基金公司的風險被誇大 Protect asset managers from the armchair doom mongers

Do asset managers pose a growing systemic risk to the economy? This month the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Basel committee on banking supervision joined a growing list of regulators who think so.

資產管理公司對經濟構成日益嚴重的系統性風險了嗎？越來越多監管機構認爲答案是肯定的，日前，澳大利亞央行(Reserve Bank of Australia)與巴塞爾銀行監管委員會(Basel committee on banking supervision)也加入了它們的行列。

Among the scenarios the authorities worry about is a bank-style run in which investors, fearful that redemptions by others will cause the value of their funds to fall, rush to pull their money out ahead of the crowd. That, the argument goes, would damage those on the other side of the trade, and cause large price swings in financial markets.

各監管機構擔心的情形之一，是一種類似銀行擠兌的基金贖回潮：投資者因擔心其他人的贖回行爲會導致他們的基金價值下跌，而爭相搶在別人前頭抽離資金。他們認爲，這將對這一行對接的另一方造成損害，並導致金融市場出現巨幅價格波動。

The Financial Stability Board, set up by the Group of 20 leading nations to help oversee the financial system, is among the international bodies to propose labelling the largest asset managers global systemically important financial institutions, which would lumber them with stringent regulations and capital requirements hitherto visited only on the biggest insurers and banks.

由20國集團(G20)設立、旨在幫助監督金融體系的金融穩定委員會(Financial Stability Board)以及其他一些國際機構，都建議將那些最大型資產管理公司定義爲具有全球系統重要性的金融機構，這樣就可以讓迄今只適用於大型保險公司和銀行的嚴格監管規定及資本金要求也適用於這些資產管理公司。

But the risks are overstated. True, mutual funds own a hefty 20-30 per cent of corporate bonds traded on global markets, and investors can pull out at short notice. It would be hard to find buyers for a big portion all at once. But the likelihood of a fire sale is lower than armchair thinkers seem to believe.

但這種風險被誇大了。不錯，全球市場上交易的公司債有高達20%至30%爲共同基金所有，而且投資者只需提前很短時間通知就能贖回資金。很難馬上爲一大部分債券找到買家。但低價甩賣的可能性並不像紙上談兵的理論家看上去認爲的那麼高。

Mutual funds investors have never been especially flighty, even in times of market stress. Our recent studywith the Oliver Wyman consultancy shows that bond mutual funds experienced outflows of just 5 per cent after the 1994 bond rout — which was the worst period for redemptions in the past 35 years.

共同基金投資者從未特別積極地逃跑，即便在市場承壓之際。我們最近與奧緯諮詢(Oliver Wyman)共同做的一項研究表明，哪怕是在1994年債券崩盤（過去35年來贖回最嚴重的時期）之後，債券型共同基金也僅經歷了5%的資金流出。

Things were no worse after 1987, the Asian crisis, the technology meltdown at the turn of the millennium, or even in the most recent crisis. Since bond mutual funds in Europe and the US on average have cash holdings of between 4 and 7 per cent of total assets, the likelihood of unmanageable outflows seems slim. The industry, it seems, is already managing the risk of a dislocation that is within the range of historical precedent.

1997年亞洲金融危機、世紀之交互聯網泡沫破滅，甚至最近這次金融危機之後，都未出現更嚴重的贖回。因爲歐洲和美國的債券型共同基金通常的現金持有量可達總資產的4%至7%，出現難以控制的資金外流的可能性似乎微乎其微。看上去，這一行業已經將歷史先例範圍內的錯配風險納入管理。

Still, there is no doubt that quantitative easing and financial reform have shifted liquidity risk from banks to investors, and regulators might wish to do more than simply take comfort in the past 35 years worth of benign experience. Here, then, is a better idea: instead of applying restrictive rules that will indiscriminately inflict pain on mutual funds without doing much to make the financial system less fragile, regulators should use stress tests of the largest funds to calibrate their response.

不過，毫無疑問，量化寬鬆政策與金融改革已經將流動性風險從銀行轉移到了投資者身上，而監管機構可能希望能採取更多措施，而非僅僅從過去35年“和風細雨”的經歷中得到安慰。因此，這裏有一個更好的建議：與其實施那些不加區別地對所有共同基金造成痛苦而又對改善金融體系脆弱性作用不大的限制性規定，監管機構更應該利用壓力測試，來檢驗大型基金的應對能力。

Predictive models could help quantify the risk, taking into account the differences between investors. Mutual funds held in retirement savings plans have been far stickier than other investors, and yet some regulators have assumed the opposite.

預測模型可以幫助量化風險，將投資者之間的區別考慮進去。退休儲蓄計劃持有的共同基金遠比其他投資者更具粘性，這與一些監管機構一直以來的看法相反。

Bouts of illiquidity are inevitable, so funds and regulators should prepare for them. How, for example, should the cost of meeting redemption requests be allocated between investors? Under what circumstances should it be permissible to bar redemptions? Such questions are best considered before a crisis, when answers will be needed urgently.

暫時的流動性不足是不可避免的，因此，基金公司和監管機構都應對此有所準備。例如，滿足贖回申請的成本應該如何在投資者之間如何分配？在什麼情況下應允許基金公司暫停贖回？最好在危機發生前考慮這些問題，因爲一旦危機發生，我們將迫切需要答案。

In contrast, labelling the largest fund managers “systemic” does not seem to capture many of the risks policy makers fear. The International Monetary Fund, for example, says it is worried about the disruption that asset managers might wreak in emerging markets. Yet only one of the 10 largest emerging market debt mutual fund managers would be captured by the proposed rules.

相比之下，給大型基金管理公司貼上“系統性”標籤，似乎並不能捕獲政策制定者擔心的許多風險。例如，國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)表示，它對資產管理公司可能在新興市場造成的破壞感到擔憂。但在10家最大的新興市場債券型共同基金管理公司中，只有一家將受到擬議規定的限制。

Market structure reforms could also help. Moving more business on to central clearing houses could reduce channels of contagion — so long as the clearing houses are resilient. The benefits of electronic trading networks, which normally seize up in panics, are overstated.

市場結構改革也可以有所幫助。將更多業務轉移到中央清算機構可以減少蔓延的渠道——只要清算機構抵禦力夠強。電子交易網絡的好處被誇大了，這種網絡在恐慌時期通常會失靈。

The corporate bond market and mutual funds were a source of enormous strength throughout the crisis to fund companies. We should tread carefully. Stress testing is probably the best place to start.

在整個危機期間，公司債市場和共同基金一直是基金公司的巨大力量來源。我們應該謹慎行事。從壓力測試做起很可能是最好的方案。