【英语财经】香港股市的独特地位 Hong Kong in a unique position as funds look for mainland bargains

According to trader gossip, the global market rollercoaster triggered by China was considered so serious the International Monetary Fund emailed China’s central bank at the weekend to ask what was going on. The big joke was to profess surprise that the IMF had an email address — outsiders have to send faxes to the People’s Bank of China, even at the highest level.

How markets operate, and how financial authorities communicate, never really matters until it does— as the actions of the PBoC and China Securities Regulatory Commission, and China’s shortlived circuit breakers, have proved.

Calmer markets this week are giving investors and regulators alike a chance to regroup. They also give those who are not intimately involved in market plumbing an opportunity to familiarise themselves with forthcoming changes in the Hong Kong market, and with trading strategies that suit its particular mix of international investors and Chinese stocks.

Hong Kong’s stock market occupies a unique position as China becomes more important to global market thinking. Its China-heavy indices have not fared as poorly as mainland benchmarks this year, in part helped by the absence of circuit breakers.

But a “volatility control mechanism” is due this year, as is a closing auction system that will bring the exchange more in line with western counterparts; never mind the fact that the city’s traders still enjoy a one-hour lunch break.

The city’s stocks are not a perfect way of expressing views on China. The very limited pipe between Hong Kong and the Shanghai market means it is hard to arbitrage the different valuations.

As a result, and in spite of their spectacularly bad start to the year, A-shares still trade at a 40 per cent premium to their Hong Kong-listed H-share counterparts. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index, made up of the latter stocks, offers one of the lowest valuations in the world at six times expected earnings — half the level of mainland blue chips and just over a third of US levels.

Those valuations are attracting the interest of hedge funds and other investors that, notwithstanding the volatility, are keen to take positions on China. Strategies such as betting that Chinese groups will pay expected dividends are increasingly popular. Betting on HSCEI dividends, which are reported by member companies in renminbi but paid in Hong Kong dollars (which are pegged to their US counterparts), involves believing that the expected payouts are undervalued, that the renminbi’s weakening has indeed slowed and that reactions on the mainland will not involve cutting dividends.

“I think it would be a major negative shock to the market if dividends were to be reduced dramatically in the next few months,” says Andrew Scott, head of Asia-Pacific flow strategy at Société Générale. “China really wants to instil some calm right now, not add to the carnage.”

Moreover Hong Kong’s planned circuit breaker is more subtle than the one that hurt Shanghai and Shenzhen. It is activated only if a price moves 10 per cent in five minutes, and then it allows five minutes “cooling off” before trading resumes. This can happen just twice a day. It will affect only 80-odd blue-chips to begin with as it is phased in.

China’s breaker, which has been shelved, paused the whole market after a 5 per cent slide and closed trading for the day at 7 per cent. The gap between 5 and 7 per cent “acted like a magnet”, says one senior equities banker: investors scared by a 5 per cent fall used the pause to prepare for more selling.

Hong Kong’s closing auction system is more of a catch-up. The exchange is, by its own admission, the only one in the developed market not to have one — which helps funds, including index trackers, meet their mandates.

Still, whether it be faxes or an insistence on lunch breaks, processes and thinking tend to be a little different in Asia. But the more China matters to global performance, and the more competition forces Asian bourses to vie with London and New York, the more these differences will fade over time and arbitrageurs will have their say.

据交易员传言，国际货币基金组织(IMF)认为中国引发的这轮全球市场过山车式行情非常严重，在上周末曾向中国央行(PBoC)发送电子邮件询问出了什么情况。这个笑话的笑点在于对美联储居然有中国央行的电邮地址表示惊讶——中国央行只接受外部人士的传真，即使是最高级别的外部人士。

市场如何运作？金融当局如何沟通？这些问题只有出了事才会变得重要。中国央行和中国证监会(China Securities Regulatory Commission)所采取的行动，以及中国短暂的熔断机制都证明了这一点。

本周市场较为平静，给了投资者和监管机构一个重整旗鼓的机会，也给了那些对市场底层结构(plumbing)不熟悉的人一个机会，让他们可以熟悉下香港市场即将发生的变化，以及适合这个让国际投资者可以投资中国内地企业股票的市场的交易策略。

在中国因素在全球市场决策中所占分量越来越重之际，香港股市占据得天独厚的位置。中国内地企业股票占很大权重的港股指数今年表现并未像A股指数一样糟糕，部分原因是香港股市没有熔断机制。

不过香港股市定于今年建立“波动调节机制”，并重启收市竞价交易时段（此举将让港交所与西方股市更一致）——尽管香港交易员仍然能享受一小时的午休。

香港股市并不是表达对中国内地股市看法的最好渠道。香港和上海股市之间的通道十分狭窄，这意味着很难从不同的估值中套利。

所以，尽管今年开局惊人糟糕，但A股依然比对应的H股溢价40%。以6倍预期市盈率来看，由H股组成的恒生中国企业指数(Hang Seng China Enterprises Index)的估值是全球最低的，只有内地蓝筹股一半水平，美国股市的三分之一多一点。

这样的估值正引起一些对冲基金以及其他投资者的兴趣：虽然波动性较大，但他们还是热衷于对中国题材股票建立头寸。押注中国企业将支付预期股息等策略越来越受欢迎。押注于香港恒生中国企业指数（HSCE，简称国指）成分股公司股息（以人民币报价但以盯住美元的港币支付），相当于相信预期股息支出被低估，人民币贬值确实已经放缓，以及内地的反应将不会包括削减股息。

“我认为如果未来几个月股息大幅削减的话，将对香港股市造成严重的负面冲击，”法国兴业银行(Société Générale)亚太区流通策略主管安德鲁?斯科特(Andrew Scott)说，“中国现在的确希望注入一些冷静，而非火上浇油。”

此外，香港规划中的熔断机制比内地造成沪深两市大跌的熔断机制更加轻柔。只有当一支股票在5分钟内波动幅度达到10%时，熔断机制才会启动，让该支股票“冷却”5分钟再重新开始交易。熔断一天最多只能出现两次。该机制将分阶段实行，开始时将只会影响80余支恒指及国指成分股。

已经暂停实施的中国内地的熔断机制则规定，在股指跌幅触及5%后暂停整个股市交易30分钟，在跌幅触及7%后暂停整个股市交易至收市。一名资深股票经纪人表示：5%到7%之间的间隔“像一块磁铁”，被5%的跌幅吓到的投资者利用交易暂停时间准备进行更多抛售。

香港重启收市竞价交易时段更像是为了跟上国际惯例。港交所自己都承认，它是发达市场中唯一没有这项机制的交易所，该机制有助于基金（包括指数追踪型基金）履行职责。

不过，无论是只接受外部人士的传真还是坚持午间休市，亚洲股市的操作流程与思维方式往往都与西方不太一样。但中国对全球股市表现的影响越大，竞争越是迫使亚洲交易所与伦敦和纽约较劲，这些差异就越会随着时间推移慢慢消失，套利者也会越有发言权。

译者/何黎