★英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力頻道為大家整理的英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力材料：鳴金收兵。更多閱讀請(qǐng)查看本站英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力頻道。
Buttonwood 梧桐樹(shù)專欄
Sound the retreat
鳴金收兵
Profits in America may have peaked for this cycle
美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)可能已達(dá)到本周期內(nèi)的值
ARE corporate profits at last running out of steam? The lead-up to the first-quarter results season on Wall Street was marked by an unusually large number of profit warnings, such as that from Chevron, an oil group. According to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies were revised down by 4.4 percentage points in the first quarter.
公司的利潤(rùn)最終失去勢(shì)頭了么?即將到來(lái)的華爾街第一季度財(cái)報(bào)季中，包括石油集團(tuán)雪福龍?jiān)趦?nèi)的異常多的盈利警告成為了顯著特征。根據(jù)投行摩根史坦利的說(shuō)法，第一季度標(biāo)普500指數(shù)成分股公司的盈利預(yù)期被調(diào)低了4.4個(gè)百分點(diǎn)。
As is the custom, having lowered the bar, companies will now beat those revised forecasts, allowing Wall Street analysts to proclaim a “successful” results reason. But when one removes the effect of exceptional items, American profits are now falling, not rising, according to data from MSCI.
按照慣例，各公司降低了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)后，現(xiàn)在能擊敗了那些調(diào)低的預(yù)測(cè)值，并使得華爾街分析師們紛紛贊揚(yáng)這個(gè)“成功的”財(cái)報(bào)季。但根據(jù)來(lái)自MSCI的數(shù)據(jù)，一旦排除掉那些例外事項(xiàng)的影響，美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)現(xiàn)在正在下滑，而非上升。
In a sense, this is about time. The recovery in American corporate profits since the recession has been remarkable: they are close to a post-war high as a proportion of GDP. Bulls have a number of arguments why this is a lasting, not cyclical, phenomenon. Economic power has shifted from labour to capital thanks to globalisation, they say; companies can move production to parts of the world where wages are lower. But if that effect is so strong, why aren’t profits as high elsewhere? In Britain the return on corporate capital is below its post-1997 average.
從某種意義上講，現(xiàn)在確實(shí)到時(shí)候了。自經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退以來(lái)，美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)復(fù)蘇取得了顯著進(jìn)展：其占GDP的比重已接近了二戰(zhàn)之后的值。對(duì)行情持樂(lè)觀態(tài)度的人們有著一大堆的理由來(lái)解釋為何這是一種持續(xù)性現(xiàn)象，而非周期性現(xiàn)象。他們表示，全球化使得經(jīng)濟(jì)實(shí)力從勞動(dòng)力轉(zhuǎn)移到了資本;公司可以把生產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)移到世界上那些工資更低的地區(qū)。但是，如果這種效應(yīng)如此強(qiáng)烈，為何其他地區(qū)公司的利潤(rùn)沒(méi)有這么高?英國(guó)的資本收益率已低于其1997年以后的平均水平。
An alternative, but related, line of reasoning is that foreign profits have boosted the earnings of companies in the S&P 500, making the relationship with domestic GDP less relevant. America may still be running a trade deficit but its global champions, the argument runs, are raking in the money overseas. Research by Audit Analytics found that the amount of profits held abroad and not repatriated nearly doubled to 2.1 trillion between 2008 and 2013.
另一種與此有關(guān)聯(lián)的推測(cè)在于，國(guó)外利潤(rùn)提升了標(biāo)普500指數(shù)成分股公司的總體收益，使得后者與國(guó)內(nèi)GDP的相關(guān)性更低。美國(guó)可能仍存在貿(mào)易赤字，但是如本觀點(diǎn)所說(shuō)，其國(guó)際領(lǐng)軍企業(yè)在海外賺了不少錢。Audit Analytics研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，2008-2013年間，海外獲得且尚未匯回的利潤(rùn)數(shù)達(dá)到了2.1萬(wàn)億美元，幾乎翻了一番。
But where will American multinationals make so much money in future? Not in either Europe or Japan, where the economies have barely grown in recent years. Emerging markets might seem more promising, but their economies have been slowing, as companies like Diageo, a drinks producer, and Cisco, a tech-components group, have reported. Several developing economies have seen their currencies fall sharply too. It seems unlikely that American multinationals are going to get a further spurt of profits from this source.
