投资者们，请扶稳坐好！

Investors, Better Hold On Tight!

Uncertainties About Energy
And Rates Suggest Markets
Will Get a Lot More Volatile
October 13, 2005; Page C14
PARIS -- If you're prone to motion sickness, it's time to get out your pills because we're in for a bumpy ride.

Money managers, economists and investment strategists warn that uncertainty over the direction of energy prices and central-bank interest-rate polices, as well as worries about inflation and economic growth, augur a volatile time in world financial markets. And for the superstitious, don't forget it is October: Remember 1929, 1987 and 1998?

David Bowers, chief global investment strategist at Merrill Lynch & Co., notes that the VIX, the Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, is up 53% since July 20. Its German counterpart for European stock-market volatility, the VDAX, has surged 55% since July 1.


It is rare for stocks to rally in such an environment. Indeed, following steady advances since May, most stock markets took a dive last week. Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei Stock Average of 225 companies tumbled 3.7% in just three days, while the Dow Jones Stoxx 50 index of major European corporations dropped 2.8% from Tuesday to Friday. Morgan Stanley Capital International's world emerging-markets index fell 3.1% during the past week. And on Wall Street, the already-lame Dow Jones industrial Average shed 2.6% between Monday and Friday.

Adding to the distress: U.S. bonds, which often move in the opposite direction to share prices, also have slid. Since Sept. 1, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, which moves inversely to bond prices, has climbed to 4.4% from 4.02%, while that on two-year Treasurys has risen to 4.23% from 3.72%.

"In an apparent wholesale downgrade of dollar-denominated assets, U.S. bond markets are taking their cue from the drab showing of dollar stocks and also selling off," says Christopher Dunn, an independent strategist and owner of The Good Trader Web site.

Behind the rising bond yields lie growing apprehensions that high energy prices are fueling inflationary pressures and pushing the Federal Reserve to keep raising official U.S. interest rates, despite having done so 11 times in the past 16 months.

Its sister institution, the European Central Bank, has left its key refinancing rate unchanged at 2% for 28 consecutive months, but it is talking tough about raising rates.

While the bank appears more concerned about the potential inflation associated with high-priced energy than the euro zone's anemic growth and high unemployment, some economists contend that the world's No. 2 central bank might soon have to put up or shut up when it comes to a rate increase.

FURTHER READING


? Signs of Inflation Put Central Banks on Alert

? Stability Fanned Excess, Greenspan Warns

David Abramson, head of European strategy at BCA Research, says that European stocks, which were doing very well until recently, should continue to outperform bonds. But he warns that "the equity rally will become increasingly volatile and narrowly based."

His advice: Own fewer corporate bonds than usual and use stock rallies to reduce holdings of cyclical shares like airlines, capital goods and chemicals in order to buy defensive stocks, such as pharmaceuticals, energy and household products. His favorite European markets are Sweden, Switzerland and Britain, all of which have pharma-heavy stock indexes.

Tim Harris, a global strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, says that "the combination of slowing global growth and rising inflation makes risk assets, such as equities, corporate bonds and single-strategy hedge funds, less appealing and defensive assets, such as real estate, diversified hedge-fund strategies and specially structured equity products, more attractive."

Global stock and bond markets aren't the only venues of volatility. The price of oil fell 8.1% in the week ending Oct. 6 before rebounding 5.1% by midday yesterday. Also yesterday, the price of gold tapped $481.90 (�402.15) an ounce, its highest level in nearly 18 years.

Some investors see the "yellow metal" as a hedge against inflation, others as insurance against a global-market meltdown and still others as protection against the retirement of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who must step down Jan. 31.

In two recent reports, Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach points out that the past three leadership changes at the Fed have been accompanied by market volatility.

A little more than two months after Mr. Greenspan succeeded Paul Volcker in August 1987, the stock market crashed. Soon after Mr. Volcker succeeded G. William Miller as chairman in August 1979, the bond market tanked. And when Mr. Miller took the helm in March 1978, the dollar was in the midst of a free fall.

What is more, Mr. Roach notes that at a record 6.5% of gross domestic product, the U.S. current-account deficit is more than four times as big as it was in 1978, 1979 or 1987, making it imperative that President George W. Bush appoint a tough, independent, internationally respected policy maker.

