【英语财经】投资者必须看懂中国 Watch out for emerging market banana skins

The global economic expansion is so well advanced that the investment community is understandably nervous, at the start of 2016, about a wide variety of risks. Geopolitics, cyber attacks, inflation, excessive debt, deflation — there is no shortage of lurking horrors to give professional investors sleepless nights. Stuff will undoubtedly happen, as Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, might have put it. Yet I was interested to see in the recent annual review of potential banking banana skins from the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation that what bankers and others in the 52-country survey found most worrying was relatively prosaic: the possibility that the economic recovery would fail.

One of the interesting things about that concern is the extent to which it turns on emerging markets. Despite having suffered a protracted slowdown, emerging markets still accounted for 60 per cent of global growth between 2010 and 2014 and their share of global gross domestic product last year was over 57 per cent measured at international purchasing power parity. In 2015 and 2016 the International Monetary Fund expects emerging markets to grow at double the speed of the advanced countries, notwithstanding the difficulties that so many of them face.

To make a plausible projection of global growth, then, it is necessary to be on top of the emerging markets; and to make a plausible projection of emerging market growth you have to be on top of China, because it accounts for such a big chunk of the world economy. There lies one of the biggest question marks not only for growth but for financial stability in the developed world. For as the events of the last week have reminded us, market developments in China spill over to the rest of us. A smooth rebalancing and slowing of the Chinese economy is a prerequisite for continuing stable expansion everywhere else.

While China’s ability to wrongfoot global markets is not to be underestimated, I am not convinced it will cause the global expansion to falter in a big way. When policymakers in Beijing confronted a bigger than expected slowdown last year they damped their enthusiasm for rebalancing the economy away from excessive investment towards domestic consumption and returned to their old ways. Local government investment in infrastructure and property was cranked up again, as was investment in unprofitable basic industries. Monetary policy was also loosened — to good effect in the short term, but in due course there will be a cost arising from a further wasteful misallocation of resources. And there is a cost now for the advanced economies because investment in global industries that already suffer from surplus capacity will depress returns and thus discourage investment.

As for the rest of the developing world, it is not just suffering from the slowdown in China. The Institute of International Finance, a club of global banks, points out that there is a secular shift to services (of which China is part) at the expense of manufacturing. The share of services in emerging market economies has risen from 45 per cent in the late 1990s to 53 per cent today, which will contribute to a slowdown in potential growth, especially among commodity exporters.

For investors there will of course be a time to return to emerging markets that have seen $1tn of capital withdrawn over the past year. Unpopularity suggests opportunity. Yet as this column has pointed out before, emerging markets are not a homogeneous group. Still less are the so-called Brics. Brazil is in political turmoil and deep recession; Russia is crucified by the collapsing oil price; China is trying to make an extraordinarily difficult economic transition; India is burgeoning. Never have they had less in common.

Within the emerging market universe, countries such as India and Mexico are doing well. Yet the market knows that. Another inconvenient truth is that much academic evidence shows there is no correlation between countries’ growth rates and stock market returns. The way to profit from emerging markets is to choose ones where valuations are low. No doubt some people will make money out of South Africa, Turkey and Russia in due course. But others may lose a fortune first. The art of timing in such markets is given to few.

To return to where we began, my worry for markets this year relates more to geopolitical risk than purely economic headwinds. But after a rocky first week of the year pessimism is probably being overdone.

John Plender is a columnist for the FT

全球经济扩张已经持续了这么久，以至于投资界在2016年初对众多风险感到担忧，这是可以理解的。地缘政治、网络攻击、通胀、过度负债、通缩，很多若隐若现的可怕因素让专业投资者辗转难眠。借用美国前国防部长唐纳德?拉姆斯菲尔德(Donald Rumsfeld)的话：情况肯定会发生。然而，在金融创新研究中心(Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation)最近一份有关银行业潜在风险的年度评估中，我饶有兴致地发现，在这项涵盖52个国家的调查中，银行家和其他人认为最令人担忧的风险相对平淡：经济复苏可能失去动力。

关于这种担忧的有趣的一点是其对新兴市场的关注程度。尽管遭遇持续放缓，但新兴市场仍占2010年至2014年全球增长的60%，按照全球购买力平价(PPP)衡量，新兴市场去年占全球国内生产总值(GDP)的比例超过57%。国际货币基金组织(IMF)预测，2015年和2016年，新兴市场的增速将是发达国家的两倍，尽管很多新兴市场国家遭遇困境。

那么，要对全球增长做出可信预测，就有必要看懂新兴市场；而要对新兴市场做出可信预测，我们必须看懂中国，因为中国在全球经济中的比重很大。对于发达国家的增长和金融稳定，这里存在最大的问号之一。正如上周的事件所提醒我们的那样，中国市场的事态会产生溢出效应，影响世界其他地方的市场。中国经济的平稳转型和放缓是其他所有地区继续稳定扩张的先决条件。

尽管中国让全球市场措手不及的能力不应被低估，但我不肯定它会造成全球扩张严重不稳。当北京的政策制定者去年遭遇超过预期的增速放缓时，他们减弱了对推动经济从过度投资转向国内消费的热情，重拾过去的模式。地方政府在基础设施和房地产领域的投资再次增长，对不具盈利能力的基础产业的投资也是如此。货币政策也被放松，短期而言起到了良好效果，但进一步的浪费性资源错配会在以后造成代价。如今发达经济体也在付出代价，因为对全球已遭遇产能过剩的行业的投资将压缩回报率，从而阻碍投资。

至于其他发展中国家，它们不仅仅受到中国经济放缓的拖累。由全球银行组成的国际金融协会(Institute of International Finance)指出，它们正在经历从制造业转向服务业的长期转型（中国也是其中的一部分）。新兴市场经济体服务业所占比例已从上世纪90年代末的45%升至现在的53%，这将加剧潜在增速放缓，特别是在大宗商品出口国。

对于投资者而言，肯定会出现某个重返新兴市场的大好时机；过去一年期间有1万亿美元资金从新兴市场撤出。人气低迷暗示着机遇。然而，正如本专栏之前指出的那样，新兴市场并不是一个同质的群体。所谓的金砖国家(Brics)更是各不相同。巴西正陷于政治动荡和严重经济衰退；俄罗斯正受到油价暴跌的重创；中国正努力推动极其艰难的经济转型；印度正蓬勃发展。它们之间的共同点从未像现在这么少。

在新兴市场中，印度和墨西哥等国表现不错。然而，市场已经意识到这点。另一个令人不爽的事实是，大量学术证据表明，一个国家的增速与股市回报率之间没有关联。从新兴市场获利的方式是选择那些估值较低的市场。到了某个时候，有些人肯定会从南非、土耳其和俄罗斯赚到大钱。但在那之前其他人可能血本无归。在这些市场，只有极少数的人有本事选准时机。

回到本文开头的话题，我今年对市场的担忧更多的与地缘政治风险有关，而非纯粹的经济不利因素。但在今年第一周市场大幅震荡后，悲观论调很可能有些过头了。

本文作者是英国《金融时报》专栏作家

译者/梁艳裳