股市大跌之后，国际对冲基金重新评估中国市场

Hedge Funds Reassess China After Market Free Fall
股市大跌之后，国际对冲基金重新评估中国市场

It wasn’t long ago that hedge funds were preparing for one of the biggest openings into China in years. In November, foreign investors were for the first time able to buy and sell shares listed in the Shanghai market directly. It was a chance to ride the great China bull run.

不久前，对冲基金还在为多年来最大的一次进军中国行动做准备。去年11月，外国投资者首次可以直接购买和出售上交所上市的股票。这是一个赶上中国大牛市的机会。

How times have changed.

形势变化得太快。

Over the last month, trillions of dollars of value were wiped from the domestic market as stocks plunged by more than a third. The Chinese government has stepped in, issuing a series of increasingly aggressive moves to prop up the market.

在过去的一个月中，中国股市跌幅超过了三分之一，蒸发了数以万亿美元计的市值。中国政府已经介入，宣布了一系列越来越激烈的托市措施。

Hedge funds are now reassessing their positions and questioning the role of the government in China’s stock market.

对冲基金正在重新考虑仓位，并质疑政府在中国股市中的作用。

O’Connor, a $5.6 billion hedge fund owned by UBS, is one such investor. The Chinese government’s moves have left the firm unsure about how to maneuver.

瑞银(UBS)旗下拥有56亿美元资产的对冲基金奥康纳(O’Connor)就是这样的投资者。中国政府的举措已经让它拿不准如何操盘。

“The intent is clearly to restore investor confidence and market stability, but this is a huge setback for Chinese capital market liberalization,” Dawn Fitzpatrick, the chief investment officer of O’Connor, said by email. The government’s moves, she added, “will materially impact their ability to attract foreign capital, which has been a key policy initiative.”

“这样做的目的显然是为了恢复投资者信心和市场稳定，但对于中国资本市场自由化而言，这是一个巨大挫折，”奥康纳首席投资官唐・菲茨帕特里克(Dawn Fitzpatrick)在电邮中说。她说中国政府的举动“将对他们吸引外资的能力造成重大影响，而吸引外资是中国的一项关键政策”。

Today, a third of the stock market in China remains frozen. (Last week it was half.) Investors holding more than 5 percent of one company’s stock have been prohibited from selling for six months. At the same time, brokerage firms have been given a mandate to pump billions into the market, and large state-owned companies have been ordered to buy back shares.

如今，中国股市有三分之一的股票仍在停牌（上周有一半）。持有一家公司股票超过5%的投资者，被禁止在六个月内出售。与此同时，政府还让券商将千亿资金注入市场，而大型国有企业已被要求回购股票。

The Public Security Ministry has promised to investigate “malicious” short-selling, according to state media reports. Short-selling is one strategy that distinguishes hedge fund managers from other investors.

据官方媒体报道，公安部已经表示要调查“恶意”做空行为。做空策略是对冲基金经理和其他投资者之间的主要差别。

Brokers have told their hedge fund clients to skip the short-selling, which allows them to take a bet against a stock, because it will not be worth the headache when Chinese regulators come knocking on the door.

经纪人已经告诉对冲基金客户不要做空，押一支股票的下跌，因为要因此招惹中国监管机构上门就不值得了。

All these moves, in succession, have left foreign investors simultaneously panicking and scratching their heads. One hedge fund manager based in Hong Kong said he had no idea whether he had made or lost money in the mayhem. He will not know until some of his positions ― long and short bets on stocks in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong ― start to trade again.

这些接二连三的举措让外国投资者既感到恐慌，又无所适从。驻香港的一位对冲基金经理表示，他不知道自己是否在这场混乱中是赚是赔。直到他的一些仓位――在上海、深圳和香港股市的多头和空头赌注――重新开始交易之后，他才会知道。

For more than a few on Wall Street, the powerful rally and sudden free fall, combined with the Chinese government’s intervention, provided the perfect illustration of why not to buy “A shares” ― China’s domestic stocks.

