【英语财经】过度焦虑的全球市场 Markets: High anxiety

It was morning in early September and senior investors at Carmignac, the French fund manager, were engaged in a debate that they had been having for months: just how fragile was the world economy? Now, digesting the impact of an August decision by the Chinese authorities to let the value of the renminbi drop only slightly, it was finally time to act.

Carmignac’s ￠25bn flagship fund Patrimoine held ￠10bn in equities and the decision was taken to buy insurance against the whole portfolio. They would effectively pull out of the stock market and wait to see what happened.

After a vicious sell-off, markets recovered their poise and in December the US Federal Reserve was sufficiently confident about the outlook to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. But in recent weeks, Carmignac’s decision has looked like the right call: January has been a disaster for stock markets, which have never fallen so far or so fast at the start of a year.

“Our interpretation of the Chinese accident was that this is the canary in the coal mine, that this is the first material impact of the end of quantitative easing,” says Didier Saint-Georges, strategist for the French asset manager.

Global stock markets have lost over $4tn of value already this year. The fears about China’s economic slowdown and depreciating currency have erupted into near-panic. Bond markets have been whiplashed by the conflicting forces of central banks selling reserves to support their currencies and investors rushing for safety.

Chinese stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen have lost a fifth of their value in the first two weeks of January. Benchmark indices in Japan and Europe and the US have fallen by as much as 10 per cent. Commodity prices have tumbled downwards, with oil selling for less than $28 a barrel, a price last seen in 2004.

A spiral of pessimism is developing, with prominent strategists and investors telling clients to pull out of stocks and head for the safety of government bonds. Alongside worries about slowing growth in China, investors are concerned about weakening US corporate profits, the health of mining groups and energy companies that took on debts when prices for raw materials were far higher, and the consequences of collapsing energy prices.

On a mission

So US investors will return on Tuesday after a long weekend looking for the answer to a question: what can restore confidence, not just to China but to the rest of the world?

At stake is the credibility of policymakers around the globe, in particular the Fed, which last month raised overnight borrowing costs for the first time in a decade. Accompanying this month’s market turmoil has been a broad strengthening of the US dollar, effectively tightening financial conditions and hurting domestic industry forced to compete with cheaper imports.

Notably, the US central bank delayed a widely expected borrowing shift last September after the market turmoil triggered by China’s surprise devaluation of the renminbi. Bond market prices imply diminishing expectations of further US rate increases this year, while the American economy so far has yet to see a boost in consumer spending from the dramatic drop in oil prices.

“The Fed will find it much more difficult to raise rates now, with equities down 8 per cent this year, oil making new lows, and concerns increasing that inflation will take even longer to reach the 2 per cent target,’’ says Arthur Bass, managing director at Coex Partners.

The challenge facing policymakers is that investors continue their exit from commodities, shares and corporate bonds, spurring a stampede that hurts confidence among companies and consumers. After the financial crisis, central banks took exceptional measures to stimulate their economies, but growth has been disappointing.

The Fed is supposed to have closed the door on the post-crisis era, but with interest rates still close to zero and scant prospect of fiscal stimulus, the worry is that policymakers have exhausted the tools available to them.

Some argue market turbulence will force the authorities in China to pull together a package of stimulus measures before the Chinese new year on February 8, when markets close for at least three days and business slows down.

Yet the concern is that a viable package of measures needs more time to be put together, with China’s credibility already dented by its apparent hasty actions: from forced stock-buying by the so-called “national team” last summer to the abandonment of “circuit breakers”, which imposed trading halts on plunging stock markets this month.

“What announcement can they make? They’ve made a lot of them already,” asks Xingdong Chen, chief China economist at BNP Paribas. “Cutting reserve ratios doesn’t seem to be working in the way that they’d want. Can they say they’re using a speculative vehicle in the stock market? That received criticism last year.”

Attempts to manage the renminbi have only added to concerns. The People’s Bank of China has continued to spend foreign currency reserves to protect the renminbi, and intervened in markets to narrow the gap between the offshore exchange rate and the onshore rate it controls.

