Investing for kicks 投资奇道，投资歧道
关键词：
投资,金融,Buttonwoo
Buttonwood--Investing for kicks
Buttonwood 金融市场
Feb 22nd 2007
From The Economist print edition
The quixotic appeal of exotic assets
“奇异资产”的吸引力不切实际
NEXT time a defender for your local football club scores an own goal, take a quick look around the ground. The people booing loudest may not be the die-hard fans in the replica shirts but the pension-fund managers who have acquired a share in the player.
等到下回您当地足球俱乐部的后卫打进一记乌龙球的时候，快速环顾四周您会发现，发出虚声最响的很有可能不再是那些穿着统一、死心塌地的球迷，而是买了这个后卫“股份”的养老基金经理们。
Taking a punt on the football transfer market is just one of the ideas being peddled to jaded investors eager for something new. Pension funds, for example, are tired of relying on the stockmarket for capital gains, and wary of the low yields available from corporate bonds and property. By looking further afield, they hope to earn excess returns and narrow their gaping deficits.
当烦倦的投资者渴求新的投资途径之时，许多投资理念被大声叫卖，投资足球转会市场只是其中之一。养老基金既厌倦依赖股市赚取资本收益，不满于公司债券和房产的低收益率。为获得额外的回报，弥补亏空，它们将目光落在了旁门左道上。
In the world of finance no new idea is complete without its Greek letter. In the dim and distant past, picking the best stocks was just seen as being clever; now that skill is known as “alpha”. The letter “beta” is reserved for the boring, old strategy of simply tracking the market. But what if you can find exciting, new markets to track—markets that do not move in step with shares or government bonds? That could be extremely valuable. Hence the phrase “alternative beta”, which refers to non-traditional sources of return, such as taking advantage of changes in market volatility, or exploiting gaps between the spot and futures prices of commodities.
在金融世界里，一个新的理念若没有个希腊字母作代称，就是不完整的。在模糊和遥远的过去，挑出最好的股票只被看作是明智之举，而现在这一技巧被叫做“阿尔法(alpha)”。而“贝塔(beta)”只能用于观察沉闷的旧市场，那么我们可以用什么来观察那些令人心跳的新市场--那些与股市和政府债券走势不合拍的市场？ “另类贝塔(alternative beta)”即是这样一个极具价值的短语，用来指那些非传统的利润来源，比如利用市场波动的变化，或者挖掘商品即期和期货的差价。
“Exotic beta” represents the wilder fringes of this trend, the equivalent of an art collector buying old comics or baseball cards. Daniel Gore of Orthogonal Partners, a firm that specialises in the area, says the aim is to find managers who are inventive in fields that are not congested by existing investors and in markets that may suffer from mispricing. Uncovering that mispricing may require specialised knowledge that few investors possess, creating profitable barriers to entry.
“奇异贝塔(Exotic beta)” 则代表着这一趋势的风头浪尖，这好比一个艺术收藏者家买进旧的连环画或棒球卡。Orthogonal Partners公司是这一领域的行家，其合伙人丹尼尔•戈尔(Daniel Gore)总结道：目标就是找到这样一群富有创造力的经理人，他们能在未被现有投资者充分消化的领域里尽情创作，在可能存在定价偏差的市场中充分发挥。但不是每个人都能在这里捞上一笔：发现这些定价偏差得靠专业知识，而掌握这些知识的投资者凤毛麟角。
One of the earliest exotic assets was the catastrophe bond, the provision of back-up capital to insurance companies dealing with earthquakes or hurricanes. But by now, the catastrophic is arguably too familiar to be truly exotic. More recent ideas include managing distressed power stations and buying delinquent credit-card debts from banks. Any of these brainwaves might turn out to be duds. But the hope is that large profits from the few winners will offset the inevitable losers. The approach is akin to that of a venture capitalist spreading his bets among new ideas in fund-management.
