American finance
美国金融
Nightmare on Wall Street
华尔街噩梦
Sep 15th 2008 | NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON,DC
From Economist.com
A weekend of high drama reshapes American finance
一个极富戏剧性的周末重塑了美国的金融体系
EVEN by the standards of the worst financial crisis for at least a generation, the events of Sunday Spetember14th and the day before were extraordinary. The weekend began with hopes that a deal could be struck, with or without government backing, to save Lehman Brothers, America’s fourth-largest investment bank. It ended with Lehman’s set for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the bank preparing to wind itself up after those efforts failed. Other vulnerable financial giants scrambled to sell themselves or raise enough capital to stave off a similar fate. Merrill Lynch, the third-biggest investment bank, sold itself to Bank of America (BofA), an erstwhile Lehman suitor, in a $50 billion all-stock deal. American International Group (AIG) brought forward a potentially life-saving overhaul and went cap-in-hand to the Federal Reserve.
即使以至少一代人所经历的最坏的金融危机的标准来看，上周六及周日（9月14日）的事件仍是非同寻常的。那个周末开始于拯救美国第四大投行雷曼兄弟的交易有望达成，无论有或者没有政府的支持。然而却以雷曼兄弟的所有努力均告失败后，根据美国破产法案第11章申请破产保护而告终。其它脆弱的金融巨头同样努力地将自己卖出或是筹集足够的资金以避免与雷曼相同的命运。第三大投行美林以500亿美元全额换股交易将自己卖给了以前雷曼的收购者–美国银行。美国国际集团（AIG）正在提出一个潜在的挽救重整方案，并且毕恭毕敬地照美联储脸色行事。
On Sunday night the situation was still fluid, with bankers and regulators working to limit the fallout. They were girding themselves for a dreadful Monday in the markets. Australia’s stockmarket opened sharply lower on Monday (most other Asian bourses were closed). American stock futures were deep in the red too, and the dollar weaker. Spreads on risky credit, already elevated, widened further.
在周日晚上，形势仍然非常不明朗。银行家们和监管者都在努力减小这次事件的辐射影响。他们准备应付非常糟糕的”黑色星期一”。澳大利亚股市周一大幅低开（其它大多数亚洲股票交易所都停牌了）。美国股指期货下跌非常厉害，同时美元汇率也走低。已经很高的信贷风险的息差变得更高。
With these developments the crisis is entering a new and extremely dangerous phase. If Lehman’s assets are dumped in a liquidation, prices of like assets on other firms’ books will also have to be marked down, eroding their capital bases. The government’s refusal to help with a bail-out of Lehman will strip many firms of the benefit of being thought too big to fail, raising their borrowing costs. Lehman’s demise highlights the industry’s inability, or unwillingness, to rescue the sick, even when the consequences of inaction are potentially dire.
随着这些进展，危机已经进入极其危险的阶段。如果雷曼的资产在清算时遭到抛售，其它公司帐上的资产同样会减值缩水，这会侵蚀其资本基础。美国政府对雷曼的拒绝支持会使其它许多公司失去”大就不会倒”的优势，从而大大增加这些公司的借款成本。雷曼的死亡更加凸显了金融业无力，或者不愿意去拯救伤病者，即使这样不作为潜在的后果非常可怕。
The biggest worry is the effect on derivatives markets, particularly the giant one for credit-default swaps. Lehman is a top-ten counterparty in CDS, holding contracts with a notional value of almost $800 billion. If it were to cease trading, chaos could ensue. On Sunday, banks called in their derivatives traders to assess their exposures to Lehman and work on mitigating risks. In a highly unusual, hastily convened weekend trading session, the market’s main players sought to reduce the risk hanging over Lehman’s outstanding trades by matching buyers of its swaps directly with sellers, thus cutting Lehman out of the equation. But only $1 billion-2 billion of trades were executed. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Lehman’s main regulator, said it is working with the bank to protect clients and trading partners and to “maintain orderly markets”.
最令人担心是这次事件对衍生品市场的影响，特别是那些从事信贷违约交易的巨头。雷曼是信贷违约交易的十家最大公司之一，据估计它持有约8000亿美元的合同。如果雷曼停止交易，那么市场混乱便会随之发生。周日，各大银行都召集其衍生品交易员来评估其与雷曼的交易量并着力于减少风险。更加非同寻常的是，在匆忙召开的周末交易会上，市场的主要参与者为减少风险决定将雷曼未执行的交易搁置，然后让买家与卖家直接交易，这样就将雷曼排除到交易之外了。然而仅有10到20亿的交易得以执行。雷曼的主要监管者–美国证券交易委员表示将会和银行一起来保护客户和贸易合伙人，并”保持一个有秩序的市场”。
Government officials believed they had persuaded a consortium of Wall Street firms to back a new vehicle that would take $40 billion-70 billion of dodgy assets off Lehman’s books, thereby facilitating a takeover of the remainder. But the deal died when the main suitors, BofA and Barclays, a British bank, walked away on Sunday afternoon. Both were unwilling to buy the firm, even shorn of the worst bits, without some sort of government backstop.
