年轻人应该如何投资？ | 经济学人财经（文章和感想都超级赞）

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How the young should invest

年轻人如何投资？

英文部分选自经济学人202311118期财经板块

Finance and economics | Personal finance

财经板块 | 个人理财

How the young should invest

年轻人如何投资？

Markets have dealt them a bad hand. They could be playing it better

市场以痛吻我，我能报之以歌

Young investors, as well as everyone starting to save, have no shortage of lessons to learn. The main ones are classics. Begin early to give the magic of compounding time to work. Cut costs to stop that magic from being undone. Diversify. Do not try to time the market unless it is your job to do so. Stick to your strategy even when prices plummet and the sky seems to be falling in. Do not ruin it by chasing hot assets when the market is soaring, others are getting rich and you are getting jealous.

对于年轻投资者和所有开始存钱的人来说，要学的东西可太多了。首先是经典的投资法则。复利魔法真奇妙，投资理财要趁早；赚多少，花多少，否则，什么魔法也没效；不要把鸡蛋放在同一个篮子里；非专业人士万不可试图预测市场走势；哪怕价格一落千丈，眼看天就要塌下来，也要保持投资定力；市场狂飙猛进、旁人盆满钵满之时，切忌眼红追涨热门资产，以免一朝回到解放前。

To this time-worn list, add an altogether more dispiriting lesson specific to today’s youngsters: you will not enjoy anything like the returns your parents made. Even accounting for the global financial crisis of 2007-09, the four decades to 2021 were a golden age for investors. A broad index of global shares posted an annualised real return of 7.4%. Not only was this well above the figure of 4.3% for the preceding eight decades, but it was accompanied by a blistering run in the bond market. Over the same period, global bonds posted annualised real returns of 6.3%—a vastly better result than the 0% of the preceding 80 years.

这些投资法则确乎十分“经典”；不妨再加上一句说给当下年轻人听的“丧气话”：你们父母辈所享受到的投资回报已经一去不复返了。即使算上2007-2009年的全球金融危机，站在2021年回望，过去的40年也称得上投资者的黄金时代。全球范围内，股票市场的年化实际回报率达到了7.4%，这样的成绩还是在债券市场同样走强的情况下取得的。相比之下，再往前的80年里，这一数字只有区区4.3%。同期，全球范围内债券的年化回报率达到了6.3%，相比再往前80年里录得的0%强了不止一星半点。

That golden age is now almost certainly over. It was brought about in the first place by globalisation, quiescent inflation and, most of all, a long decline in interest rates. Each of these trends has now kicked into reverse. As a consequence, youngsters must confront a more difficult set of investment choices—on how much to save, how to make the most out of markets that offer less and how to square their moral values with the search for returns. So far, many are choosing badly.

黄金时代大约的确是结束了。造就那个时代的是轰轰烈烈的全球化，沉寂的通胀以及最重要的是，长期走低的利率。现在，三大因素都迎来了反转。因此，摆在年轻一代面前的是一份难度更高的试卷：要存下多少钱？如何在“新常态”下的市场中求得最大回报？如何在道德律令和谋取回报之间找到平衡？到目前为止，作答情况不甚理想。

The constant refrain of the asset-management industry—that past performance is no guarantee of future returns—has rarely been more apt. Should market returns revert to longer-run averages, the difference for today’s young investors (defined as under-40s) would be huge. Including both the lacklustre years before the 1980s and the bumper ones thereafter, these long-run averages are 5% and 1.7% a year for stocks and bonds respectively. After 40 years of such returns, the real value of $1 invested in stocks would be $7.04, and in bonds $1.96. For those investing across the 40 years to 2021, the equivalent figures were $17.38 and $11.52.

资产管理行业喋喋不休的“过往表现与未来回报无关”用在现下再恰当不过了。市场回报率若是回归长线平均水平，今天的年轻投资者们（姑且定义为40岁以下）难免遭重挫。上世纪八十年代之前的灰暗时光和之后的丰收年月加在一起，股市和债市的平均回报率为5%和1.7%。按这样的回报率，1美元投在股市里，40年后的实际价值为7.04美元，投在债市里则为1.96美元。而若在1981年投入1美元，到2021年，股市的回报可以达到17.38美元，债市可以达到11.52美元。

This creates two sources of danger for investors now starting out. The first is that they look at recent history and conclude markets are likely to contribute far more to their wealth than a longer view would suggest. A corollary is that they end up saving too little for retirement, assuming that investment returns will make up the rest. The second is even more demoralising: that years of unusually juicy returns have not merely given investors unrealistically high hopes, but have made it more likely that low returns lie ahead.