Fearing that he won't, Mr. Roach warns that "the curse of the Fed transition is about to strike again."
投资者们，请扶稳坐好！

如果你有晕车症，现在就该服晕车药了，因为我们即将开始一段颠簸之旅。

资金管理人、经济学家和投资策略师们警告说，能源价格走势和央行利率政策走向的不确定性以及人们对通货膨胀和经济增长前景的担忧预示著，全球金融市场将进入一个动荡的时代。如果你是个爱疑神疑鬼的人，别忘了现在是10月份，还记得1929年、1987年和1998年的10月份都发生了什么事情吗？

美林公司(Merrill Lynch & Co.)的首席全球策略师大卫?包尔斯(David Bowers)指出，自7月20日以来，芝加哥期权交易所波动指数上涨了53%。而用以衡量欧洲股市波动性的德国VDAX指数自7月1日以来已上涨了55%。

股市在当前的这种环境下是很少上涨的。事实上，多数股市在经历了5月份以来的稳步上扬后上周都出现了下跌。东京股市基准的日经225指数在仅仅3天之内就下跌了3.7%，而以欧洲主要公司为成份股的道琼斯欧洲斯托克50指数从上周二到上周五期间下跌了2.8%。摩根士丹利资本国际世界新兴市场指数上周下跌了3.1%。在华尔街，已显疲态的道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数上周下跌了2.6%。

更是雪上加霜的是，通常与股价走势相反的美国债券价格也出现了下跌。自9月1日以来，10年期美国国债的收益率已由4.02%攀升至4.4%，而2年期美国国债的收益率则从3.72%攀升至4.23%。国债收益率与国债价格呈反比。

拥有The Good Trader网站的独立策略师克里斯托弗?邓恩(Christopher Dunn)说，由于众多以美元计价的资产都被下调了评级，从而出现了一轮抛售美元储备的浪潮，这正对美国债券市场产生负面影响。

债券收益率不断上涨的背景因素是，人们日益认为高企的能源价格正在加大通货膨胀压力，并促使美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)继续上调官方利率，尽管它在过去16个月中已先后11次加息。虽然欧洲央行(European Central Bank)已连续28个月将其关键的再融资利率保持在2%的水平，但从该行的言论看，它已在认真考虑加息的可能性了。

虽然欧洲央行似乎更担心伴随能源价格高涨出现的潜在通货膨胀压力，而不是欧元区疲弱的经济增长和居高不下的失业率，但一些经济学家却认为，欧洲央行可能很快就不得不做出抉择，是通过加息来抑制通货膨胀，还是继续维持利率不变以免损害经济增长。

BCA Research的欧洲策略部门负责人大卫?阿布拉姆森(David Abramson)说，直到不久前都一直表现十分良好的欧洲股市应继续有优于债市的表现。但他也警告说，股市的上扬将变得越来越有波动性且上涨的股票也将越来越少。

阿布拉姆森建议：将企业债券的拥有量减少至通常水平以下，并利用股市回升之机减持航空、资本货物和化工等周期性股票，买入制药、能源和家用产品等抗跌股股票。他在欧洲看好瑞典、瑞士和英国的股市，这些股市的股指成份股中都有大量制药类股。

J.P. Morgan Private Bank的全球策略师提姆?哈里斯(Tim Harris)说，在全球经济增长减缓和通货膨胀压力不断增大的共同作用下，股票、企业债券和单策略对冲基金等高风险资产对投资者的吸引力下降了，而房地产、多策略对冲基金和专门设计的股票产品则更有吸引力了。

市场波动性并不仅仅体现在全球股市和债市上。在截至10月6日的一周，油价下跌了8.1%，而到周三午盘时，油价又反弹了5.1%。也是在周三，金价升至了每盎司481.90美元这一近18年来的最高点。

一些投资者将黄金看作是规避通货膨胀风险的投资对象，也有人将黄金看作是规避全球股市崩盘风险的避风港，还有人投资黄金是为了规避美联储主席格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)退休所带来的风险。格林斯潘必须在明年1月31日前退休。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的首席经济学家斯蒂芬?罗奇(Stephen Roach)在最近发表的两份研究报告中指出，美联储以往三次主席易人都曾引发了市场波动。

他还指出，美国的经常项目赤字目前已创纪录地达到国内生产总值的6.5%，相当于1978年、1979年和1987年赤字水平的四倍以上，因此布什总统急需任命一位立场坚定、不为他人左右且具有国际声望的人来接替格林斯潘。

但罗奇担心布什可能做不到这一点，他警告说，伴随美联储主席易人而产生的市场振荡可能再度重演。

How to Prepare Your Portfolio to Handle Three Potential Investment Nightmares

Bold conviction, meet event risk.

Oil above $60 a barrel, the specter of economic weakness and fears of inflation have combined to spook investors. Indeed, thanks to the recent stock-market slump, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index are underwater for the year.

Yet such turmoil is par for the course. I got my first job in financial journalism 20 years ago, and I am still waiting for things to calm down. Consider what's happened:

? The Dow industrials plunged 22.6% on a single day in October 1987.