但是，將來(lái)美國(guó)的跨國(guó)公司還能從哪兒賺到這么多錢呢?不會(huì)是歐洲或是日本，因?yàn)榻┠晁鼈兊慕?jīng)濟(jì)幾乎沒(méi)有增長(zhǎng)。新興市場(chǎng)可能看上去更有前景，但鑒于諸如飲料生產(chǎn)企業(yè)帝亞吉?dú)W和技術(shù)元件集團(tuán)思科等公司已經(jīng)發(fā)布的數(shù)據(jù)，它們的經(jīng)濟(jì)也已放緩。一些發(fā)展中經(jīng)濟(jì)體也已目睹了本國(guó)貨幣大幅下降。似乎美國(guó)的跨國(guó)公司不可能再?gòu)倪@個(gè)源頭得到進(jìn)一步的井噴式利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)。
In any case, the global data do not bear out the overseas-profit argument. Just as in America, there have been regular disappointments. In 2012, according to Citibank, global profits growth was just 2%, compared with initial forecasts of 11%. At the start of 2013 profits were forecast to rise by 12%; the actual increase was 7%.
無(wú)論如何，全球的數(shù)據(jù)并不支持“海外利潤(rùn)”理論。正如在美國(guó)，也已出現(xiàn)了常見(jiàn)的令人失望的結(jié)果。根據(jù)花旗銀行結(jié)論，2012年全球利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)率僅為2%，相比之下，初步預(yù)測(cè)可是到了11%。2013年初，利潤(rùn)預(yù)測(cè)增長(zhǎng)12%，但實(shí)際增長(zhǎng)僅為7%。
The stockmarket has been remarkably resilient in the face of these setbacks. In 2012 global equities rose by 13%; last year they managed 24%. In part, that is due to optimism about the economy’s future trajectory. The euro-zone crisis has disappeared from the headlines while the American economy has been showing signs of returning to healthy growth.
面臨著這些波折時(shí)，股市已表現(xiàn)出極強(qiáng)的彈性。2012年全球股票增長(zhǎng)了13%;去年增長(zhǎng)了24%。在某種程度上，這要?dú)w因于對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)未來(lái)發(fā)展軌跡的樂(lè)觀情緒。歐元區(qū)金融危機(jī)已從新聞?lì)^條上消失，同時(shí)美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)也已出現(xiàn)了回歸健康增長(zhǎng)的跡象。
But it is also down to supportive monetary policy. Short-term interest rates have not budged for the past two years (in the developed world) and government-bond yields have been close to historic lows. Investors have accordingly turned to the stockmarket in search of higher returns. Low interest rates have also played their part in keeping profits high, by reducing borrowing costs and by encouraging companies to use their spare cash to buy back stock, thereby increasing earnings per share.
但它同樣是支持性貨幣政策所起的作用。過(guò)去兩年短期利率一直沒(méi)有變化，政府債券收益率也接近了歷史最低水平。投資者相應(yīng)地轉(zhuǎn)向股票市場(chǎng)尋求更高回報(bào)。低利率通過(guò)降低借款成本、鼓勵(lì)公司使用閑置資金回購(gòu)股票，在提升利潤(rùn)方面起到了一定作用，也由此提高了每股收益。
However, buying back shares suggests a certain lack of imagination on the part of chief executives, or a lack of profitable projects to back. That remains an odd aspect of the profits boom: in theory, if the return on capital is high, one would expect a lot of capital to be invested. The resulting competition would eventually cause profits to fall. The process acts as a natural check on profits growth, but has yet to occur this cycle.