对于新人投资者而言，这会带来两大风险。首先，在判断市场能为自己增加多少财富时，若是只回顾近期情况、不管远期前景，他们得出的结论可能会过于乐观。一个必然的结果是，他们以为短期投资所得的回报会更高，因此短期投资过多，为退休所留储蓄太少。第二个风险更令人泄气：异常丰厚的收益持续多年，不仅让投资者们有了不切实际的幻想，也增大了未来低回报出现的可能性。

Antti Ilmanen of aqr, a hedge fund, sets out this case in “Investing Amid Low Expected Returns”, a book published last year. It is most easily understood by considering the long decline in bond yields that began in the 1980s. Since prices move inversely to yields, this decline led to large capital gains for bondholders—the source of the high returns they enjoyed over this period. Yet the closer yields came to zero, the less scope there was for capital gains in the future. In recent years, and especially recent months, yields have climbed sharply, with the nominal ten-year American Treasury yield rising from 0.5% in 2020 to 4.5% today. This still leaves nowhere near as much room for future capital gains as the close-to-16% yield of the early 1980s.

对冲基金AQR的安提·伊尔马南（Antti Ilmanen）在其去年出版的《低预期回报下的投资》（Investing Amid Low Expected Return）一书中对这一情况做了分析。从债券收益率的角度切入，最容易参透其间奥妙。由于价格与收益率成反比，上世纪八十年代开始，收益率的长期下滑给债券持有者带来了巨额资本利得，这即是在此期间他们丰厚回报的来源。然而，收益率越是趋近于0，未来资本利得的空间就越小。近年来，尤其是过去的几个月里，债券收益率急剧攀升，十年期美国国债的名义收益率已经从2020年的0.5%涨至如今的4.5%。但是，相比于上世纪八十年代初接近16%的收益率，这个数字留给未来资本利得的空间还是太小了。

The same logic applies to stocks, where dividend and earnings yields (the main sources of equity returns) fell alongside interest rates. Again, one result was the windfall valuation gains enjoyed by shareholders. Also again, these gains came, in essence, from bringing forward future returns—raising prices and thereby lowering the yields later investors could expect from dividend payouts and corporate profits. The cost was therefore more modest prospects for the next generation.

同样的逻辑也适用于股票市场。股息和盈利收益率是股票投资的主要回报来源，二者都与利率成正比。和债券市场一样，结果之一是股东们因估值上涨而捡到了天降馅饼。但同样的，这些收入实质上是寅吃卯粮——股票价格走高，后至的投资者通过股息和公司利润获得的回报减少。代价便是对于下一代而言不甚光明的前景。

As the prices of virtually every asset class fell last year, one silver lining appeared to be that the resulting rise in yields would improve these prospects. This is true for the swathe of government bonds where real yields moved from negative to positive. It is also true for investors in corporate bonds and other forms of debt, subject to the caveat that rising borrowing costs raise the risk of companies defaulting. “If you can earn 12%, maybe 13%, on a really good day in senior secured bank debt, what else do you want to do in life?” Steve Schwarzman, boss of Blackstone, a private-investment firm, recently asked.

去年，几乎所有类别资产的价格都有下跌，遍野哀鸿之中，市场寄希望于收益率的提升能使前景有些许改善。情况确是如此：政府债券的实际收益率大面积由负转正；借贷成本上涨增加了企业违约的风险，企业债券和其他类型债务的收益率也随之上升。私人投资公司黑石集团（Blackstone）的老板史蒂夫·施瓦茨曼（Steve Schwarzman）近来就反问说，“运气好的话，你手里的优先担保银行债券一天就能赚个12%甚至13%，还要什么自行车？”

Even so, the long-term outlook for stocks, which have historically been the main source of investors’ returns, remains dim. Although prices dropped last year, they have spent most of this one staging a strong recovery. The result is a renewed squeeze on earnings yields, and hence on expected returns. For America’s s&p 500 index of large stocks, this squeeze is painfully tight. The equity risk premium, or the expected reward for investing in risky stocks over “safe” government bonds, has fallen to its lowest level in decades (see chart 1). Without improbably high and sustained earnings growth, the only possible outcomes are a significant crash in prices or years of disappointing returns.

