【英语国际】美国股市见底了？（上）

World stock markets have survived the nastiest test yet of a slow-moving but relentless crisis that has persisted since credit markets suddenly seized up in July. The latest move towards the edge of the abyss came as the Federal Reserve was forced to help engineer a rescue for Bear Stearns, Wall Street's fifth-largest investment bank.

The news prompted a brief period of panic last Monday. Traders digested the news that Bear, worth $171.50 per share last year, had been sold for $2 per share. Fresh from the profits made betting against Bear, many hedge funds then turned their attention to the fourth-biggest investment bank, Lehman Brothers, whose shares also endured a precipitate decline.

But then the selling stopped. Wall Street seemed to rally to Lehman's defence. After reaching a trough shortly after 1pm on Monday, Lehman's share price more than doubled in less than 24 hours. It was part of an imp-ressive rally that buoyed markets in the US, Europe and Asia.

By Thursday's close, the S&P 500 had gained 6 per cent from its low on Monday, while the S&P financials index, covering the US financial sector - the centre of global concern - had gained 18 per cent to stand at its highest level of the month. Even if it remained 30 per cent down from the peak it hit last year, this gave grounds for some optimism.

Meanwhile, foreign exchange markets staged a dramatic shift, with the dollar rallying by 3 per cent after falling to historic lows, while commodity prices tumbled from historic highs.

That in turn led to a new wave of speculation: had Bear's collapse, and Lehman's near-death experience, finally signalled a stock market bottom? Several analysts put out commentaries boldly making that prediction. A note from UBS, headed "Ready for a rally", was typical. The Federal Reserve joined in with its biggest ever cut proportionate to its main target interest rate, and shares enjoyed an upward surge.

At the centre of almost all the arguments was the notion of "capitulation": the idea that market extremes are driven by excesses of emotion rather than market fundamentals. When investors finally panic and shares fall as swiftly as they did on Monday, this can often be a sign that the last optimists have given up. That is classically a signal that shares have been sold down to a "bedrock" cheap valuation, prompting new investors to start looking for bargains.

The collapse of an institution as big as Bear Stearns is a significant and rare event. Previous such incidents, optimists say, have come shortly before market bottoms. Turbulence continues for a short while but, once the worst has finally happened, markets are at last ready to move forwards. By this argument, Bear's collapse has lanced the boil for this market and paved the way for a rebound. JPMorgan published an analysis last week showing that after the last four big Wall Street collapses (Continental-Illinois in 1984; Drexel-Burnham Lambert in 1990; Kidder Peabody in 1994; and Long-Term Capital Management in 1998), the S&P 500 was up a year later by an average 10 per cent.

Unfortunately, the historical parallels look stretched. The case of LTCM, for example, revolved around a stricken hedge fund that was plainly the centre of the market's difficulties. Once it was resolved, the market could rally. Bear Stearns was nowhere near as central to the market's current difficulties.

Another argument that we are near the bottom comes from an analysis of the economy. Stock markets try to predict macro-economic trends, and historically they have generally done so successfully. Thus, when the US economy is heading for recession, as many believe it is today, share prices tend to hit bottom and start to rise some months before economic activity begins to recover. By this seemingly perverse logic, the two consecutive months of falling payrolls to start this year might actually be positive for equities.

James Paulsen, equity strategist at Wells Capital, points out that in the recessions of 1970, 1975 and 1990, the stock market's recovery started within weeks of the second month of falling employment. In 1980 it started even earlier.

Mr Paulsen admits that this is not fail-safe. It did not work for the recession of 2001, which was relatively mild. The stock market entered that recession at historically excessive valuations, and needed longer to reach a low. This theory might not work if the current slowdown turns into a long and deep recession.

Many commentators still argue that this will be a very mild recession. So it is quite possible that stocks have not yet discounted the worst of what is to come. But generally stock markets do seem to start their recoveries fairly early in a recession.

More substantively, optimists point to the strenuous attempts by the fiscal and monetary authorities to deal with the problem, particularly in the US. The Federal Reserve has introduced several innovative ways of funding banks and brokerages in the past few months as it fights the problems in the money markets and it has also made unprecedentedly swift cuts in its target interest rates.

The federal government will oblige with its "fiscal stimulus" package of tax rebates, which will deliver about $600 each into the pockets of US taxpayers over the next few months. "The markets are responding to the strong policy actions taken by the administration and the Federal Reserve, helping to restore confidence," says Larry Kantor, head of research at Barclays Capital.