对于华尔街的很多人来说，剧烈反弹和猛然跳水，再加上中国政府对股市的干预，正是为什么不能买中国内地“A股”的完美理由。

“People thought the A shares was a very speculative market and referred to it as a casino,” said Jorge Mariscal, emerging markets chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management. But, he added, this is a misleading analogy. “In a casino you know the rules of the game. Here they are shifting, and I think this is going to deter foreign investors in this market,” he said.

“大家认为A股是高度投机性的市场，称它就像一个赌场，”瑞银财富管理(UBS Wealth Management)的新兴市场首席投资官豪尔赫・马里斯卡尔(Jorge Mariscal)。但是，他说，这个类比不恰当。“在赌场，你是知道游戏规则的。在这里，规则正在改变中，我认为这会打消外国人对这个市场的投资念头，”他说。

Not long ago, things were very different. In a pledge to reduce the government’s role in the economy, President Xi Jinping announced a package of changes that would help to liberalize China’s financial markets in 2013. Soon after, the government allowed a small group of hedge funds from the United States and Britain to raise tens of millions of dollars from Chinese investors as part of a pilot program. Last year, the government opened the Shanghai stock exchange to foreign investors through a program called the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, a move that investors hailed as the single most important initiative by the Chinese government.

不久前的局面可远非如此。2013年时，习近平承诺减少政府在经济中的作用，并宣布了将有助于放开中国金融市场的一揽子变化。之后不久，作为一个试点项目的一部分，政府允许美国和英国的少量对冲基金来中国，这里的投资者手中筹集了大量资金。去年，中国政府通过开设“沪港通”，把上交所开放给了外国投资者，被投资者誉为是中国政府的最重大举措。

Even as hedge funds and banks expanded their businesses to take advantage of the Stock Connect and other changes, foreign participation in China’s domestic markets remained minuscule.

但是，尽管对冲基金和银行利用“沪港通”等新政，扩大了业务规模，外国投资者对中国内地市场的参与仍然微不足道。

For several years, a small group of hedge funds have participated in a special quota program, called the qualified foreign institutional investors program, that has allowed them to trade shares denominated in renminbi and Hong Kong dollars. But even with this trading, together with trading through the Stock Connect, only about 1 percent of China’s $8.5 trillion domestic market value is owned by foreign investors, according to estimates by UBS.

几年来，少量对冲基金参加了一个特殊的配额项目，叫“合格境外机构投资者”项目。该项目允许它们交易以人民币和港币计价的股票。但从瑞银的估计数据来看，即便有这种交易以及通过沪港通进行的交易，在中国8.5万亿美元的国内市值中，外国投资者也仅持有大约1%。

For those foreign investors who got in early, the run-up in share prices in China was remarkable. But there were signs of a bubble early on. Stocks nearly tripled over a 12-month period during which China’s economy and corporate earnings were worsening, said Patrick Chovanec, managing director at Silvercrest Asset Management Group. Valuations of companies skyrocketed and, at the market peak, the median was 85 times earnings, a red flag for most investors.

对早期进入的那些外国投资者来说，中国股价上涨明显。但早就出现了泡沫迹象。银冠资产管理(Silvercrest Asset Management)的常务董事程志宇(Patrick Chovanec)称，在12个月时间里，股价几乎涨至原来的三倍，而中国的经济和企业盈利同期却在恶化。公司估值飙升，在市场达到最高点时，市盈率的中位数是85。对大部分投资者来说，这都是一个危险信号。

Yet, the party looked set to continue. Just a month ago, MSCI, which compiles indexes tracked by money managers around the world, said it could soon add Chinese shares to its indexes. But MSCI added that it would put off a decision because of worries about restrictions on capital flows, quotas for investment and how the law applied to foreign shareholders, among other concerns

然而，狂欢看似要持续下去。就在一个月前，编制了全球金融经理人关注的指数的摩根斯坦利国际资本公司(MSCI)还表示，很快将在自己的指数中纳入中国股票。但该公司接着表示将推迟决定，原因包括对资本流动面临的限制、投资配额以及法律对外国股东的适用情况的担忧等。

Then came the market purge, which for seasoned China investors was a long time coming.