然而，回購(gòu)股票表明了首席執(zhí)行官在一定程度上缺乏前景設(shè)想，或公司缺少需要支持的盈利項(xiàng)目。利潤(rùn)豐厚的現(xiàn)象中仍存在一個(gè)奇怪之處：理論上，如果資本收益率很高，人們將期望能擁有大量可供投資的資本，由此導(dǎo)致的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)將最終導(dǎo)致利潤(rùn)下滑。這一過(guò)程是對(duì)利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)率的一種自然而然的檢驗(yàn)，但本周期內(nèi)尚未出現(xiàn)。
Instead, chief executives are turning to that old device for boosting sluggish profits: takeovers. According to Thomson Reuters, the global value of mergers and acquisitions in the first quarter was 36% higher than in the same period of 2013. The right takeover can result in cost cuts through economies of scale—although in the long run, the academic evidence in favour of takeovers is mixed.
相反地，首席執(zhí)行官們正在轉(zhuǎn)向“收購(gòu)”這一陳舊手段來(lái)刺激緩慢增長(zhǎng)的利潤(rùn)。根據(jù)湯森路透的結(jié)果，第一季度全球的并購(gòu)價(jià)值比2013年同期高出了36%。適宜的收購(gòu)能通過(guò)規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)實(shí)現(xiàn)成本削減——但是長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)來(lái)看，支持收購(gòu)的學(xué)術(shù)證據(jù)比較混雜。
A takeover boom is a classic signal of the final stages of a bull market, a sign that financial engineering has taken over from genuine business expansion. And that is hardly a surprise: the current rally is already the fourth-largest and the fifth-longest-running since 1928.
收購(gòu)熱潮是牛市最后階段的一個(gè)典型信號(hào)，這一信號(hào)表明，金融運(yùn)作已經(jīng)接替了真正的業(yè)務(wù)擴(kuò)張。而且這不奇怪：當(dāng)前這已經(jīng)是1928年以來(lái)第四次規(guī)模、第五次持續(xù)時(shí)間最長(zhǎng)的反彈了。
Buttonwood 梧桐樹(shù)專欄
Sound the retreat
鳴金收兵
Profits in America may have peaked for this cycle
美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)可能已達(dá)到本周期內(nèi)的值
ARE corporate profits at last running out of steam? The lead-up to the first-quarter results season on Wall Street was marked by an unusually large number of profit warnings, such as that from Chevron, an oil group. According to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies were revised down by 4.4 percentage points in the first quarter.
公司的利潤(rùn)最終失去勢(shì)頭了么?即將到來(lái)的華爾街第一季度財(cái)報(bào)季中，包括石油集團(tuán)雪福龍?jiān)趦?nèi)的異常多的盈利警告成為了顯著特征。根據(jù)投行摩根史坦利的說(shuō)法，第一季度標(biāo)普500指數(shù)成分股公司的盈利預(yù)期被調(diào)低了4.4個(gè)百分點(diǎn)。
As is the custom, having lowered the bar, companies will now beat those revised forecasts, allowing Wall Street analysts to proclaim a “successful” results reason. But when one removes the effect of exceptional items, American profits are now falling, not rising, according to data from MSCI.
按照慣例，各公司降低了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)后，現(xiàn)在能擊敗了那些調(diào)低的預(yù)測(cè)值，并使得華爾街分析師們紛紛贊揚(yáng)這個(gè)“成功的”財(cái)報(bào)季。但根據(jù)來(lái)自MSCI的數(shù)據(jù)，一旦排除掉那些例外事項(xiàng)的影響，美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)現(xiàn)在正在下滑，而非上升。
In a sense, this is about time. The recovery in American corporate profits since the recession has been remarkable: they are close to a post-war high as a proportion of GDP. Bulls have a number of arguments why this is a lasting, not cyclical, phenomenon. Economic power has shifted from labour to capital thanks to globalisation, they say; companies can move production to parts of the world where wages are lower. But if that effect is so strong, why aren’t profits as high elsewhere? In Britain the return on corporate capital is below its post-1997 average.