For now, hopes for a confidence boost from Beijing in the near term may be misplaced, as many seasoned China watchers say that authorities in Beijing will be loath to introduce anything radical before the meeting of G20 central bank governors in mid-February. China is the host of this year’s meeting and has a record of suppressing market volatility in the lead-up to events where it will be in the spotlight.

Looking for the end point

In the absence of action, investors in the rest of the world may be tempted to take a lead from the Chinese stock markets. But there is a stark difference between a banking crisis, such as that which threatened the US financial system in 2008, and a mere economic slowdown.

George Magnus, associate at Oxford university’s China Centre and a senior economic adviser to UBS, argues a Chinese economy growing at 3 or 4 per cent a year, while far slower than seen in the past decade, would not be a problem for the rest of the world.

“It’s been very fashionable to equate financial turbulence with a global recession around the corner, but I don’t think that’s correct.”.

Still, the direction for China is just one of the larger issues facing investors. “The level of uncertainty visible in markets can be traced to two sources: China and oil,” says Craig Botham, emerging markets economist at Schroders. “And both have been extremely difficult for investors to call, which is why no one is sure what the end point of this is.”

Following the decision of western authorities to lift a number of sanctions against Iran, global oil prices fell to a 12-year low yesterday, putting further pressure on developing economies that rely on exporting commodities.

“We’re seeing lower capital spending in emerging markets and high yield credit weakness in the US yet we’re not seeing the consumer boost that low oil prices might provide,” says Mr Botham, who sees in market movements “a lot of worry about the weakness of the global trade recovery”.

Indeed, Standard & Poor’s counted 112 corporate bond defaults last year, the most since 2009. Stress at indebted companies also rose significantly in the past six months, with the biggest increase in the proportion of companies judged to be at risk of a downgrade to their credit rating in six years.

The US stock market is also said to have narrowed, a sign of a market running out of momentum after years of upward movement. Large gains for a small number of very big and popular companies last year supported the S&P 500 index, but this year the so-called Fangs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — have plunged.

Indeed, equities, corporate debt and government bonds are all pricing in a 50 per cent chance of a recession this year, according to Jan Loeys, a senior strategist at JPMorgan, who argues sentiment has become too pessimistic and detached from the reality of economic data.

“If we are indeed in the last inning of the US expansion and within half a year of recession, then the current sell-off of risk markets makes sense. But that development is not our view,” he wrote in a report this weekend.

A procession of good economic data, including employment figures for the US economy due on February 5, could start to restore confidence among investors. That is echoed by Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs, who highlights the weak links between China and the US and Europe. He estimates that even a 10 per cent Chinese import collapse would only shave 0.1 percentage points off the developed world’s gross domestic product directly.

Data boost

Even in Mr Hatzius’s more adverse scenarios, where Chinese growth slows sharply from Goldman’s already pessimistic 5 per cent current estimate — well below the official forecast of about 7 per cent — the global impact is painful but manageable, and far from enough to plunge the world into a new recession.

After a difficult first 10 trading days of the year, this is perhaps the most favourable outcome for investors: one in which the problems they see do not disappear but are at least contained.

In this scenario, commodity prices are a reflection of excessive boom-time investment by the industries that mine and pump them, rather than a slump in global demand. Dollar strength is a sign of US recovery. Low global interest rates will ultimately spur a steady recovery in economic activity. And China’s pains reflect the transition from a rapidly industrialising nation to a society whose economy is driven by services and domestic consumption.

It is possible that markets signal a very difficult year for investors and crisis-stretched policymakers without implying imminent disaster.

“China is a bit like a Shakespearean tragedy,” says Mr Magnus. “You know what happens in the end, it’s just a question of how many acts it takes to get there.”

