空头的酸甜苦辣

(原题：Nasty, brutish and short，中文题目为译者加)

IT IS difficult being a short-seller. Most shareholders and managers agree that you are an important part of an efficient stockmarket—until you dump shares in their company. Then things can turn nasty. “We appreciate that, asshole,” barked Enron's chief executive, on a public conference call, to a suspected short-seller who had complained about the lack of a published balance sheet. Sometimes bears need even thicker skins. In 1995 Malaysia's finance ministry reportedly proposed caning as a punishment for abusive shorting.
做一个空头并不容易。当你是一个高效股市的重仓者时，投资者和经理们都会支持你——直到你抛售他们的股票。此后，事情开始变得龌龊。“我们增值了，笨蛋”，安然公司的首席执行官在一次公开的电话会议上如此咆哮，对方对该公司资产负债的暗箱作业表示不满，因此被怀疑做空。有时候，卖空者的皮要厚一点。据说，1995年，为了惩罚空头们，马来西亚财政部曾建议使用鞭刑。

Since markets turned sour last year, plenty of financial firms, from Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in America, to Babcock & Brown and Macquarie Group in Australia, have seen increased shorting. A few have grumbled about unfair speculation. In February MBIA, an embattled bond insurer, complained to a congressional committee that “self-interested parties have gone to substantial effort to undermine the market confidence that is critical to MBIA's business”. Yet the regulatory response was muted until Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA), a City watchdog, abruptly announced new disclosure rules for anyone short-selling the stock of companies in the delicate process of issuing shares to raise capital. If market abuse does not stop with this new regime, due to come into force from June 20th, the FSA will take further steps. Since it intervened, British banks raising emergency capital have seen their shares rise.
自从去年市场开始不景气以来，大量的金融企业，从美国的Bear Stearns和Lehman Brothers，到澳大利亚的Babcock & Brown和Macquarie集团都开始做空。少数人已经开始抱怨不公平的投机活动。二月份，一家摇摇欲坠的债券保险企业MBIA Inc.向立法委员会控诉，“这些自私的空头们努力破坏市场的信心，而这种信心对于MBIA的业务来说是不可缺少的”。然而管理层对此缄口不语，直到英国财政服务局，一只城市看门狗，做出新的规定，在一家公司发行股票以募集资金的敏感阶段，应当公开披露任何对其做空的行为。这项新政将于六月二十日起生效，如果市场的弊病没有因此而得到根除，相信FSA（金融服务局）将会出台更加激进的措施。由于上述干预，英国各银行纷纷为了提升股价而募集应急资金。

A reaction against short-selling often follows big stockmarket declines. Congress held hearings in the United States after the crashes of 1929 and 1987, some Asian governments imposed restrictions after the regional crisis in the late 1990s, and America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the FSA and other national regulators investigated allegations of abuse after September 11th, 2001.
在股票市场中，卖空行为往往伴随着一次股灾。1929年和1987年的危机之后，美国国会曾经召开紧急听证会；1990年代晚期的地区性危机，也导致一些亚洲国家对股市进行了限制；此外，2001年911之后，美国保密与交易委员会（SEC）和FSA以及其他国家的管理者一道对市场滥用行为实行调查。

However, since the 1970s the best-known official studies in the West have shown that short-selling is broadly a force for good, aiding price discovery and preventing shares from becoming overvalued. That conclusion is supported by academic research. After examining the run-up to the crash of 1929, Owen Lamont of Yale University and DKR Fusion, a hedge fund, found that the more investors wished to short-sell a stock, the more overvalued it proved to be. In another study of American firms since the late 1970s, Mr Owen found that companies that attack short-sellers, with belligerent statements or harsher tactics, are likely to go on to underperform the wider market.
然而，自1970年代以来，西方的权威研究表明，空头是一股有益的力量，它可以防止股票价值被高估，寻找合理的股价。学术研究也支持这一结论。耶鲁大学的Owen Lamont，是私募基金DKR Fusion的管理者，他在研究1929年危机之后发现，很多投资者会希望做空一支估值过高的股票。在对1970年代晚期美国一些公司的研究中，欧文先生发现，那些以激烈的声明和粗糙的战术与空头作战的公司，接下来似乎在全球市场都表现不佳。

In reality, short-selling is far from being financial black magic. It is a difficult strategy to pull off, because in the long run stockmarkets tend to rise. It is also a minority activity: only 4.3% of shares on the New York Stock Exchange had been sold short at the end of May (see chart). Data for London are less transparent, but the best proxy is the level of shares being lent (to bet on a share price falling, short-sellers often borrow stock and then sell it). According to Data Explorers, a research firm, only 4.5% of the FTSE 100 index's value is out on loan. Many short sales are innocuous attempts to hedge other positions. Unlike going long, actively betting against a share price involves red tape and runs the risk of unlimited losses (since a share price can, in theory, rise for ever, whereas it cannot fall below zero). The best bears, says Jim Chanos, of Kynikos Associates, the world's biggest short fund, are not bullies but “financial detectives”, scrutinising companies. The short-seller that infuriated MBIA's management, William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, was certainly vocal, but nobody doubted that he had done his homework.
事实上，空头并非金融巫婆。做空是一种很困难的策略，因为从长远来看，股票市场的趋势是上升的。而且，这也是少数人的行为：到五月末为止，纽约证券交易所仅有百分四点三的股票做空。伦敦（证券交易所）的数据很少公开，但是好在它标注了股票借贷水平（如果押注股价下跌，空头常常会拆借股票，并把它卖掉）。根据一家研究公司的数据，在金融时报100指数中仅有百分之四点五的股票被用于借股沽空。对于其他股票来说，卖空行为无关大局。而长线操作正好相反，这种行为押注股价不会翻红（翻红为下跌，译者注），并且不会无限制的损失（因为从理论上说，一支股票的价格永远是上涨的，而且也不会归零）。Kynikos Associates的投资者Jim Chanos认为，这家世界上最大的卖空基金并非恶棍，而是审查企业的“金融侦探”。对冲基金Pershing Square Capital Management的管理人William Ackman声称，空头们对MBIA公司的管理非常不满，当然这是唱高调，但没有人怀疑他已经作完了自己的功课。

