[转帖] [Buttonwood] [2013.04.20]Like chess, only without the dice 金价缘何跳水

showcraft

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-185789-1-1.html
Buttonwood
梧桐树

Like chess, only without the dice
如同下棋一样，只是没有骰子罢了

It is hard to find an economic explanation for gold's sharp fall
金价的“高台跳水”难以用经济原因来解释

Apr 20th 2013 |From the print edition
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GOLD suffered its biggest two-day fall in 30 years on April 12th and 15th. When an asset falls so sharply in price, it is tempting to believe that significant economic changes must be afoot. But an examination of the background to bullion's decline simply produces puzzlement.
4月12日和15日，黄金遭遇了30年来的两次最大跌幅。当某种资产的价格下跌以如此惨烈的程度发生时，投资者容易认为肯定是经济正在酝酿着重大转折。但是，在对黄金价格下跌的背景进行了一番梳理后，人们的困惑反而只增不减。

One potential explanation is that investors have at last recovered their risk appetite and are selling gold to buy equities. But although that may have been true in the first three months of the year, it was hardly the case on April 15th, the day of gold's biggest decline, when the S&P 500 dropped as well.
一种解释认为，这可能是由于投资者终于又恢复了对于风险的喜好。为此，他们卖出黄金买入股票。尽管这种解释适用于今年第一个季度，但是4月15日的情况几乎完全不同。当天，就在黄金价格出现最大跌幅时，标普500指数也在下跌。

In any case, what would explain this sudden optimism? Some investors believe that America grew robustly in the first quarter but the latest data—from unemployment and retail sales to consumer confidence and the purchasing managers' survey of manufacturing—have been disappointing. The same is true of other parts of the world, including China, where first-quarter growth was below expectations, and Germany, where the ZEW survey of economic sentiment fell sharply in April. The IMF lowered its global-growth forecast for the year on April 16th.
那么，到底该如何解释这种突如其来的乐观情绪呢？尽管有投资者认为美国经济在今年第一季度呈现强劲增长态势，但是最新的数据——无论是失业情况还是零售业的消费者信心，亦或是对制造业的采购经理人调查——大都令人悲观失望，并且世界其他国家的数据也证明事实确实如此。例如，中国在第一季度的增长没有达到预期，德国的ZEW经济景气指数在4月份出现急剧下滑。4月16日，国际货币基金组织（IMF）下调了他们对今年经济增长的预测。

Commodity prices in general have been suffering, not something you would expect if investors believed that the world economy was rebounding. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has fallen by 10.6% so far this year. Copper, often seen as a bellwether of global activity, has dropped by 8%.
同时，大宗商品的价格最近普遍都在下跌，这同投资者认为全球经济正在反弹所应该出现的情况呈现出背道而驰的局面。今年截至目前为止，北海布伦特原油的每桶价格已经下跌了10.6%，而经常被看作是经济活动先行指标的铜价也下跌了8%。

Furthermore, if economic sentiment were improving significantly, you would expect investors to sell government bonds as well as gold. But the ten-year Treasury-bond yield has fallen by more than a third of a percentage point since March 11th. The latest survey of fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch shows that they have become less optimistic about growth in recent months, and have increased their holdings of cash.
进一步讲，如果经济景气度正在显著改善，按照人们的预期，投资者应该在卖出黄金的同时卖出国债。但是，自3月11日以来，美国十年期国债收益率的跌幅已经超过了三分之一个百分点。据美银美林的最新调查显示，在最近几个月内，基金经理们对于经济增长的预期已经变得不再那么乐观，并且一直都在增加手中现金头寸。

Another potential explanation for gold's fall is linked to central-bank policy. The most recent set of Federal Reserve minutes suggested that the pace of quantitative easing (QE), the creation of money to buy assets, would slow later this year. Many of the most enthusiastic buyers of gold believed that QE would ultimately lead to rapid consumer inflation. So far that has not come to pass: expectations for American inflation over the next ten years, as measured by the difference between the yields on normal and inflation-protected bonds, dropped to 2.4% on April 16th, the lowest level since November. If QE is tapering off and inflation is low, the case for buying gold is weaker.
另一种解释认为，金价的下跌可能与央行政策有关。最新的美联储会议纪要显示，美联储印制钞票购买资产的量化宽松（QE）政策有可能在今年下半年放慢脚步。在大多数最狂热的黄金买家看来，QE政策最终必然会导致快速的通货膨胀。但是，这种情况到目前为止还没有出现：4月16日，以普通债券和通胀保值债券的收益率之差来衡量的美国在下一个十年中的通胀预期下跌至2.4%，达到去年11月以来的最低点。若美联储的QE政策逐渐退出，同时通胀率也处于低水平，那么买进黄金的理由就会愈发站不脚。