随后股市就急转直下。这是经验丰富的中国投资者早就料到的。

“Welcome to Asia. So, the people who bought the market and thought that it was MSCI investment-worthy? It’s not,” said Seth Fischer, chief investment officer at the Oasis Management Company, a hedge fund based in Hong Kong. “They should have known that when it went up 50 percent,” he added.

“欢迎来到亚洲。所以这些人买了股票并以为MSCI都看好它了？其实不是的，”总部位于香港的对冲基金绿洲管理公司(Oasis Management Company)首席投资官塞思・菲舍尔(Seth Fischer)说。“涨到一半的时候就该知道这一点了，”他接着说。

During the very worst moments of the recent sell-off, Mr. Fischer was among the few investors buying shares that no one else wanted to own. He said that while investors were running for all the exits, pummeling stocks, many companies would still be standing in the years ahead. He pointed to Shenguan Holdings, which makes casings for sausages, as an example.

在最近这一轮抛售中，少数投资者在形势最为恶劣的关头买下了那些谁都不想要的股票。菲舍尔便是其中之一。他表示，尽管投资者纷纷出逃，连续重创股市，但在未来数年里，很多公司依然会屹立不倒。他以生产香肠肠衣的神冠控股为例。

“It’s a real company, and the Chinese are not going to stop eating sausages,” Mr. Fischer said.

“这是一家真的公司，中国人不会不吃香肠，”菲舍尔说。

Other investors are optimistic that while this market turmoil has scared off many, it will most likely force China’s leaders to put market changes into effect sooner.

还有一些投资者乐观地认为，尽管这一轮市场动荡吓跑了很多人，但它极有可能迫使中国领导人提早执行市场改革。

“I don’t think I would be worried yet that the whole party is over for China,” said Richard Johnston, Asia head of Albourne Partners, a British hedge fund and private equity adviser. “I think China will have to come back and lick its wounds and be a bit more careful on regulation, but it will stay on the reform agenda,” he added.

“我觉得这时候就担心要散场是没必要的，”英国对冲基金、私募股权顾问机构Albourne Partners的亚洲事务负责人理查德・约翰斯顿(Richard Johnston)说。“我认为中国能够从这场危机中恢复过来，并在监管方面变得更加谨慎，但仍将坚持改革议程，”他说。

As it is, the market has bounced back. Many investors are still in positive territory for the year. Since a low point in the Shanghai stock market on Wednesday, the index is now up 13 percent. “We’ve turned a good year into an average year if we stop and draw a line here,” Mr. Johnston said about hedge fund performance for China-focused firms.

事实上，市场已出现反弹。很多投资者依然对今年看涨。自周三跌至低点以来，沪市指数现已上涨13%。“如果现在停下来划一条线，我们不过是把好年景变成了一般年景，”约翰斯顿这样评价专注中国的对冲基金业绩。

The decline in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets has not erased most of the gains made over the last year. In fact, over a three-year period, the Shanghai market is still ahead of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

沪深两市的下跌尚未抵消掉去年的大部分涨幅。实际上，在三年时间里，沪指依然高于标准普尔500指数。

At one point last week, the story was radically different in Hong Kong’s stock market. In a single day, the market reversed all of its gains for the year, the biggest drop in one day since the financial crisis

而在上周，香港股市却曾一度表现得极为不同。其中一天下跌的份额抵消了全年的涨幅，单日跌幅也创下金融危机以来的最大记录。

In all the investor soul-searching, one hedge fund manager’s warnings have been louder than others. James S. Chanos, who has bet on a downturn in China for five years, recently compared China to Greece, another country that has caused some gnashing of teeth in the hedge fund community.

投资者们在自我反省，其中一名对冲基金经理的警告比其他人的响亮。前不久，五年来一直确信中国会衰退的詹姆斯・S・查诺斯(James S. Chanos)将中国比作希腊――另一个让对冲基金圈咬牙切齿的国家。

“I joke to my Chinese friends, somewhat half-seriously, another three-four years they are going to be like my homeland, Greece,” Mr. Chanos said in May on “Wall Street Week,” an investing program.

“我半认真地和中国朋友开玩笑说，在接下来的三四年里，他们会变得像我的祖国希腊一样，”查诺斯5月在调查节目《华尔街一周要闻》(Wall Street Week)上说。