Additional reporting by Michael MacKenzie and Elaine Moore

那是去年9月初的一个早上，法国资产管理公司卡米尼亚克管理公司(Carmignac)的资深投资人正在进行一场他们已持续了几个月的辩论：世界经济到底有多么脆弱？如今，吸收了去年8月中国当局让人民币小幅贬值的影响之后，终于到了该行动的时候了。

卡米尼亚克管理公司旗下规模达250亿欧元的旗舰基金Patrimoine持有100亿欧元的股票，该基金决定对整个投资组合采取保护措施。实际上，他们将撤出股票市场，观望局势变化。

在一轮恶意抛售之后，市场恢复了平静，到12月，美联储(Fed)已对经济前景抱有足够信心来进行近10年来的首次加息。但近几周里，卡米尼亚克管理公司的决定看上去下对了赌注：今年1月迎来了一场股灾，股市在一年开局时从未下跌得这么多或者这么快。

“我们对中国股市意外行情的解释是，这就像是那只煤矿中的金丝雀，这正是停止量化宽松带来的第一次重大冲击，”这家法国资产管理公司的策略师迪迪埃?圣-乔治(Didier Saint-Georges)表示。

今年以来，全球股市已蒸发掉了逾4万亿美元的市值。对中国经济放缓和货币贬值的担忧演化至近乎恐慌的地步。债券市场遭受了两股冲突力量的冲击：一边是各国央行出售储备以支持本币汇率，另一边是投资者竞相买入安全资产。

1月的头两周内，中国沪深股市的总市值蒸发掉了五分之一。日本、欧洲和美国的基准股指下跌幅度达10%之多。大宗商品价格暴跌，石油售价低于每桶28美元，上次出现这一价格是在2004年。

悲观情绪正在急剧发酵，知名策略师和投资家在告诉客户撤出股市，买入安全的政府债券。除了对中国增长放缓感到焦虑，投资者还担忧美国企业盈利降低、矿业集团和能源公司（它们在原材料价格比现在高得多的时候借了债）的健康状况、以及能源价格崩盘的后果。

承担使命

所以，美国投资者在1月19日返回股市之前，花了一个周末加马丁?路德?金纪念日假期的时间寻找一个问题的答案：用什么办法恢复人们对中国和世界其他地区的信心？

目前，全球政策制定者、尤其是美联储的信誉面临考验。美联储上月在10年来首次提高隔夜拆借利率。与本月市场动荡伴随而来的是美元全面走强，这实际上收紧了资金环境，伤害了美国国内产业，迫使其与更低价的进口产品展开竞争。



值得注意的是，去年9月，在中国突然让人民币贬值引发市场混乱之后，美联储曾推迟外界普遍预期的利率调整。债券市场价格暗示着，人们对美国今年进一步加息的预期正在减弱，而迄今为止，美国经济尚未看到油价大幅下跌对消费者支出带来提振。

“现在，美联储将发现加息的难度会比上次大得多，因为今年以来，股市下跌了8%，油价屡创新低，人们越来越担心通胀率还需要更久才能达到2%的目标，”Coex Partners的董事总经理亚瑟?巴斯(Arthur Bass)表示。

政策制定者面对的挑战是，投资者继续退出大宗商品、股票和公司债，引发踩踏，从而伤害公司和消费者的信心。在金融危机之后，各国央行采取了非常规政策刺激本国经济，但增长一直令人失望。

美联储本应已关上后危机时代的大门，但由于利率水平仍接近于零，并且出台财政刺激的可能性很小，人们担心政策制定者已用完了他们所拥有的全部工具。

有些人认为，市场动荡将迫使中国当局在2月8日春节之前制定出一揽子刺激措施。春节期间，股市将至少休市三天，商业活动也会放缓下来。

但人们担心，可行的一揽子措施需要更多时间才能制定出来，因为明显仓促的行动已让中国政府的信誉受损：从去年夏天强令所谓“国家队”买入股票，到本月放弃在股市大跌时暂停交易的“熔断机制”。

“他们可能宣布什么？他们已经宣布了很多东西了，”法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)中国首席经济学家陈兴动表示，“降准似乎起不到预期效果了。他们能说自己在股市中使用了一种投机性工具吗？去年这遭到了批评。”

中国政府试图管控人民币汇率，这只不过加剧了担忧情绪。中国央行(PBoC)不断动用外汇储备支撑人民币，对汇市进行干预，以缩小人民币离岸汇率和其所控制的在岸汇率之间的差价。



目前，对于中国政府能在近期内提振信心的希望或许会落空，许多经验丰富的中国观察人士表示，中国当局将不愿在2月中旬的二十国集团(G20)央行行长会议之前采取任何激进措施。今年中国是会议的主办方，中国的以往做法是，在其将成为焦点的活动之前，压制市场波动。