Yet the obituaries of QE seem premature. First, the Fed has said in the past that the policy is likely to continue until the outlook for jobs improves substantially. Given the recent turn for the worse in economic data, which occurred after the Fed's last policy meeting, that point still seems a long way off. Second, the Bank of Japan has just unveiled a highly aggressive form of QE. With the yen declining in response, many analysts have been talking about a Japanese liquidity boost for the world. That ought to make gold bugs salivate.
不过，现在就宣布QE政策的讣告还为时尚早。首先，美联储曾经表示，只要就业前景不出现实质性改善，QE政策会一直执行下去。鉴于最新的经济数据在美联储上一次政策会议之后出现了向坏的拐点，因此现在离QE退出的时点似乎仍有相当的距离。再者，日本银行刚刚推出了一种极具攻击性的QE政策。在日元应声下跌的情况下，许多分析师都在谈论日本提升流动性对于全球的影响。这可能会让黄金买家垂涎三尺。

In short, it is hard to find a rationale in the current economic outlook that would simultaneously send gold and bond yields down, and stockmarkets up. Perhaps investors are simply as confused as Lukas Podolski, a German football player who described the game as “like chess, only without the dice”.
总之，当前的这种经济预期下，人们还难以为金价和债券收益率的同时下降和股价的上涨找到一个合理的解释。也许，投资者对于这种局面的困惑不解可能就像波多尔斯基对足球感到困惑不解一样，这位德国球员曾经说，踢球“就像下棋一样，只是没有骰子罢了”。

The usual explanation for sharp price movements, when an economic rationale seems lacking, is that someone is selling off their holdings at any price. Some have pointed at Cyprus, which may have to sell gold in response to its debt crisis. Although Cyprus's gold holdings are small, the fear is that other troubled eurozone nations may follow suit.
当价格的剧烈波动似乎缺乏经济方面的原因时，人们常常会认为，有人在不惜一切代价抛售手中的持有。因此，有种观点认为，引起金价暴跌的原因在于塞浦路斯，该国为了应对债务危机可能会被迫出售手中的黄金。虽然塞浦路斯的黄金储备量不大，但是，人们担心其他陷入危机的欧洲国家可能会效仿该国抛售黄金。

But the biggest sell-off so far is in the private sector. During gold's long bull run (see chart above), retail and institutional investors piled into the metal via exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Some of these purchases were seemingly driven by the belief that gold was a one-way bet. Now that the price is falling, investors are fleeing. According to Morgan Stanley, ETFs have sold 249 tonnes of gold this year, compared with the 14 tonnes of reserves that Cyprus is able to sell.
但是，截至目前为止，最大规模的抛售行为却是来自私人部门。在黄金的大牛市中，个人投资者和机构投资者通过交易所交易基金（ETF）大肆囤积这种金属，有些买入行为似乎是受了“金价只涨不跌”的观念的驱使。如今，既然金价在下跌，投资者也在夺路而逃。据摩根士丹利统计，同塞浦路斯只有14吨黄金储备可供卖出的情况相比，今年以来，ETF基金已经卖出了249吨黄金。

Gold, having no yield or earnings, is hard to value. That was a help when the price was rising, since the sky seemed to be the limit. But now that the metal is falling, the lack of valuation support is a curse. Like the government-backed paper money that gold bugs despise, gold is precious only so long as enough people agree that it is.
黄金既不能带来收益，也没有利润可言，它是一种难以对其进行估价的商品。当金价上涨时，由于人们认为价格的上涨会无边无际，因此这种特点就成为金价上涨的“推手”；但是，既然金价正在下跌，那么这种缺乏估值支撑的特点就成为下跌的“魔咒”。这就如同黄金崇拜者鄙视由政府在背后撑腰的纸币一样，只有当足够多的人一致认为黄金值钱时，它才是一种稀有商品。

Sophie

嘻嘻嘻，都是纸上富贵。话说，我们住的东西什么时候会崩溃？感觉价位走向什么的颇像08年的早期啊