【英语中国】中国股市与纳斯达克前车之鉴

There are many reasons to feel good about emerging markets in general, and China in particular. Many have put their economic houses in order since the 1990s. That enabled them to weather this year's credit crisis with relative ease. China, engine room of world growth, logged economic growth of 11.5 per cent in the third quarter.But the way their markets behave gives grounds for concern. The JPMorgan EMBI index, which shows the spread of emerging market government bonds over Treasuries, has been moving in line with the Chicago Board Options Exchange's Vix index of US equity volatility.

When US stocks are volatile, EMBI spreads widen. They narrow again when US stocks calm down. That suggests that emerging market debt is not being driven by judgments of governments' creditworthiness.

China's issue is inflation and how to contain it. Five increases in the central bank lending rate this year have had little effect.

Mark Williams of Capital Economics in London suggests the Chinese authorities want to prop up real deposit rates to counter inflation. But that is hard unless they are prepared to let the currency rise – something the rest of the world badly wants to see happen.

Raising deposit rates would also, he points out, help deter China's savers from pouring yet more money into the country's overheated stock market.

A look at the charts suggests that the Chinese stock bubble may be bursting. A graph of the Shanghai Composite today looks eerily like the Nasdaq Composite on March 20, 2000 – 10 days after what turned out to be its all-time high (the graph is online at www.ft.com/shortview). Both are down 8.5 per cent in 10 days from their peak, after previous breakneck growth.

This proves nothing. But charts are as good a guide as any if markets are adrift from their fundamentals, as China's seems to be. Bubbles owe more to psychology than economics.

人们有很多理由对新兴市场的总体状况感到乐观，尤其是中国。自上世纪90年代以来，许多新兴市场的经济已经走上正轨，使它们能够相对轻松地应对今年的信贷危机。作为全球增长的核心力量，中国今年第三季度达到11.5%的经济增幅。

但这些经济体的市场表现却令人担忧。显示新兴市场政府债券与美国国债之间利差的JP摩根新兴市场债券指数(JPMorgan EMBI index)，一直在与芝加哥期权交易所(Chicago Board Options Exchange)显示美国股票波动率的Vix指数同向波动。

当美国股市出现波动时，EMBI利差增大。美国股市平静下来后，EMBI利差又会缩小。这表明，决定新兴市场债券动向的，不是对政府信用度的考量。

中国的问题是通胀及如何抑制通胀。中国央行今年五次上调贷款利率并没有取得多少效果。



伦敦资本经济公司(Capital Economics)的马克•威廉姆斯(Mark Williams)认为，中国政府希望通过上调实际存款利率来抑制通胀。但这很难，除非他们预备让人民币升值——这正是世界其它国家的迫切愿望。



他指出，调高存款利率还将有助于阻止中国的储户将更多资金投入过热的中国股市。

看一眼图表（www.ft.com/shortview）就知道，中国股市的泡沫可能正在破裂。令人不安的是，上证综合指数如今的图形看起来就像纳斯达克综合指数(Nasdaq Composite)2000年3月20日——创下历史最高水平10天之后——的走势图。两者都在经历了此前疯狂的上涨后，在10天内较峰值水平下跌了8.5%。

这不能证明什么。但如果市场脱离了基本面（中国似乎就是如此），图表也是一个很好的指引。泡沫主要来自人们的心理状态，而不是经济状况。

译者/李碧波