饶是如此，长期来看，股市（一直以来投资者们的主要回报来源）的前景仍不甚乐观。价格在经历了去年的下跌后，今年大部分时间里都在反弹。这进一步挤压了盈利收益率，拉低了预期回报。标普500指数就在这方面遭了重挫。股权风险溢价，也就是投资有风险的股票而非“安全”的政府债券能够获得的预期回报，已经跌至几十年来的最低点（见表1）。若是没有高得非比寻常的收益增长，唯一可能的结果就是暴跌的价格或持续多年的低回报。

All this makes it unusually important for young savers to make sensible investment decisions. Faced with an unenviable set of market conditions, they have a stronger imperative than ever to make the most of what little is on offer. The good news is that today’s youngsters have better access to financial information, easy-to-use investment platforms and low-cost index funds than any generation before them. The bad news is that too many are falling victim to traps that will crimp their already meagre expected returns.

所以这些都意味着年轻投资者更需要做出明智的投资选择。面对不甚理想的市场状况，他们更需要“善为无米之炊”。好消息是，与前人相比，今天的年轻一代更容易获得金融信息，还有便捷的投资平台和低成本的指数基金助力。坏消息是，太多人正落入陷阱，让自己本就微薄的预期回报又遭重创。

A little flush

不要上头

The first trap—holding too much cash—is an old one. Yet youngsters are particularly vulnerable. Analysis of 7m retail accounts by Vanguard, an asset-management giant, at the end of 2022 found that younger generations allocate more to cash than older ones (see chart 2). The average portfolio for Generation Z (born after 1996) was 29% cash, compared with baby-boomers’ 19%.

第一个陷阱是手握太多现金。这是老生常谈了，但年轻一代尤其容易着道。2022年底，资产管理巨头先锋领航（Vanguard）分析了700万个零售账户，发现年轻人配置资产到现金的比例要更高（见表2）。Z世代（出生于1996年之后）的投资组合中，29%为现金，而婴儿潮一代仅为19%。

It could be that, at the end of a year during which asset prices dropped across the board, young investors were more likely to have taken shelter in cash. They may also have been tempted by months of headlines about central bankers raising interest rates—which, for those with longer memories, were less of a novelty. Andy Reed of Vanguard offers another possibility: that youngsters changing jobs and rolling their pension savings into a new account tend to have their portfolios switched into cash as a default option. Then, through inertia or forgetfulness, the vast majority never end up switching back to investments likely to earn them more in the long run.

这也许是因为过去一年资产价格全盘下跌，年轻人选择持有现金避险。他们也可能是被连续几个月反复出现在报纸头条的加息消息所影响；而对于再年长一些的人而言，连续加息并不是什么稀奇事。先锋领航的安迪·里德（Andy Reed）指出了另一种可能性：年轻人更换工作并将退休金储蓄转至新账户时，通常会将投资组合默认设置为现金。然后，因为惯性或遗忘，大多人都没有转回长期来看可能会带来更多回报的投资组合。

Whatever its motivation, young investors’ preference for cash leaves them exposed to inflation and the opportunity cost of missing out on returns elsewhere. The months following Vanguard’s survey at the end of 2022 provide a case in point. Share prices surged, making gains that those who had sold up would have missed. More broadly, the long-run real return on Treasury bills (short-term government debt yielding similar rates to cash) since 1900 has been only 0.4% per year. In spite of central banks’ rate rises, for cash held on modern investment platforms the typical return is even lower than that on bills. Cash will struggle to maintain investors’ purchasing power, let alone increase it.