Earlier in the crisis, the Fed had been more sensitive to the political implications of bailing out rich Wall Street bankers. William Poole, governor of the St Louis Fed, said in August that "punishment" had been "meted out to those who have done misdeeds and made bad judgments," in what was seen as a message that market participants should not expect help from the Fed if they ran into trouble. More broadly, the Fed said as recently as October that it thought the risks of inflation were as great as those of a slowdown in growth - normally a coded message telling the market it should not bank on any more interest rate cuts.

In this version of events, the Fed's attitude contributed to the sell-off in stocks, and so its new determination to avert further carnage could show that the bottom has at last been reached.

So-called "technicians" - who study the market by looking at patterns in charts rather than at fundamentals such as earnings or macroeconomic growth - also suggest there is reason for optimism. Throughout the turbulence of the past six months, the S&P 500, the world's most widely tracked index, has never closed more than 20 per cent down from its all-time peak in October. It has come close to doing so several times.

This can be seen as a positive, as it appears that the market has set a level (a "resistance level" in the jargon) below which it cannot fall. Whenever this is approached, buyers emerge. Once traders believe that a bottom has been found this way, they become much more confident.

Also, the scale of the rallies in recent days gives grounds for confidence. According to Mary-Ann Bartels, technical analyst at Merrill Lynch, the S&P 500 enjoyed two days in the space of a week when it gained more than 3 per cent, and when more than 90 per cent of stocks were up. This is very rare: the last two times such events happened so close together were in July 2006 and November 1987, which both turned out to be significant market bottoms.

(To Be Continued)

自去年7月份信贷市场突然失灵以来，这场缓慢而无情的危机就一直在持续。但迄今为止，全球股市经受住了最为严峻的考验。全球股市最近一次滑向深渊的边缘，是因为美联储(Fed)被迫施以援手，策划一次针对美国第五大投资银行贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)的拯救行动。

上周一，这一消息引发短暂的恐慌。交易员得到消息称，去年股价高达171.50美元的贝尔斯登将以每股2美元的价格出售。许多对冲基金刚从做空贝尔斯登中获利，然后又将它们的注意力转向股价同样急剧下跌的美国第四大投行雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)。

但此后抛盘停顿。华尔街股市似乎因雷曼兄弟的防守而重拾信心。雷曼兄弟股价周一下午1点后短暂探底，之后不到24小时就涨逾一倍。与此同时，美国、欧洲和亚洲的股市也大幅上涨。

截至上周四收盘，标准普尔500指数(S&P 500)已较其上周一的低点上涨6%，而涵盖美国金融行业的标准普尔金融类指数上涨18%，站上了本月其最高点位——而美国金融行业正是全球担忧的焦点。尽管该指数仍较其去年创下的峰值下跌30%，但这种走势还是为一些乐观情绪提供了依据。

与此同时，外汇市场上演了戏剧性的反转，美元汇率跌至历史低点后回涨3%，而大宗商品价格从其历史高点有所回落。

这进而导致市场出现新一波的猜测：贝尔斯登的垮台，和雷曼兄弟濒临破产的经历，是否最终预示着股市见底呢？多位分析师发表了评论，大胆做出上述预测。瑞银(UBS)一份标题为《准备反弹》(Ready for a rally)的报告具有代表性。美联储(Fed)也掺和进来，对其主要目标利率采取了有史以来最高比例的下调，而股市大幅上涨。

几乎所有的说法都围绕“投降式抛售”(capitulation)概念：该观点认为，使市场走向极端的驱动力是投资者过度的情绪，而非市场的基本面因素。当投资者最终感到恐慌，而股价下跌速度像上周一那么迅速时，往往可以成为表明最后一批乐观主义者已经放弃的迹象。这通常表明股价已跌至“底部”，从而促使新的投资者开始逢低吸纳。

一家规模像贝尔斯登这么大的机构倒闭，是一个重要且罕见的事件。乐观主义者表示，以往类似事件发生在市场见底之前不久。市场震荡会短暂持续，一旦最坏的情况最终发生，市场将最终做好上涨的准备。参照这种说法，贝尔斯登倒闭已为市场“切开肿瘤”，为反弹铺平了道路。摩根大通(JPMorgan)上周发布的一份分析报告显示，在最近4次华尔街大型金融机构倒闭事件发生后——1984年伊利诺伊大陆银行(Continental-Illinois)、1990年德崇证券(Drexel-Burnham Lambert)、1994年Kidder Peabody；以及1998年长期资本管理公司(Long-Term Capital Management)——标普500指数在一年后平均上涨10%。