從某種意義上講，現(xiàn)在確實(shí)到時(shí)候了。自經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退以來(lái)，美國(guó)公司的利潤(rùn)復(fù)蘇取得了顯著進(jìn)展：其占GDP的比重已接近了二戰(zhàn)之后的值。對(duì)行情持樂(lè)觀態(tài)度的人們有著一大堆的理由來(lái)解釋為何這是一種持續(xù)性現(xiàn)象，而非周期性現(xiàn)象。他們表示，全球化使得經(jīng)濟(jì)實(shí)力從勞動(dòng)力轉(zhuǎn)移到了資本;公司可以把生產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)移到世界上那些工資更低的地區(qū)。但是，如果這種效應(yīng)如此強(qiáng)烈，為何其他地區(qū)公司的利潤(rùn)沒(méi)有這么高?英國(guó)的資本收益率已低于其1997年以后的平均水平。
An alternative, but related, line of reasoning is that foreign profits have boosted the earnings of companies in the S&P 500, making the relationship with domestic GDP less relevant. America may still be running a trade deficit but its global champions, the argument runs, are raking in the money overseas. Research by Audit Analytics found that the amount of profits held abroad and not repatriated nearly doubled to 2.1 trillion between 2008 and 2013.
另一種與此有關(guān)聯(lián)的推測(cè)在于，國(guó)外利潤(rùn)提升了標(biāo)普500指數(shù)成分股公司的總體收益，使得后者與國(guó)內(nèi)GDP的相關(guān)性更低。美國(guó)可能仍存在貿(mào)易赤字，但是如本觀點(diǎn)所說(shuō)，其國(guó)際領(lǐng)軍企業(yè)在海外賺了不少錢。Audit Analytics研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，2008-2013年間，海外獲得且尚未匯回的利潤(rùn)數(shù)達(dá)到了2.1萬(wàn)億美元，幾乎翻了一番。
But where will American multinationals make so much money in future? Not in either Europe or Japan, where the economies have barely grown in recent years. Emerging markets might seem more promising, but their economies have been slowing, as companies like Diageo, a drinks producer, and Cisco, a tech-components group, have reported. Several developing economies have seen their currencies fall sharply too. It seems unlikely that American multinationals are going to get a further spurt of profits from this source.
但是，將來(lái)美國(guó)的跨國(guó)公司還能從哪兒賺到這么多錢呢?不會(huì)是歐洲或是日本，因?yàn)榻┠晁鼈兊慕?jīng)濟(jì)幾乎沒(méi)有增長(zhǎng)。新興市場(chǎng)可能看上去更有前景，但鑒于諸如飲料生產(chǎn)企業(yè)帝亞吉?dú)W和技術(shù)元件集團(tuán)思科等公司已經(jīng)發(fā)布的數(shù)據(jù)，它們的經(jīng)濟(jì)也已放緩。一些發(fā)展中經(jīng)濟(jì)體也已目睹了本國(guó)貨幣大幅下降。似乎美國(guó)的跨國(guó)公司不可能再?gòu)倪@個(gè)源頭得到進(jìn)一步的井噴式利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)。
In any case, the global data do not bear out the overseas-profit argument. Just as in America, there have been regular disappointments. In 2012, according to Citibank, global profits growth was just 2%, compared with initial forecasts of 11%. At the start of 2013 profits were forecast to rise by 12%; the actual increase was 7%.
無(wú)論如何，全球的數(shù)據(jù)并不支持“海外利潤(rùn)”理論。正如在美國(guó)，也已出現(xiàn)了常見(jiàn)的令人失望的結(jié)果。根據(jù)花旗銀行結(jié)論，2012年全球利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)率僅為2%，相比之下，初步預(yù)測(cè)可是到了11%。2013年初，利潤(rùn)預(yù)測(cè)增長(zhǎng)12%，但實(shí)際增長(zhǎng)僅為7%。
The stockmarket has been remarkably resilient in the face of these setbacks. In 2012 global equities rose by 13%; last year they managed 24%. In part, that is due to optimism about the economy’s future trajectory. The euro-zone crisis has disappeared from the headlines while the American economy has been showing signs of returning to healthy growth.