? Japanese stocks peaked in 1989 -- and today are 65% lower.

? Twice in a dozen years, stock investors were rattled when the U.S. went to war with Saddam Hussein.

? The largest one-day point drop ever in the Dow industrials occurred when the market reopened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

? The S&P 500 posted 20%-plus gains in five consecutive calendar years in the late 1990s -- and then immediately got whacked with three consecutive losing years.


Yet, despite all this turmoil, many folks continue to insist that 10% is the typical annual return for stocks. Sure enough, the S&P 500 did indeed clock 10.9% in 2004.

But a "normal" year like 2004 is, in truth, far from normal. Over the past 20 calendar years, there have been just three years when the S&P 500's annual return was above 6% but below 16%, according to Chicago's Ibbotson Associates.

What about the other 17 years? Among them were nine years when the S&P 500 soared 20% or more and four years when it lost money.

? Looking good. Thanks to this year's lackluster market, stock valuations don't look so terrible. The S&P 500 is at less than 19 times trailing 12-month reported earnings and the dividend yield now hovers around 2%. While that may be rich by historical standards, stocks look reasonable compared with 10-year Treasury notes, which yield less than two percentage points above the likely inflation rate.


That said, if we get a single scary headline, stocks could easily tumble 20% or more. Experts in behavioral finance have found that investors tend to be far too confident.

Real-estate investment trusts? Gold shares? Florida condos? Energy stocks? Overconfident speculators are convinced these highflying investments are a one-way ticket to wealth.

But a few years from now, we could be lamenting these investments the same way we now lament tech stocks bought in the 1990s. My advice: Never forget what happened to dot-com investors -- and build your portfolio with well-informed trepidation.

? Looking down. To that end, consider three key investment pitfalls: resurgent inflation, recession and sudden crises that shake investor confidence. In that last category, include the fallout from events like currency devaluations, political turmoil and terrorist attacks.


How would your investments perform in each scenario? In all three situations, money-market funds, Treasury bills and other "cash investments" would be the model of stability. But loading up on cash investments is no solution, because you won't make money over the long run, once you figure in inflation and taxes.

TRIPLE THREAT


Here are three possible pitfalls facing investors -- and the investments that are likely to flourish in each scenario.
? Recessions: Bonds -- especially long-term government, municipal and high-quality corporate bonds.

? Inflation: Gold stocks, commodities, real estate, inflation-indexed bonds.

? Crises of confidence: Treasury bonds, gold stocks.

Instead, to score decent gains, you've got to take more risk, and that means tapping into the stock and bond markets. But keep your overconfidence -- and your portfolio's risk level -- in check.

Take bonds. You might spread your holdings across a mix of high-quality corporate and government bonds, inflation-indexed Treasurys, high-yield "junk" bonds and foreign bonds, knowing that only some of these sectors will do well at any one time.

For instance, if recession hits, junk bonds will get crushed as investors fear defaults. But your high-quality bonds should post gains, thanks to the likely fall in interest rates. Investors will also tend to flock to high-quality bonds, especially Treasurys, during crises of confidence.

On the other hand, conventional Treasurys would get pummeled by resurgent inflation. But in that environment, your inflation-indexed Treasurys should hold their own. And if the renewed inflation is sparked by an overheated economy, your junk bonds could notch impressive gains.

Foreign bonds, for their part, are a wild card, because currency moves are impossible to predict. That, however, is part of their allure.

When everything else fails, your foreign bonds may ride to the rescue, helping to prop up your portfolio's performance. That will be especially true if the next crisis is triggered by worries over U.S. debt levels.

You can apply the same analysis to various classes of stocks, except the potential gains and losses are far larger. While an inflationary spike might dent stocks initially, shares should fare well longer term, as corporate earnings climb with inflation.

Recession would also cause short-term trouble for stocks. Meanwhile, it's hard to know how shares will react to the next crisis. Given all that, you should spread your bets widely, always owning at least some bonds and allocating maybe 25% of your stock portfolio to foreign shares, 5% to real-estate investment trusts and 5% to gold stocks, commodities and other natural-resource plays.