不管原因如何，年轻投资者对现金的蜜汁爱好给自己制造了通胀的风险敞口，并带来了错失其他收益的机会成本。先锋领航2022年调查之后的几个月便是绝佳的例证。股票市场大涨特涨，先前清仓的人就这么“错亿”。不仅如此，上世纪初以来，美国短期国库券的长期实际回报率只有区区0.4%（短期政府债券的回报率和现金相近）。尽管各国央行都在加息，现代投资平台上，现金的收益通常还要低于国库券。现金拿在手里，收益率甚至跑不赢通胀。

The second trap is the mirror image of the first: a reluctance to own bonds, the other “safe” asset class after cash. They make up just 5% of the typical Gen Z portfolio, compared with 20% for baby-boomers, and each generation is less likely to invest in them than the previous one. Combined with young investors’ cash holdings, this gives rise to a striking difference in the ratio between the two asset classes in generations’ portfolios. Whereas baby-boomers hold more bonds than cash, the ratio between the two in the typical millennial’s portfolio is 1:4. For Gen Z it is 1:6.

第二个陷阱恰是第一个的镜像：对现金之外另一大“安全”资产债券的蜜汁厌恶。Z世代的投资组合中，债券仅仅占到5%；相比之下，婴儿潮一代中债券可以占到20%。而且，每一代持有的债券都比上一代更少。再结合年轻人持有的现金，可以发现不同世代持有两种资产的比例存在巨大的差异。婴儿潮一代持有的债券多于现金，千禧一代投资组合中债券与现金之比为1:4。至于Z世代，这一比例为1:6。

Given the markets with which younger investors grew up, this may not be surprising. For years after the global financial crisis, government bonds across much of the rich world yielded little or even less than nothing. Then, as interest rates shot up last year, they took losses far too great to be considered properly “safe” assets.

考虑到年轻一代茁壮成长时的市场环境，这倒也不足为奇。全球金融危机之后的许多年里，发达国家的政府债券收益率都趋近、甚至低于0。然后，随着去年利率飙升，国债损失惨重，实在很难称得上“安全”。

But even if disdain for bonds is understandable, it is not wise. They now offer higher yields than in the 2010s. More important, they have a tendency to outpace inflation that cash does not. The long-run real return on American bonds since 1900 has been 1.7% a year—not much compared with equities, but a lot more than cash.

然而，对债券的蜜汁厌恶就算有情可原，也绝非明智。当前债券的收益率要高于本世纪的第二个十年。更重要的是，债券有希望跑赢通胀，现金则不然。上世纪初以来，美国政府债券的长期实际回报率为每年1.7%——比股票是差的远，但比现金还是不知道高到哪里去了。

The name of the third trap depends on who is describing it. To the asset-management industry, it is “thematic investing”. Less politely, it is the practice of drumming up business by selling customised products in order to capture the latest market fad and flatter investors that they are canny enough to beat the market.

不同的人对第三个陷阱有不同的叫法。资产管理行业称之为“主题投资”。说得直白一点，这叫为了冲销量而兜售定制产品追逐市场热点，并忽悠投资者说他们聪明到能击败市场。

Today’s specialised bets are largely placed via exchange-traded funds (etfs), which have seen their assets under management soar to more than $10trn globally. There are etfs betting on volatility, cannabis stocks and against the positions taken by Jim Cramer, an American television personality. More respectably, there are those seeking to profit from mega-themes that might actually drive returns, such as ageing populations and artificial intelligence. An enormous subcategory comprises strategies investing according to environmental, social and governance (esg) factors.

当下的“特化下注”大多通过交易所交易基金（exchange-traded funds，ETF）实现；全球范围内，ETF管理下的资产已飙升至逾10万亿美元。有些ETF下注流动性，有些押宝大麻股票，还有些对电视评论员吉姆·克莱默（Jim Cramer）的仓位进行反向投资。当然，也有更加高尚的ETF，它们试图从宏大叙事中牟利——其中一些说不定还真能带来回报，比如老龄化和人工智能。一个体量巨大的子类别就旨在根据环境、社会和治理（ESG）因素投资。

Niche strategies are nothing new, and nor are their deficiencies. Investors who use them face more volatility, less liquidity and chunky fees. Compared with those focused on the overall market, they take a greater risk that fashions will change. Even those who pick sensible themes are competing with professional money managers.