面臨著這些波折時(shí)，股市已表現(xiàn)出極強(qiáng)的彈性。2012年全球股票增長(zhǎng)了13%;去年增長(zhǎng)了24%。在某種程度上，這要?dú)w因于對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)未來(lái)發(fā)展軌跡的樂(lè)觀情緒。歐元區(qū)金融危機(jī)已從新聞?lì)^條上消失，同時(shí)美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)也已出現(xiàn)了回歸健康增長(zhǎng)的跡象。
But it is also down to supportive monetary policy. Short-term interest rates have not budged for the past two years (in the developed world) and government-bond yields have been close to historic lows. Investors have accordingly turned to the stockmarket in search of higher returns. Low interest rates have also played their part in keeping profits high, by reducing borrowing costs and by encouraging companies to use their spare cash to buy back stock, thereby increasing earnings per share.
但它同樣是支持性貨幣政策所起的作用。過(guò)去兩年短期利率一直沒(méi)有變化，政府債券收益率也接近了歷史最低水平。投資者相應(yīng)地轉(zhuǎn)向股票市場(chǎng)尋求更高回報(bào)。低利率通過(guò)降低借款成本、鼓勵(lì)公司使用閑置資金回購(gòu)股票，在提升利潤(rùn)方面起到了一定作用，也由此提高了每股收益。
However, buying back shares suggests a certain lack of imagination on the part of chief executives, or a lack of profitable projects to back. That remains an odd aspect of the profits boom: in theory, if the return on capital is high, one would expect a lot of capital to be invested. The resulting competition would eventually cause profits to fall. The process acts as a natural check on profits growth, but has yet to occur this cycle.
然而，回購(gòu)股票表明了首席執(zhí)行官在一定程度上缺乏前景設(shè)想，或公司缺少需要支持的盈利項(xiàng)目。利潤(rùn)豐厚的現(xiàn)象中仍存在一個(gè)奇怪之處：理論上，如果資本收益率很高，人們將期望能擁有大量可供投資的資本，由此導(dǎo)致的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)將最終導(dǎo)致利潤(rùn)下滑。這一過(guò)程是對(duì)利潤(rùn)增長(zhǎng)率的一種自然而然的檢驗(yàn)，但本周期內(nèi)尚未出現(xiàn)。
Instead, chief executives are turning to that old device for boosting sluggish profits: takeovers. According to Thomson Reuters, the global value of mergers and acquisitions in the first quarter was 36% higher than in the same period of 2013. The right takeover can result in cost cuts through economies of scale—although in the long run, the academic evidence in favour of takeovers is mixed.
相反地，首席執(zhí)行官們正在轉(zhuǎn)向“收購(gòu)”這一陳舊手段來(lái)刺激緩慢增長(zhǎng)的利潤(rùn)。根據(jù)湯森路透的結(jié)果，第一季度全球的并購(gòu)價(jià)值比2013年同期高出了36%。適宜的收購(gòu)能通過(guò)規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)實(shí)現(xiàn)成本削減——但是長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)來(lái)看，支持收購(gòu)的學(xué)術(shù)證據(jù)比較混雜。
A takeover boom is a classic signal of the final stages of a bull market, a sign that financial engineering has taken over from genuine business expansion. And that is hardly a surprise: the current rally is already the fourth-largest and the fifth-longest-running since 1928.
收購(gòu)熱潮是牛市最后階段的一個(gè)典型信號(hào)，這一信號(hào)表明，金融運(yùn)作已經(jīng)接替了真正的業(yè)務(wù)擴(kuò)張。而且這不奇怪：當(dāng)前這已經(jīng)是1928年以來(lái)第四次規(guī)模、第五次持續(xù)時(shí)間最長(zhǎng)的反彈了。