REITs and natural resources should perform well if inflation picks up, and foreign stocks could save your portfolio if the dollar nose-dives. But who really knows? Investing is racked with uncertainty -- and broad diversification is your best defense.
怎样让自己的投资安度各种危机

投资要信心十足，风险要心中有数。

原油价格超过每桶60美元，对脆弱经济和通货膨胀的恐慌让投资者杯弓蛇影。事实上，由于最近美国股市的跳水，道琼斯指数和标准普尔500指数(Standard & Poor's 500-stock index)都一蹶不振。

不过这只是正常的股市波动，我20年前开始做金融业记者，期间经历了股市各种的大起大落。让我们回顾一下过去：

-- 1987年10月，道琼斯指数在一天内狂跌22.6%。
-- 1989年日本股市达到高峰-而现在已缩水65%。
--二十年间，美国何时向萨达姆-侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)宣战的问题已经两次困扰了股市投资者。
-- 道琼斯指数的单日最大点位跌幅发生在911恐怖袭击之后。
-- 20世纪90年代后期，标准普尔500指数连续五年实现20%以上的上涨-但随后就连续三年下挫。

尽管股市如此动荡，许多人依然坚称：正常的股票年收益率为10%。诚然，2004年标准普尔500指数确实有10.9%的收益率。然而，所谓实现“正常”投资回报率的2004年实际上只是个例外。据芝加哥Ibbotson Associates的数据，过去20年来，标准普尔500指数的收益率只有3年是在6%-16%之间。

那另外17年呢？其中有9年的收益率超过20%，另有4年是亏损的。

听起来似乎不错。感谢今年黯淡的股市表现，让股票估值不是那么离谱。标准普尔500指数12个月的往绩本益比不到19倍，股息收益在2%左右。尽管与历史标准相比这一数字仍可能偏高，但和10年期美国国债相比则较为合理，后者在扣除可能的通货膨胀率后收益率不到2%。

也就是说，只要出现一条恐慌性的重大新闻，股价很容易就会下跌20%以上。行为金融学专家发现，投资者一般都过于自信。

投资房地产投资信托基金？金矿股票？佛罗里达公寓楼？或是能源股票？过于自信的投机者总认为这些备受追捧的投资方式是通往财富大道的唯一门户。

不过几年后，我们可能会以哀叹90年代科技股的方式来哀叹这些新的投资热点。我的建议是：永远别忘记那些在互联网泡沫中沉没的投资者－－要小心谨慎地建立自己的投资组合。

要学会未雨绸缪，投资者要留神三个关键的投资风险：通货膨胀、经济衰退和动摇投资者信心的突发事件。最后一项包括各种危机，如货币贬值、政治动荡和恐怖袭击。

那你的投资如何度过这三大危机呢？在所有三种情况下，货币市场基金、美国国债和其他“现金类投资”都比较稳定；但单纯依靠现金类投资并非解决问题之道，这是因为把通货膨胀和税收因素考虑进去，从长期来看这种投资方式是无法赚到钱的。

为获得合理回报，投资者必须承担更多的风险，这意味著进入股票和债券市场，但一定要防止过于自信的情绪，控制投资组合的风险水平。

以债券为例，投资组合中最好包括高质量的企业债券和政府债券、通货膨胀调整美国国债、高收益率的“垃圾债券”，以及海外债券，同时还要明白这些投资不可能同时赚钱。

举例而言，如果出现经济衰退，垃圾债券会大幅贬值，因为投资者担心企业无法偿还债务，但由于政府可能下调利率，因而高质量债券会有不错的收益，而且出现信心危机时，投资者也会把高质量债券，尤其是美国国债，作为投资的避风港。

从另一角度来讲，普通美国国债会在出现高通胀时遭遇重挫，但到那时，通货膨胀调整美国国债能经受住考验；如果通货膨胀是由于经济过热引起的，那么垃圾债券会获得惊人的收益。

海外债券是一张不太好打的牌，因为不可能预测未来的汇率走势，不过这也是吸引投资者的地方之一。

如果其他每笔投资都惨遭失败，海外债券可能是一根救命稻草，让你的投资组合起死回生。如果引发下一次危机的原因是投资者担心美国的高负债水平，则海外债券的作用会显得尤为重要。

你可以用同样的原理来分析各类股票，唯一的区别是股票的涨跌幅度会更大一些。此外，通货膨胀一开始可能会打压股市表现，但长期来看应该是有利的，因为企业的盈利水平会随著通货膨胀而攀升。

经济衰退会在短期内给股市带来困扰，而且很难预测在下一次危机中股票会如何表现。综上所述，投资者应该把鸡蛋放在不同的篮子里，至少要买些债券，投资组合中的25%应买海外股票，5%买房地产投资信托基金，5%买金矿股票、期货和其他自然资源类投资产品。

出现通货膨胀时，房地产信托投资基金和自然资源类投资产品应该能表现不错，海外股票能在美元暴跌时发挥作用。不过，谁又能说得清楚呢？投资行为本身就充满各种不确定因素－－组合性投资策略是你最好的防御手段。