[2008.10.09] All fall down都跌了

Oct 9th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Firms in developing countries struggle to escape their roots发展中国家中的公司挣扎着逃命

STOCKMARKET bubbles often take a genuine improvement in economic orcorporate performance, and then vastly overestimate its effect. Equityinvestors in emerging markets must wonder if they have once again beensuckered into giving developing countries the benefit of the doubt.Prices have fallen by almost half this year. On October 6themerging-market shares recorded their biggest one-day fall in at least20 years, prompting all-too-familiar scenes of chaos followed byenforced inactivity, as trading at some bourses was suspended.
股市泡沫常常带来真正的经济或公司经营改进，接踵而来的是大规模过高估计其效果。新兴市场的股市投资者肯定在疑问着他们是否又被骗入,因为发展中国家原来就是疑团。这些国家的股市今年已经下跌近一半。10月6日，新兴市场的股价下跌创了20年来的最大跌幅，导致了人们太熟悉的混乱场面，跟着来到是强制性停止活动，例如在一些交易所停止了交易。

For bullish investors one attraction of emerging economies was thefact that they had started with better public finances andbalance-of-payments positions than in previous cycles. How resilientthose positions are is now being tested, as plunging commodity pricessap export earnings and capital flows dry up. Even sound economies maystill be dragged down. As Stephen Jen, an economist at Morgan Stanley,points out, in a crisis “bad things happen to good countries”.
         
   
  对于那些看好的投资人来讲，与以前各次循环相比，此次新兴经济一个吸引人地方在于他们以更好的公共债务及收支平衡作为起始。当大宗商品价格暴跌，使得出口收入受到影响，且资本流处于枯竭，这些国家的那些状况有强劲目前正受到考验。即使那些最健康的经济也可能被拉下水。大摩的经济学家Stephen Jen指出，在危机中“好的国家会发生坏事情”。

Equity investors’ enthusiasm also reflected a more novel idea—thatthe quality of emerging-market companies had improved. Rather than anold guard of conglomerates with hazy ownership and accounting, thethesis ran, there was a new generation of large, well run, globallycompetitive “mega-cap” firms. Indeed, these might even be less riskythan their homelands’ governments. And just as the Dutch economy haslittle bearing on Royal Dutch Shell’s share price, or the Britisheconomy on Vodafone’s, the hope was that these firms might eventuallytranscend their domestic markets.
股票投资人的兴高采烈也反映了更新颖的看法—新兴市场里的公司质量已经改善了。相当普遍的看法是，这些公司已经不是老式那种拥有者及会计制度模糊不清的国际集团，替代而来的是新一代大型，运营良好，世界范围中有竞争力的“超大型”公司。真的，这些公司的风险可能比他们所在国的政府都少。正如荷兰经济不会影响皇家壳牌石油公司的股价一样，或是英国经济与Vodafone并不紧连，希望是这些公司可能已经超越了其国内市场。

Some of the claims were over the top. In April 2007 Gazprom, anenergy firm controlled by the Kremlin, made a Dr-Evil-style predictionthat its market value would reach $1 trillion (ten times today’slevel). But there was substance too, exemplified by the wave ofcredible bids for Western companies before the credit crunch, such asthe multibillion approach by Vale, a Brazilian miner, for Xstrata.
有些叫法有些太过头。在2007年月，由俄国政府控制的能源公司Gazprom宣布了一个恶魔式的预测，估计其市值将达到一万亿美金（是目前市值的10倍）。但是这些公司也有行动，在信贷紧缩前不断出价收购西方公司，例如巴西的矿业公司Vale出手上千亿美金收购 Xstrata就是实例。

EPAJust like the old days
跟过去一样

Why then, have most emerging stockmarkets fallen by more thanWestern ones, particularly in the past month? There are some plausiblefundamental explanations. They may have been more overvalued to startwith. Even after their tumble, the aggregate price-earnings ratio is inline with developed markets, rather than at the discount that has beenthe historical norm. The composition of most indices also makes themvulnerable. Almost two-fifths of the earnings of the FTSEemerging-markets benchmark are from highly cyclical energy orbasic-materials companies—twice the share in developed markets—soearnings forecasts are falling faster than for developed peers. Mostindices under-represent mainland China, which has been relativelyresilient in recent weeks, on the grounds that it is hard forforeigners to invest there. And the top 20 companies account for justover a quarter of the FTSE emerging-markets index. Although that is ahigher proportion than in developed economies, it still leaves a longtail of smaller firms which may be less well run.
那么为什么多数新兴股市下跌幅度超过西方国家的股市跌幅，特别是上个月的下跌呢？这里有些可信的基本解释。这些新兴股市开始时可能就是估值过高了。就是当他们暴跌后，其本益比才与发达国家的本益比接近，而不是历史上常见的削价出售。多数这些市场的指数组成也使得这些市场更加不堪一击。在FTSE新兴市场指数中，几乎五分之二的收益是高度紧跟经济循环的能源或基本原材料公司，这是发达市场指数中的两倍。所以收益预测下降比发达市场的要快。中国大陆在多数这些指数中的表现不足（而中国大陆在近几周来相对强劲），这是基于外国人很难在那里进行投资的观点。在FTSE新兴市场指数中，前20家公司占了超过四分之一的地位。虽然这比发达经济多了许多，但仍剩下很多运营不如他们的很多较小公司。

As well as quirks of composition and valuation, the harsh reality isthat, as in previous crises, investors are not discriminating much.Most “mega-cap” companies have been penalised more heavily thanrich-world peers in the same industry. Credit-default swaps, a type ofinsurance against bankruptcy, suggest that the borrowing costs of bigemerging-markets firms have spiked along with those of their homecountries’ governments. This is despite the fact that emerging-marketindustrial companies in aggregate, like their governments, have lowerdebt levels than their Western equivalents. Shares of emerging-marketbanks, which with the exception of a few places such as Russia are inreasonable shape, have plunged in sympathy with their Western peers.
与指数组成及价值受到扭曲一样，与以前的危机相同，残酷的现实是投资人并没有细细选择。多数“超大型”公司已经受到的惩罚要比其富裕国家同类行业公司要重得多。信贷违约掉期合同，即防止破产的保险合同，表明大型新兴市场公司的贷款费用以及其所在国政府的贷款费用已经大幅上升。尽管在事实上，这些新兴市场制造业公司总体来讲，与其政府一样，债务水平都比其西方同类的要低。新兴市场的银行股价，除了几个例外情况外，例如俄国，均处于合理状态，但是也与其西方同行一起暴跌。

There may well have been structural improvements in emergingeconomies, but just now markets are having none of it. That couldpresent a buying opportunity. But if capital remains scarce for toolong, and big companies struggle to refinance their foreign debt,investors’ gut reaction could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

虽然新兴经济已经有了结构性改善，但是目前市场中并没有反映这些。这就给出了买入机会。但是如果资本长期处于短缺状态，大型公司挣扎着转贷其外债，投资人的大胆举动可能会变成自圆其说了。