不幸的是，历史的平行线似乎延长了。例如，在长期资本管理公司一案中，主角是一家出现问题的对冲基金，这只基金完全处于市场困境的核心。一旦问题得以解决，市场就可能大幅上涨。贝尔斯登远远没有成为市场当前困境的核心。

另一种有关我们正接近市场底部的说法，来自一份美国经济分析报告。股市试图对宏观经济趋势做出预测，而在历史上，股市一般都成功地做到了这点。因此，当美国经济正走向衰退（正如目前许多人认为的那样）时，股价往往会触底，并在经济活动复苏前数月开始反弹。根据这一看似有悖常理的逻辑来看，今年头两个月美国就业率连续下降，实际上可能对股市起到积极作用。

韦尔斯资本(Wells Capital)股票策略师詹姆斯•保尔森(James Paulsen)指出，在1970年、1975年和1990年的经济衰退时期，股市的回升始于就业率下降第二个月的数周之内。1980年，股市反弹的时间甚至更早。

保尔森承认这不是一种自动纠错的机制。它对2001年相对温和的经济衰退就没有起到作用。当时，当经济开始衰退时，股价水平按历史标准衡量处于过高水平，需要更长的时间才能达到低点。如果美国当前的经济放缓演变为长期和深入的经济衰退，那么，这一理论可能就不起作用。

许多评论人士仍然主张，此次经济衰退将非常温和。因此，股市很有可能尚未反映出即将发生的最坏情形。但普遍而言，股市似乎确实在经济衰退相当早的阶段就开始回升。

更具实质意义的是，乐观主义者提到了各国财政及货币当局（尤其是美国）付出巨大努力，以应对当前的问题。过去几个月，美联储已推出几种为银行和券商提供资金的创新方式，它不仅努力应对货币市场的问题，还史无前例地迅速调降其目标利率。

美国联邦政府将实施退税的一揽子“财政刺激”措施，未来几个月内，该措施将向每个美国纳税人的兜里提供约600美元。巴克莱资本(Barclays Capital)研究部门主管拉里•坎特(Larry Kantor)表示：“市场正在对美国政府和美联储采取的有力政策行动做出反应，有助于重振市场信心。”

在此次危机之初，对于为富有的华尔街银行家纾困的政治含义，美联储曾经更为敏感。圣路易斯联邦储备银行(St Louis Fed)行长威廉•普尔(William Poole)去年8月份表示，“那些做出错误行为和错误判断的人”已经“受到了惩罚”，外界认为他的讲话传达了一个信息：即如果陷入麻烦，市场参与者不应期望美联储会施以援手。更具广泛意义的是，美联储去年10月份表示，其认为通胀风险与经济增长放缓的风险同样巨大——通常这是一种隐含的信息，告诉市场不应指望美联储进一步降息。

由此来看，美联储的态度导致股市大幅下挫，因此，美联储避免进一步大范围伤亡的新决心可能表明，股市最终已经到达底部。

所谓的“技术派”通过图表走势而非收益或宏观经济增长等基本面来研究市场。他们也表示，乐观是有理由的。在过去6个月的市场震荡期间，作为全球最被广泛跟踪的指数，标普500指数的收盘价位从未比去年10月份的历史峰值下跌20%以上。有好几次，标普500指数已接近这一水平。

这可以被视为一个积极的信号，因为似乎市场已在下方设定了一个价位（行话是“支撑位”），它不可能跌破这条线。一旦交易员认为，已经通过这种方法找到市场底部，那么他们的信心会明显上升。

此外，最近数日市场回升的幅度为这种信心提供了证据。美林(Merrill Lynch)技术分析师玛丽-安•巴特尔斯(Mary-Ann Bartels)表示，标普500指数在一周之内有两天出现上涨，涨幅都超过3%，而且当天90%的股票都上扬。这种情况非常罕见：上两次此类情况发生时间非常接近是在2006年7月份和1987年11月份，最终事实表明这两次都是重要的市场底部。

（待续）

链接：美国股市见底了？（下）