政府官员相信他们已经说服一家由华尔街许多公司组成的财团来支持成立一个新的工具。此工具用来除去雷曼帐上400到700亿美元的危险资产，因而减轻对雷曼剩余部分收购的困难。但是这个协议由于主要的潜在收购者–美国银行和英国的巴克莱银行在周日下午的退出而告失败。即使除去雷曼最坏资产，但是在没有政府的支援下上述两家银行都不愿意收购雷曼。
But Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, decided to draw a line and refuse such help. After the Fed had bailed out Bear Stearns in March and the Treasury had taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last weekend, expectations were high that they would do the same for Lehman. And that was precisely the problem: it would have confirmed that the federal government stood behind all risk-taking in the financial system, creating moral hazard that would take years to undo and expanding taxpayers’ liability almost without limit. Conceivably, Congress could have denied Mr Paulson the money he needed even if he had been inclined to bail Lehman out.
但是美国财政部长保尔森却决定与此收购事件划清界限，拒绝提供帮助。在三月份美联储为贝尔斯登作保和上周财政部接管两房之后，人们都高度期望他们对雷曼也会这么做。而这恰恰是个问题：政府为金融系统的任何风险都担保的话，由此造成的道德危机要花好几年时间才会消去，而且将纳税人的责任几乎无限制地放大了。因此，即使保尔森打算拯救雷曼，肯定也会被国会否决掉的。
This left Lehman with no option but to prepare for bankruptcy. Though the bank has access to a Fed lending facility, introduced after Bear’s takeover by JP Morgan Chase, the collapse of its share price left it unable to raise new equity and facing crippling downgrades from rating agencies. Moreover, rival firms that had continued to trade with it in recent weeks-at the urging of regulators-had begun to pull away in the past few days. The inability to find a buyer is a huge blow to Lehman’s 25,000 employees, who own a third of the company’s now-worthless stock; in such a difficult environment, most will struggle to find work at other financial firms. It also makes for an ignominious end to the career of Dick Fuld, Lehman’s boss since 1994, who until last year was viewed as one of Wall Street’s smartest managers.
这迫使雷曼除了破产外没有其它选择。虽然雷曼可以获取在贝尔斯登被摩根大通收购后引入的美联储借贷机制，但是雷曼股价的崩盘导致其无法再筹得新的资本并且面临着将要被评级机构降低等级。此外，这几周被监管者促使与雷曼交易的竞争对手都在过去几天里抽身。无法找到一个买家对雷曼25000名雇员打击颇大，他们拥有雷曼三分之一的股份，现在这些股份已经没有多少价值了。在这样困难的环境下，绝大部分雇员都开始努力去其它金融机构找工作了。这对1994年上任至今的雷曼老板迪克福德来说，也是职业生涯耻辱的终结，而直到去年他还被看作华尔街最出色的管理者之一。
Merrill’s rush to sell itself was motivated by fear that it might be next to be caught in the stampede. Despite selling a big dollop of its most rotten assets recently, the market continued to question its viability. Its shares fell by 36% last week, and hedge funds had started to move their business elsewhere. Its boss, John Thain, concluded that it needed to strike a deal before markets reopened. It approached several firms, including BofA and Morgan Stanley, but only BofA felt able to conduct the necessary due diligence in time.
美林将其迅速地卖出是担心自己将成为下一个受害者。尽管最近美林除去了其最坏的资产，但是市场仍然继续质疑其生存能力。上周其股价下跌36％，而且对冲基金已开始将其生意转到别处。美林的老板John Thain决定在市场反应前就达成出售的交易。美林接触了好几个公司，包括美国银行和摩根斯坦利，但是只有美国银行感觉能够来的及进行必要的严格评估。
Not only has Mr Thain managed to shelter his firm from the storm, but he has also secured a price well above its closing price last Friday, $29 per share compared with $17. How he managed that in such an ugly market is not yet clear. Ken Lewis, BofA’s boss, is no fan of investment banking, but he is a consummate opportunist, and he has coveted Merrill’s formidable retail brokerage. Still, the deal carries risks. It will be a logistical challenge, all the more so since BofA is in the middle of digesting Countrywide, a big mortgage lender. Commercial-bank takeovers of investment banks have a horrible history because of the stark cultural differences. And it is not clear if BofA has a clear picture of Merrill’s remaining troubled assets.
Thain先生不仅设法使其公司找到了一个躲避风暴的港湾，而且他获得的收购价也比其上周五的收盘价17美元高，达到29美元。他如何能在如此险恶的市场中得到这些还尚不清楚。美国银行的老板Ken Lewis并不是投资银行的爱好者，但是他却是个老道的投机者，他早就对美林规模庞大的零售业务垂涎三尺了。当然，这笔交易仍有风险。这是个搬运的力气活，因为美国银行还正在消化一家大型的抵押贷款商Countrywide。商业银行收购投资银行有着很糟糕的历史，因为二者的文化完全不同。而且美国银行是否对美林剩下的不良资产有个清晰的处理蓝图尚不清除。
The takeover of Merrill leaves just two large independent investment banks in America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Both are in better shape than their erstwhile rivals. But this weekend’s events cast a shadow over the standalone model, with its reliance on leverage and skittish wholesale funding.