利基策略并不新鲜，其缺陷也是老生常谈。投资者们会面临更大的波动性、更少的流动性和高昂的管理费。与着眼整个市场的策略不同，利基策略的风险更大，因为市场风向瞬息万变。即使选择了明智的主题，投资者们也免不了要与职业资产管理人一较高下。

However the ease with which etfs can be customised, advertised and sold with a few taps on a phone screen is something that previous generations of investors did not have to reckon with. So is the appeal to morality accompanying their marketing. esg vehicles are presented to youngsters as the ethically neutral option. If there are investments that will save society and the planet while growing your savings at the same time, what kind of monster would buy the ordinary, dirty kind?

然而，在手机屏幕上点几下就可以轻松定制、宣传和售出ETF，这是先前几个世代的投资者所想象不到的。让他们大开眼界的还有ETF的道德营销。ESG主题的投资产品通常以价值中立的形象出现在年轻人面前。如果有投资产品可以在增加你的财富的同时拯救我们的社会、我们的环境，谁家好人还去买那些肮脏的普通产品啊？

This both overstates the difference between esg and “normal” funds, and papers over their impact on costs and returns. According to a recent study by the Harvard Business School, funds investing along esg criteria charged substantially higher fees than the non-esg kind. Moreover, the esg funds had 68% of their assets invested in exactly the same holdings as the non-esg ones, despite charging higher fees across their portfolios. Such funds also shun “dirty” assets, including fossil-fuel miners, whose profits are likely to generate higher investment yields if this shunning forces down their prices.

这不仅夸大了ESG与“普通”基金之间的差异，还掩盖了二者对于成本和回报的影响。哈佛商学院最近的一项研究表明，根据ESG标准投资的基金所收取的费用要显著高于非ESG基金。而且，尽管对整个投资组合都收取了更高的费用，ESG基金持有的资产之中，68%的投资去向与非ESG基金一模一样。这些基金还会规避“肮脏”资产，如化石能源开采商；而若这样的“投资规避”压低了它们的股价，其利润所带来的投资收益反而可能会更高。

Next to the vast difference between the investment prospects of today’s youngsters and those of their parents, the benefits to be gained by avoiding these traps may seem small. In fact, it is precisely because markets look so unappealing that young investors must harvest returns. Meanwhile, the investment habits they are forming may well last for some time. Vanguard’s Mr Reed points to evidence that investors’ early experiences of markets shape their allocations over many years.

当下年轻人的投资前景和他们的父母辈相差是如此之大，以至于规避这些陷阱所能带来的益处看上去意义不大。事实上，正是因为市场十分晦暗，年轻投资者们才必须赢取回报。同时，现在养成的投资习惯很可能会伴随他们很长时间。先锋领航的里德指出，有证据表明投资者早年的市场经历会在很多年里影响他们的资产配置。

Ordering the portfolios of Vanguard’s retail investors by the year their accounts were opened, his team has calculated the median equity allocation for each vintage (see chart 3). The results show that investors who opened accounts during a boom retain significantly higher equity allocations even decades later. The median investor who started out in 1999, as the dotcom bubble swelled, still held 86% of their portfolio in stocks in 2022. For those who began in 2004, when memories of the bubble bursting were still fresh, the equivalent figure was just 72%.

里德的团队将先锋领航散户投资者的投资组合按照开户年份排列，并整理出了每一时期开户账户的平均资产配置（见表3）。结果表明，经济繁荣时期开户的投资者即使在几十年后仍习惯于将更多资产投在股市里。1999年（投资者开户年份的中位数）正是互联网泡沫不断膨胀之时，彼时开户的投资者在2022年平均仍有86%的资产配置于股票之中。相比之下，这一数字在2004年（泡沫破裂记忆还很鲜活之时）开户的投资者那里只有72%。

Therefore it is very possible today’s young investors are choosing strategies they will follow for decades to come. Mr Ilmanen’s treatise on low expected returns opens with the “serenity prayer”, which asks for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. It might be the best investment advice out there.

因此，极有可能，当下的年轻投资者们选择的，是自己未来几十年的投资策略。伊尔马南(Ilmanen)关于低预期回报的论著以“宁静祷文”开篇：“赐我恩典，安详接受不能改变之事；鼓我义念，勇敢改变可以改变之事；赠我慧剑，能够分辨接受还是改变。”这也许是最好的投资建议了。

翻译组：

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