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Last week, before the global market meltdown, three dozen luminaries of American finance gathered for a summer lunch, where they conducted informal polls about the outlook. The results were pretty dull.
上周，在全球市场崩盘之前，三十多位美国金融的知名人士齐聚一堂，共进夏日午餐，并对市场前景进行了非正式调查。结果相当沉闷。
The majority at the table voted for a so-called “soft landing” for the US economy, with rates of 3-3.5 per cent in a year’s time, and a swing of 10 per cent, or less, for stock prices (evenly split between up and down).
与会的大多数人投票支持美国经济实现所谓的“软着陆”，即在一年内将利率维持在3%至3.5%的水平，并且股票价格波动在10%或更低（涨跌各半）。
The only notable, truly spicy detail was that these luminaries now view the US election race as a toss-up — while three weeks earlier there was near-unanimity at another lunch that Donald Trump would win. No one projected an imminent market crash.
唯一值得注意的、真正辛辣的细节是，这些知名人士现在认为美国大选是一场胶着局面——而在三周前的另一场午餐会上，他们几乎一致认为唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)会赢。没有人预测到即将发生的市场崩盘。
There are two lessons here. The first is that not even ultra-well-paid financiers — be they hedgies, private equity players or bankers — can really forecast the precise moments of market meltdowns. Yes, fundamental strains and cracks can be identified. But judging when these will cause a market earthquake is as hard as real geology; humility is required. And doubly so given that the rise of algorithmic trading is creating dramatically more price volatility and feedback loops.
这里有两个教训。第一个是，即使是薪酬极高的金融家，无论是对冲基金经理、私募股权投资者还是银行家，也无法准确预测市场崩盘的确切时刻。是的，可以识别出基本的压力和裂缝。但是判断这些压力何时会引发市场地震就像真正的地质学一样困难；这需要谦卑。尤其是考虑到算法交易的崛起正在创造更多的价格波动和反馈循环。
Second, this week’s market rout was driven not so much by panic around the “real” economy as by financial dynamics. Or, as Bridgewater wrote in a client letter: “We view the widespread deleveraging firmly as a market event and not an economic one,” since “periods of structurally low volatility have always been fertile ground for the accumulation of outsize positioning” — and eventually they unwind.
其次，本周的市场暴跌并非主要由于对“实际”经济的恐慌，而是由金融动态所驱动。或者，正如桥水基金(Bridgewater)在一封给客户的信中所写道：“我们将广泛的去杠杆化视为市场事件而非经济事件”，因为“结构性低波动时期一直是积累超额仓位的肥沃土壤”，最终它们会解除。
Or, to put it another way, these events can be viewed as (yet another) aftershock from the unwinding of that extraordinary monetary policy experiment known as quantitative easing and zero interest rates. For while investors have normalised cheap money in recent years — and to such a degree that they barely notice the distortions this has caused — they are now belatedly realising how odd it was. In that sense, then, the dramas have been thoroughly beneficial — even if electronic trading has made that lesson more dramatic than it might have been.
或者换个说法，这些事件可以被视为（又一次量化宽松和零利率这一非同寻常货币政策实验逐渐解除所引发的余震。因为投资者在近年来已经习惯了廉价资金，以至于他们几乎没有注意到这种情况所带来的扭曲，而现在他们才迟迟意识到这是多么奇怪。从这个意义上说，这些戏剧性事件是非常有益的，尽管电子交易使得这个教训比原本可能更加戏剧化。
The immediate display of this is the yen carry trade — the practice of borrowing short in cheap yen to buy higher-yielding assets such as US tech stocks. Cheap yen loans have fuelled global finance ever since the Bank of Japan embarked on QE in the late 1990s, albeit to a degree that has fluctuated, depending on US and European rates.
这种现象的直接体现就是日元套息交易——即借入廉价的日元来购买美国科技股等高收益资产。自从日本央行在上世纪90年代末开始实施量化宽松政策以来，廉价的日元贷款一直推动着全球金融，尽管程度有所波动，取决于美国和欧洲的利率。
But the carry trade appears to have exploded after late 2021, when the US moved away from QE and zero rates. Then, when the BoJ (finally) also started to tighten earlier this year, the rationale waned.
但是随着美国在2021年末放弃量化宽松政策和零利率后，套息交易似乎爆发了。然后，当日本央行（终于）在今年年初开始收紧政策时，这种理由逐渐减弱。
It is impossible to know the scale of this shift. The Bank for International Settlements reports that cross-border yen borrowing rose $742bn since late 2021 and banks such as UBS estimate there was around $500bn in outstanding cumulative carry trades earlier this year. UBS and JPMorgan also think that about half of these have been unwound.