If short-selling is generally beneficial, does it face hurdles? America introduced the “uptick rule” in 1938, aiming to act as a “circuit-breaker” by forcing short-sellers to execute above the price level of the last reported market trade. It has recently scrapped this rule, which short-sellers argue was largely symbolic, and it remains in place at only a few of the world's big stock exchanges. Both the SEC and Australian regulators are examining “naked short” positions, in which a fund sells shares it has not yet got in its hands, gambling that it can borrow some before the trade is settled. Still, regulators' concerns about naked shorting mainly reflect the risk to settlement, rather than to the integrity of large companies' share prices. Finally, almost all countries (although not Britain) require aggregate short positions in individual stocks to be disclosed.
如果卖空行为是有益的，那它会面临困难吗？美国人从1938年起引入“uptick rule”（证券提价交易规则），强迫空头执行的价格在市场最近交易价格的上方，起到“循环中断者”的作用。近来美国已经废止了这项规则，但空头们认为这仅仅是象征性的表示，在这个世界上最大的证券交易商场中仍有该规则的残余。SEC和澳大利亚管理者都研究naked short（一种投机行为，不借贷股票，而是卖空手里没有的股票，译者注）的处境，这种操作是说有一家基金卖掉了手中没有的股票，打赌会在交易时借到股票。然而，管理者对naked short的关注主要反映在结算风险上，而不是完善大公司的股价。最终，在个别股票被披露期间，几乎所有国家（虽然英国不在其中）都会对其进行抛售。

None of these restrictions impose a really onerous burden on short-sellers. Compared with them, the FSA's intervention is heavy handed. Forcing funds to disclose short positions if they exceed 0.25% of the capital of a company in a rights issue is far more stringent than the obligations long positions face—and probably bureaucratic too. But it is the FSA's threat to “take further measures” if need be by, say, limiting stock lending during rights issues, that has really spooked short-sellers.
所有这些限制，实际都没给空头施加太重的负担。与之相比，FSA进行了过多的干预。在认股权发行期间，如果基金占有一家公司的资本超过0.25%，就必须披露其减持行为，这让空头背负远比多头严格得多的义务——官僚很可能也是如此。但是，FSA的口头禅是“采取进一步措施”，并且，如果需要的话，他们会在整个认股权发行期间限制股票借贷，对于空头来说，这可真是要了命。

The regulator says that “market abuse” may have driven the share prices of banks near or below the offer price for new shares, putting pressure on the underwriters of the rights issues to buy the new stock. Yet market abuse, which the FSA has defined as including insider trading, spreading false information, or deliberately distorting share prices, is usually pursued by prosecuting offenders, not restricting types of activity. And although short-selling was certainly taking place in London, the FSA has yet to show that the level of activity was great enough to dominate trading and thus distort the banks' share prices. Data Explorers estimates that the stock on loan for HBOS, a big British bank, has been fairly constant at about 7% of its market value since it announced its rights issue.
管理者认为，“市场滥用”行为可能已经操纵了银行股票的价格，令其接近或低于发行价，这给在认股权发行中购买新股的保险从业者造成压力。仍然是市场滥用，FSA为这个罪名下的定义包括内幕交易，传播虚假信息，或蓄意扭曲股票价格，这些行为通常会导致违规者吃官司，而不是对他们的操作加以限制。并且，虽然卖空行为发生在伦敦，FSA仍然表示这次活动的级别非常之大，足以支配贸易，并因此扭曲股票价格。Data Explorers估计借贷的股票来自英格兰的一家大银行，HBOS公司，自从该公司宣布发行认股权之后，其市值已经随水约7%。

All of which suggests that the FSA wanted to ensure banks can successfully raise capital. That is a worthy objective—assuming those banks are solvent—but it may have been better done by other means. The banks could have issued new shares at a bigger discount without, at least in theory, damaging their shareholders. And the underwriters could have stepped up to the plate. The FSA says its measures are temporary, and promises to conduct a review with the Treasury. But the episode has a familiar ring. Once again short-sellers have found that their business is permitted and even lauded by regulators—until prices fall and the blame game begins.
FSA做出的所有这些举措，目的都是希望让银行能够成功的募集到资金。这么做自有其价值——假设这些银行有偿还能力——但是，用其他的方法可能做得更好。银行可以以较大的折扣发行新股，并且因此不必，至少是理论上不必损害他们的投资者。保险业也可照此办理。FSA声称目前的措施是临时的，并且他们承诺，将同国库一起反思。但这个小插曲有点耳熟，空头们今后会发现，他们的生意又有指望了，再次对管理者们唱起赞歌————直到下次股价大跌，推卸责任的把戏再次上演。