“巨灾债券(catastrophe bond)”是最早的奇异资产(exotic assets)之一。巨灾债券为保险公司赔付地震或飓风损失时提供资金支持。但目前来看，上述灾祸人们太过熟悉，算不上什么“奇异”。近来有人打起了新的主意，包括管理陷于困境的发电站、从银行买入信用卡欠款的债权等等。这般心计到头来可能一无是处，除非少数的赢家所赚得的利润足够抵消输家不可避免的损失。投资方式类似创业投资家在基金管理公司的新创意中择一投资。
The football idea involves providing money to second-tier clubs (not Chelsea or Arsenal) to buy stakes in younger players. The fund then reaps a share of the rewards when the player is sold later in his career (footballers generally become more valuable as they approach their mid-20s). Why should clubs agree to this? Because they are usually short of money and can buy new players only by selling existing ones. By creating shares in their footballers, clubs can realise some of the equity in their human assets, without damaging the prospects of the team.
前面提到的关于足球的投资创意涉及向二流足球俱乐部(不是像切尔西或者阿森纳那样的)注资以购买其年轻球员的股份，然后在这些球员今后转会时获取收益(足球运动员通常在25岁上下时最值钱)。为什么俱乐部会甘心如此？答案是，它们通常捉襟见肘，只有卖掉现有球员才能买进新的。通过将球员股份化，俱乐部可以不以球队的前途为代价，将手中的人力资源转化为股本。
The very fact that investors are even considering these approaches shows how difficult their life has become. Fifty years ago, safety was the watchword for pension funds, insurance companies and endowments; they bought the bonds of governments and blue-chip companies. Then it was noticed that a diversified portfolio of shares was a lot less risky than most people thought and delivered superior returns over the long term. The cult of the equity was born.
投资者将这些投资方式纳入考虑范围实在是被生计所迫。50年前，养老基金、保险公司和捐赠基金购买政府和大蓝筹公司发行的债券时还在标榜安全性。后来，它们开始认识到多样化的股票投资组合比人们想象的要安全的多，并且其长期收益更加丰厚，这引发了他们投资股票的热潮。
But the bear market of 2000-02 showed how dangerous it was to rely on stockmarkets alone. Now the models for modern investment institutions are the endowments of Harvard and Yale. They long since moved into alternative assets such as hedge funds and private equity, and have reaped handsome returns.
2000-02年的熊市让人们领教了仅仅依赖股市是危险的。现在，哈佛大学和耶鲁大学的捐赠基金向现代投资机构展示了新的投资模式：它们的投资很早便转向包括对冲基金和私募股本在内的另类资产，并且获益颇丰。
The trouble is that, in aggregate, investors suffer from a version of Tantalus's curse; they may be able to see attractive returns but they cannot all get hold of them. As more money flows into an investment category, prices rise and the scope for excess returns diminishes. This already seems to have happened with hedge funds and commodities, and it may be about to happen with private equity, given the amount of capital that it has recently raised.
但总体来说，投资者正被现代版的“坦塔罗斯诅咒(Tantalus's curse)”[注1]所困扰：丰厚的回报看在眼里却鞭长莫及。随着越来越多的资金涌入这些投资领域，资产价格将会上涨，回报的上升空间不断缩水。这一势头已在对冲基金和商品上有所体现，而鉴于其募集到的大量资金，私募股本将会是下一个受害者。
Hence the search for exotic beta. It is all rather reminiscent of the drive into emerging markets in the 1990s, as investors moved from the aristocracy of the asset class—places like Hong Kong and Singapore—into wannabe economies like Indonesia and Ecuador. A series of mishaps followed, as countries lurched into default or devaluation. The future of exotic beta is likely to be similar. Some investors will end up buying the football skills of Victoria, rather than David, Beckham.
对“奇异贝塔”的追寻也将如此。上世纪90年代那场涌向新兴市场的热潮已成回忆，当年投资者纷纷退出香港、新加坡等资产阶级的先进阵地，转向印尼和厄瓜多尔等处于上升势头的经济体。当这些国家突然陷入违约危机和货币贬值后，一连串的灾祸便接踵而至。“奇异贝塔”很有可能重蹈覆辙。结局可能是：某些投资者也许会为大卫•贝克汉姆的妻子，而不是他本人的球技付钱。
[注1] 坦塔罗斯(Tantalus)是希腊神话中主神宙斯（Zeus）的儿子，因泄露天机被罚永世立在齐颈深的水中，身后有果树。他口渴欲饮，水即流失；腹饥欲食，果子即被风吹走，因此永远又饥又渴,欲望永世得不到满足。翻译 by illcf