美林被收购后美国只剩下两家大型独立的投资银行–摩根斯坦利和高盛。他们的情况比以前的竞争对手都要好。但上周末的重大事件给依赖杠杆和承销融资的独立投行模式笼上一层阴影。
Wall Street has company in its misery. Washington Mutual, a big thrift, is fighting for survival under a new boss. Even more worryingly, so is AIG, America’s largest insurer, thanks to a reckless foray into CDS of mortgage-linked collateralised-debt obligations. Investors have fled, fearing the firm will need a lot more new capital than the $20 billion raised so far. Prompted by the weekend bloodletting, AIG brought forward to Monday a restructuring that was to have been unveiled on September 25th. This was expected to include the sale of its aircraft-leasing arm and other businesses. It is also reported to be seeking a $40 billion in bridge loan from the Fed, to be repaid once the sales go through, in the hope that this will attract new capital, possibly from private-equity firms.
华尔街有着身陷困境的公司。大型金融机构华盛顿互惠银行正在新老板的带领下为生存而挣扎。美国最大的保险商–美国国际集团由于其贸然进入抵押相关的债务抵押债券的信贷违约交易，更值得人担忧。由于担心其需要远多于现在已筹集到的200亿美元的资金，投资者纷纷撤离。由于这周末的失血过多，美国国际集团进行一个重组。这次重组本打算于9月25日进行。重组包括出售其飞机租赁部门及其它业务。据报道，它还打算向美联储借400亿的过渡资金直到交易完成就归还。这样做是为了吸引可能来自私募股权公司的新的资金。
With Lehman left dangling, official attention is now turning to putting more safeguards in place to soften the coming shock to markets and the economy. The first step has been to encourage Lehman’s counterparties to get together and try to net out as many contracts as possible. On Sunday the Fed also expanded the list of collateral it will accept for loans at its discount window, to include even equities; and dealers may lend any investment-grade security, not just triple-A rated, to the Fed in exchange for Treasury bonds.
随着雷曼摇摇欲坠，官方已将注意力放到布置更多安全措施以减少对市场和经济的冲击。第一步是鼓励雷曼的同行都团结起来以获取尽可能多的合同净收入。周日美联储也在其贴现窗口扩大了其贷款可接受的附属担保物的列表，甚至包括股权；而且交易者可以以任何投资级别的证券，而不仅仅是3A级别的证券给美联储来换取美国国债。
Markets are also pricing in some possibility that the Fed will cut its short-term interest rate target from 2% when it meets for a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday. That would be an abrupt turnaround from August, when officials figured their next move would be to raise rates, not lower them.
美联储将会在周二例会上降低其短期利率2％的目标，这会使市场重新定价。这是自八月来的大调整，当时官方计划调高其利率而不是调低。
In a sign of how bad things are, even straitened banks are stumping up cash to help the stabilisation efforts. On Sunday, a group of ten banks and securities firms set up a $70 billion loan facility that any of the founding members can tap if it finds itself short of cash.
现在确实是困难的时刻，连非常拮据的银行也掏出钱来支持稳定计划。周日，十家银行与证券公司组成的团体建立了一个700亿美元的贷款工具，任何一个创建者都可以在其缺乏现金的时候使用。
Even if markets can be stabilised this week, the pain is far from over-and could yet spread. Worldwide credit-related losses by financial institutions now top $500 billion, of which only $350 billion of equity has been replenished. This $150 billion gap, leveraged 14.5 times (the average gearing for the industry), translates to a $2 trillion reduction in liquidity. Hence the severe shortage of credit and predictions of worse to come.
即使市场本周能够稳定，痛苦远远没有过去–而且还会扩散开来。世界范围内金融机构的信贷相关的损失现在达5000亿美元，这其中仅有3500亿资产得以补充。这1500亿的缺口，被放大14.5倍（金融业的平均放大倍数），将达2万亿的资金流的减少。因此更严重的信贷短缺和更坏的预期将会到来。
Indeed, most analysts think that the deleveraging still has far to go. Some question how much has taken place. Bianco Research notes that while the credit positions of the 20 largest banks have fallen by $300 billion, to $1.3 trillion, since the Fed started its special lending facilities, the same amount has been financed by the Fed itself through these windows. In other words, instead of deleveraging, the banks have just shifted a chunk of their risk to the central bank. As spectacular as this weekend was, more drama is on the way.
确实，绝大多数分析员认为减债还有很长的路要走。有人质疑究竟减了多少债。Bianco Research注意到， 20家最大的银行的贷款头寸降低了3000亿美元至1.3万亿美元，因为美联储启动了其专门的放贷工具，这些资金(3000亿美元)由美联储自己通过这些窗口发放给这些银行(20家降低了贷款头寸的银行)。换句话说，不用减债，这些银行将其自己的风险转给了中央银行。如同上周末精彩的戏剧一样，还有更多的剧目即将上演。
译者：rushor http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=14037&extra=page%3D1