很难确定这种转变的规模。国际清算银行(Bank for International Settlements)报告称，自2021年底以来，跨境日元借款增加了7420亿美元，瑞银(UBS)等银行估计今年年初累计的套息交易约为5000亿美元。瑞银和摩根大通还认为其中约有一半已经解除。
But analysts disagree on how far these trades pumped up US tech stocks, and thus account for recent declines. JPMorgan and UBS think it did contribute; Charlie McElligott, a Nomura strategist, considers the carry trade to be a “red herring”; he and other observers think concerns around overhyped US tech caused yen funding to be cut — not the other way round. Either way, the key point is that insofar as free(ish) money was fuelling asset inflation in America and Japan, this is coming to an end.
但对于这些交易在多大程度上推动了美国科技股的上涨，从而解释了近期的下跌，分析师们意见不一。摩根大通和瑞银认为这确实起到了作用；野村(Nomura)策略师查理•麦克埃利戈特(Charlie McElligott)认为套息交易是“障眼法”；他和其他观察家认为，对过度炒作美国科技股的担忧导致了日元资金的削减，而不是相反。无论如何，关键的一点是，自由（等同）货币助长了美国和日本的资产膨胀，但这种情况即将结束。
Unsurprisingly, this leaves some investors hunting for other long-ignored QE distortions that could also unwind. This week FT readers asked me if there will be another shock when the BoJ or Swiss National Bank wind down the equity portfolios they acquired in recent years (the former owns an estimated 7 per cent of Japanese stocks; the SNB has big exposures to US tech names such as Microsoft and Meta).
毫不奇怪，这使得一些投资者开始寻找其他长期被忽视的量化宽松扭曲，这些扭曲也可能逆转。本周FT的读者问我，当日本央行或瑞士国家银行(SNB)减持他们近年来收购的股票组合时（前者拥有日本股票约7%的估计份额；瑞士国家银行在美国科技公司如微软和Meta上有较大的敞口），是否会再次发生冲击。
My answer is “not now”. Although these holdings look odd by historical standards, the BoJ insists it will not sell soon. But what is most interesting is that non-Japanese investors are waking up to this issue, after ignoring — that is to say, normalising — it for years.
我的回答是“现在不会”。虽然从历史标准来看，这些持股看起来很奇怪，但日本央行坚持不会很快出售。但最有趣的是，非日本投资者在多年忽视这个问题——也就是将其视为常态——之后，正在觉醒。
So, too, for US Treasuries. Many investors assume that demand for these will always be strong, irrespective of America’s deteriorating fiscal situation and electoral policy uncertainty, because the dollar is the reserve currency. Maybe so.
同样，美国国债也是如此。许多投资者认为，无论美国的财政状况如何恶化，选举政策如何不确定，对这些国债的需求将始终强劲，因为美元是储备货币。也许是这样。
But this confidence — or complacency — has been reinforced by the Federal Reserve acting as a buyer of last resort for bonds during QE. As traders try to imagine a world where this changes, some tell me they are getting nervous. No wonder an auction for $42bn of 10-year bonds this week produced an unexpectedly weak result.
但这种信心——或自满——是由美联储在量化宽松期间充当债券的最后买家而得到加强的。当交易员们试图想象这种情况发生变化的世界时，有些人告诉我他们感到紧张。难怪本周420亿美元的10年期债券拍卖结果出人意料地疲软。
A cynic might retort that all this mental readjustment may yet turn out to be unnecessary: if markets truly swoon, central banks will be pressured into propping up them up — yet again. Thus on Wednesday, the BoJ deputy governor pledged to “maintain current levels of monetary easing”, contradicting hints from the BoJ governor last week that more rises loom.
愤世嫉俗的人可能会反驳说，所有这些心理调整可能最终是不必要的：如果市场真的崩溃，央行将再次面临支撑市场的压力。因此，周三，日本央行副行长承诺“维持当前的货币宽松水平”，这与上周日本央行行长的暗示相矛盾。
But the key point is this: bountiful free money is not a “normal” state of affairs, and the sooner investors realise this the better — whether they are mom’n’pop savers, private equity luminaries, hedge funders or those central bankers.
但关键是：丰厚的免费资金并不是一种“正常”的状态，投资者越早意识到这一点越好，无论他们是普通的储蓄者、私募股权明星、对冲基金经理还是央行官员。