巴塞罗那的一所经济学院校。该学校提供研究生和博士课程，其研究方向包括宏观经济学，微观经济学，国际经济学，实证经济学等。

2.Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco：是美国联邦储备系统（Federal Reserve System）在加利福尼亚州旧金山的一家分行。联邦储备系统是美国的中央银行，负责管理国家的货币政策，维护金融稳定，监督和管理商业银行等。旧金山联邦储备银行负责管理该地区的金融机构，并与其他联邦储备银行协调工作，以维护国家经济的健康增长。

Moreover, a little central-bank fighting can be good for the broader financial system. Unless a central bank wants to control market interest rates directly, by buying enormous amounts of assets, policymakers must sometimes conduct what are known as open-mouth operations. What central bankers think about economic conditions and how they might affect rates are expressed in speeches and written guidance, which suggest optimism or pessimism on subjects from the economy’s long-term-growth potential to financial stability. Done well, this sort of communication can remove the need for rate changes.

再者，时常有些小“刺头”来挑战央行的权威对整个金融系统而言不失为一种好事。除非央行想通过购买大量资产直接控制市场利率，否则政策制定者有时必须进行所谓的公告操作。央行行长们都会以演讲或者书面指导文件的方式，表达他们对经济状况的看法以及利率可能受到的影响，表明其对从经济长期增长潜力到金融稳定等主题的乐观或悲观态度。做得好的话，央行甚至无需调整利率（也能达到同样的效果）。

注释：

Open-mouth operations是金融术语，通常指的是一种用于管理货币政策的操作方法。这种方法的特点是，中央银行公开宣布了它的货币政策意图，并且通过讲话、新闻发布等方式向市场公开了它的金融政策观点和行动计划，从而影响市场对未来货币政策的预期。

Open-mouth operations是一种透明度更高的货币政策手段，有助于缓解市场对未来政策的不确定性，增强市场信心。同时，这种方法也可以用来干预市场，影响市场投资者的行为，从而达到管理货币政策的目的。

To refine their guidance, though, central bankers need people to take positions in financial markets, which they can react against. After all, as another Wall Street credo notes: disagreement is what makes a market. Buyers need sellers, and the information about what investors expect in aggregate is revealed through market prices. The process of back-and-forth between officials and markets is preferable to the corner into which the boj has been pushed, where vast purchases must be used to defend the bank’s credibility.

不过，为了完善他们的指导，央行需要有人在金融市场持有头寸，以便他们做出反应。毕竟正如华尔街的另一条信条所说，分歧成就了市场。买家需要卖家，同时投资者的整体预期体现在市场价格上。这种官方和市场的来回拉扯总比日本央行被逼无奈、只能通过大量购买资产来维护银行公信力要好得多。

注释：

1. Take positions（证券商）轧进头寸；持仓

2. Back and forth. 来回

Traders are still regularly turned into mincemeat when they take on central banks. Betting against the Fed is one thing when policymakers say they will be led by the data, as they do now, and quite another when they come out all guns blazing. Betting on a sudden rise in Japanese bond yields worked well for several adventurous funds in December, but the trade is known as “the widow-maker” for a reason. In moderation, however, some tension between markets and central banks is valuable, for investors and officials alike. Even financial rules are made to be broken.

在和央行较量时，交易员仍然时常被碾压。当政策制定者说会被数据引导（正如他们现在这样）时，做空美联储是一回事，但当他们火力全开打击投机分子时，就是另外一回事了。押注日本债券收益率突然上升的几家冒险性基金去年12月都取得了很好的收益，但是这类交易被称为“寡妇交易”不是没有原因。不过，市场和央行之间适度的对抗对于投资者和政府来说是有价值的。甚至对于有些金融规则而言，存在的意义就是接受挑战。

注释：

1. Mincemeat n. 肉馅，肉泥，果馅

2. come out all guns blazing：火力全开

3. take on 较量

take on an opponent 与对手较量

翻译组：

Summer，女，Stay hungry, stay foolish

Helen，女，金融资管，努力成为六边形战士ing

Humi， 女，学习财经的金融小白，不负韶华，平视世界

Ashely，女，金融硕士，爱宠物，爱英语，爱旅游，经济学人粉丝

校对组：

Des，男，血汗工厂搬砖工，经济学人粉丝

Claire， 女，进进退退，摇摇摆摆，探索世界ing
Hannah ，女，爱读财经的金融小白，经济学人唯粉