寻找终点

如果不采取行动，世界其他地区的投资者或许将跟随中国股市的行情。但是，在2008年对美国金融体系构成威胁的那种银行业危机和单纯的经济放缓之间，存在重大差异。

牛津大学(Oxford University)中国中心(China Centre)研究员、瑞银(UBS)高级经济顾问乔治?马格纳斯(George Magnus)认为，如果中国经济每年增长3%或4%，尽管这个速度远低于过去十年的增速，但对世界其他地区而言将不会构成麻烦。

“根据金融动荡推断一场全球衰退近在眼前的做法很时髦，可我认为，这是不对的。”

尽管如此，中国何去何从只是投资者面对的更大问题之一。“市场上出现的不确定性的程度，可以追溯到两个源头：中国和石油，”施罗德(Schroders)新兴市场经济学家克雷格?博瑟姆(Craig Botham)表示，“这两者对于投资者而言都非常难以把握，所以谁也不确定这一切的终点在哪里。”

在西方政府决定解除一系列对伊朗制裁之后，全球油价不久前跌至12年低点，对那些依赖大宗商品出口的发展中经济体构成进一步压力。



“我们看到，新兴市场资本支出在降低，美国高收益债务市场走弱，但我们没有看到低油价可能带来的消费提振，”博瑟姆表示。他认为，当前市场行情反映出“人们对于全球贸易复苏无力的巨大担忧”。

实际上，标普(Standard & Poor’s)去年统计到112起公司债违约案，为2009年以来最多的一年。过去6个月里，背负债务的公司也感到压力大幅上升，被判定信用评级有被调降风险的公司所占比例出现6年来最大增幅。

美国股市也据说在缩水，表明多年上行之后，股市正在失去动能。去年，少数几家受欢迎大公司的大幅上涨支撑了标普500指数(S&P 500 index)，但今年所谓“Fangs”——Facebook、亚马逊(Amazon)、Netflix和谷歌(Google)——的股价都大幅下跌了。

摩根大通(JP Morgan)高级策略师詹?洛伊斯(Jan Loeys)表示，当前股票、公司债和政府债券的价格里都已体现了50%的今年发生衰退的概率。他指出，市场情绪已变得过于悲观和背离现实经济数据。

“如果我们真的处于美国经济扩张的最后阶段，距离衰退仅有半年时间，那么目前风险市场的抛售就是合情合理的。但我们认为，事态不会如此发展，”他在一周前写道。

一系列喜人的美国经济数据，包括定于2月5日发布的就业率数字，可能会开始恢复投资者的信心。这一点得到了高盛(Goldman Sachs)的简?哈祖斯(Jan Hatzius)的认可。他特别指出，中国经济与欧美之间联系较弱。据他估算，即便中国进口减少10%，对发达世界国内生产总值(GDP)增长率的直接影响将不过是减少0.1个百分点。

数据提振

即便在哈祖斯提出的更为不利的情景下——中国经济增长率较高盛目前已然悲观的5%的预测值（远低于7%的官方预测值）大幅滑落——这对全球的冲击也是痛苦但可控的，远不至于将世界推入新的衰退。

在今年惨淡的头10个交易日之后，这可能是对投资者来说最有利的结果了：他们看到的问题并未消失，但起码受到了控制。

在这一情景下，大宗商品价格反映出的是大宗商品开采行业在繁荣时期的过度投资，而不是全球需求疲软。美元走强是美国复苏的标志。全球低利率最终将刺激经济活动的稳步回暖。中国的阵痛反映出了从一个快速工业化国家向服务业和国内消费驱动型经济体的转型。

有可能，市场给投资者和疲于应付危机的政策制定者发出的信号是，今年将是非常艰难的一年，但不会立即发生灾难。

“中国有点儿像一部莎士比亚式的悲剧，”马格纳斯表示，“你知道最终结局是什么，只是不知道到达结局之前有多少幕。”

迈克尔?麦肯兹(Michael Mackenzie)和伊莱恩?摩尔(Elaine Moore)补充报道

译者/邢嵬