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This month, Wall Street is back with a new lobbying campaign. But this latest battle is not about bank capital or bonuses; instead the issue is something that looks almost retro: credit derivatives.
华尔街本月发起了一个新的游说运动。但这场最新游说与银行资本或奖金无关，而是涉及看起来几乎令人怀旧的信用衍生品。
Back in last decade’s crazy credit bubble, these products boomed. But since then, trading in so-called single name credit default swaps, or instruments which let investors bet whether a specific company or country will default, has withered: activity is now a mere third of 2008 levels (although the picture for index products is better).
在本世纪头十年信贷泡沫狂热时期，信用衍生品蓬勃发展。但自那以后，所谓的单名信用违约互换（single name CDS，即让投资者押注某个公司或者某个国家会否违约的工具）日渐式微：现在交易活动仅为2008年水平的三分之一（尽管指数产品的情况要好一些）。
Now, however, some big financial institutions — along with lobbying bodies like the International Swaps and Derivatives Association — want to stage a retro revival. Rebuilding credit derivatives, they argue, will make modern finance considerably safer, particularly if (or when) the US Federal Reserve finally puts up rates.
然而，现在一些大型金融机构以及国际互换和衍生工具协会(International Swaps and Derivatives Association，简称ISDA)等游说团体希望恢复单名CDS的昔日荣光。它们辩称，重启信用衍生品将让现代金融安全得多，尤其是如果（或者当）美联储(Fed)最终加息的时候。
Are those bankers mad? Or just playing their old profit-seeking games? Most politicians (and voters) would probably like to howl “yes” on both counts. After all, the reason why the single name CDS market has withered since 2008 is that regulators have imposed new rules making it more onerous and costly to trade these products.
那些银行家疯了吗？或者只是玩他们老套的逐利游戏？大多数政客（和选民们）可能想对这两个问题都大喊一声“是的”。毕竟，单名CDS市场自2008年以来萎缩的原因是，监管机构出台的新规则让这些产品的交易更加繁琐和昂贵。
And the motive behind that shift was that credit derivatives had a starring role in the horror show of the credit boom and bust. While these products did not actually create the gigantic bubble or the subprime mortgage abuses, canny financiers used credit derivatives to run rings around regulations and load investors’ portfolios with dangerously large, partly concealed, risks and debts.
那种转变背后的动机是，信用衍生品在信贷市场可怕的暴涨暴跌中曾扮演“主角”。尽管这些产品实际上并未制造巨大的泡沫或者导致次贷滥发，但精明的金融家利用信用衍生品来绕过监管，让投资者的投资组合背负大得危险、且部分隐藏的风险和债务。
While that sorry history might appear to offer every reason to say “no” to any comeback, that would be a bad idea. Although these instruments were horribly used and abused in the past decade, there is a good idea at their core. Most notably, when credit derivatives were created back in the 1990s, the raison d’être was to enable investors to make bets about credit risks, either to protect themselves from default or to earn income by selling that quasi- insurance to others.
尽管那段令人惋惜的历史似乎让人有理由对重启信用衍生品说“不”，但那将会是一个糟糕的想法。尽管这些工具在过去10年里被用得过多过滥，但它们的核心有一个好的构想。尤其是，当信用衍生品在上世纪90年代被创造出来的时候，其存在理由是让投资者能够押注信用风险，要么让他们抵消违约风险，要么通过向其他人出售这种半保险产品来获取收入。
That original core concept now looks very useful, if not essential, for modern markets. As my colleague Martin Wolf points out, we are probably nearing the end of a 30-year bull market in bonds. It would be nice to hope this turning point will occur smoothly. But that seems naive. Investors are going to need all the help — or instruments — they can find to hedge risks in the next year.
对现代市场来说，上述初始的核心概念现在看起来非常有用，甚至不可或缺。正如我的同事马丁•沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)所指出的，我们很可能正在接近30年债券牛市的结束。要是这个转折点能够平稳发生就好了。但这种期盼似乎有些幼稚。未来一年投资者将需要一切找得到的帮助（或者说工具）来对冲风险。
The second reason why credit derivatives might look useful is that it is much harder today for anyone to trade cash bonds, partly because post-crisis regulations have prompted broker dealers to cut their market-making roles. Reviving single name derivatives might help to alleviate this, since investors may be more willing to hold bonds if they can protect themselves from default.
信用衍生品看起来有用的第二个理由是，如今交易现金债券的难度大得多，这在一定程度上是因为危机后的监管促使经纪自营商缩减了自己的做市角色。恢复单名衍生品或许有助于缓解这个问题，因为如果投资者能够保护自己不受违约的影响，就可能更愿意持有债券。
Moreover, if derivatives are traded in a way that produces credible prices, this might provide a benchmark for the murkier corners of the illiquid bond market, signalling how sentiment is shifting. For evidence of that, think about how swings in CDS prices signalled that smart money was getting worried about Lehman Brothers, AIG or Bear Stearns in 2008.
此外，如果衍生品交易能够产生可信的价格，这或许会为缺乏流动性的债券市场的比较隐秘的角落提供一个基准，表明了情绪正如何转变。想要证据？2008年时，正是CDS价格的波动表明，聪明的投资者对雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)、美国国际集团(AIG)或者贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)感到担忧。
Can this happen? ISDA and others certainly hope so. And they are trying to revive it by promoting two policy ideas: pushing the single name business via central clearing houses, to make the product safer and cheaper to process; and simplifying the market by cutting the frequency with which credit default swap contracts are updated, from four times a year to twice.
CDS能够重启吗？ISDA和其他机构当然希望可以。它们试图提出两个政策观点来重启CDS：一个是通过中央清算机构来推动单名CDS业务，使该产品更安全，处理成本更低廉，另一个是将CDS合约更新的频率从一年四次减至一年两次，以简化市场。
This is sensible. But if the industry is going to fly again, it needs three other things to happen.
这是明智的做法。但要让该行业再次繁荣起来，它还需要其他三件事情。
Financiers need to demonstrate that they fully embrace the idea of maximum transparency. Then they must show that they view the tool as a risk management device, not just a technique for regulatory arbitrage. Most importantly, there needs to be genuine demand for CDS — most crucially from end investors rather than fee-hungry banking salesmen.
金融家需要表明，他们完全支持最大化透明度的想法。因此他们必须表明，他们将CDS视为风险管理工具，而不仅仅是监管套利手段。最重要的是，市场需要对CDS有真正的需求，最关键的是来自最终投资者、而非渴求赚取手续费的银行销售员的需求。
That may occur. It is encouraging to note, for example, that one of the most active voices now pushing for a revival of single name CDS is not any bank, but BlackRock, the asset management group. Nobody can pretend that it will be easy or quick to rebuild trust in this sector; least of all when fresh evidence of bank transgressions, such as foreign exchange scandals, keeps tumbling out.
CDS有可能被重启。例如，令人鼓舞的是，推动重启单名CDS的最活跃声音之一不是来自银行，而是来自资产管理公司贝莱德(BlackRock)。没有人能佯称，在这个领域将会轻易或迅速重建信任，尤其是在有新的证据表明银行不当行为（如外汇丑闻）层出不穷之际。
