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Finance and economics
财经版块
Cruel world
残酷世界
Investors begin to accept that high borrowing costs are here to stay.
投资者开始接受高借贷成本将持续存在的事实。
According to T.S. Eliot, April is the cruellest month.
T. S. 艾略特说，四月是最残酷的月份。
Shareholders would disagree.
股东们不会同意。
For them, it is September.
对他们而言，最残酷的月份是九月。
The rest of the year stocks tend to rise more often than not.
每年九月之后，股市往往会上涨。
Since 1928, the ratio of monthly gains to losses in America’s S&P 500 index, excluding September, has been about 60/40.
自1928年以来，美国标准普尔500指数股票的月度涨跌幅之比(不包括9月)约为60：40。
But the autumn chill seems to do something to the market’s psyche.
但秋季的寒气似乎对市场的心理造成了一些影响。
In September the index has dropped 55% of the time.
今年9月，该指数下跌了55%。
True to form, after a jittery August it has spent recent weeks falling.
与以往一样，在经历了紧张不安的8月之后，最近几周股市一直在下跌。
Such a calendar effect flies in the face of the idea that financial markets are efficient.
这种周期效应与金融市场的有效性背道而驰。
After all, asset prices ought only to move in response to new information (future cash flows, for instance).
毕竟，资产价格应该只会随着新信息(例如未来现金流)而变动。
Predictable fluctuations should be identified, exploited and arbitraged away by traders.
交易员应该识别、利用可预测的波动并从中套利。
Yet this September there is no mystery about what is going on: investors have learned, or rather accepted, something new.
然而，今年9月的情况明明白白：投资者已经了解到，或者更确切地说，已经接受了一些新事实。
High interest rates are here for the long haul.
即高利率将长期存在。
The downturn was prompted by a marathon session of monetary-policy announcements, which began with America’s Federal Reserve on September 20th and concluded two days and 11 central banks later.
股市下跌是由马拉松式的一系列货币政策出台引发的，从9月20日美联储宣布政策开始，到两天后11家中央银行宣布政策结束。
Almost all the big hitters repeated the “higher for longer” message.
几乎所有央行都在重复“利率更高，为期更长”的信息。
Beforehand Huw Pill of the Bank of England had likened rates to Table Mountain, Cape Town’s flat-topped peak, as opposed to the triangular Matterhorn.
此前，英格兰银行的休·皮尔将利率比作桌山（南非开普敦的一个平顶山峰），而不是瑞士的马特宏峰（山峰是尖尖的三角）。
Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank raised rates and spoke of a “long race”.
欧洲央行行长克里斯蒂娜·拉加德提高了利率，并谈到“漫长的赛跑”。
The Fed’s governors, on average, guessed that their benchmark rate (currently 5.25-5.50%) would still be above 5% by the end of 2024.
平均而言，美联储理事猜测，到2024年底，其基准利率(目前为5.25-5.50%)仍将高于5%。
For the bond market, this merely confirmed expectations that had been building all summer.
对于债券市场来说，这只是整个夏天以来的预期得到了证实。
The yield on two-year Treasuries, which is sensitive to near-term expectations of monetary policy, has risen from 3.8% in May to 5.1%.
对近期货币政策预期很敏感的两年期美债收益率已从5月的3.8%升至5.1%。
Longer-term rates have been climbing as well, and not just in America, where the ten-year Treasury yield has hit a 16-year high of 4.6%.
长期收益率也一直在攀升，而且不仅仅是在美国。美国的十年期国债收益率已经达到了16年来的最高点：4.6%。
Ten-year German bunds now yield 2.8%, more than at any point since 2011.
目前，十年期德国国债的收益率为2.8%，为2011年以来的最高点。
British gilt yields are near the level they hit last autumn, which were then only reached amid fire sales and a market meltdown.
英国国债收益率接近去年秋季的水平，当时只在贱卖和市场崩盘的情况下才达到这一水平。
At the same time, fuelled by America’s robust economy and the expectation that its rates will reach a higher plateau than those of other countries, the dollar has strengthened.
与此同时，美国强劲的经济，以及预期美国利率将达到比其他国家更高的水平，这两个因素推动美元走强。
The DXY, a measure of its value compared to six other major currencies, has risen by 7% since a trough in July.
DXY是衡量美元相对于其他六种主要货币价值的指标，这一指标自7月份的低谷以来已经上涨了7%。
By comparison with the bond and foreign-exchange markets, the stockmarket has been slow to absorb the prospect of sustained high interest rates.
与债券和外汇市场相比，股票市场对持续高利率这一前景的反应更为迟缓。
True, borrowing costs are not its only driver.
诚然，借贷成本并不是唯一的驱动因素。
Investors have been euphoric over the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and a resilient American economy.
投资者一直对人工智能的潜力和富有韧性的美国经济感到兴奋。
The prospect of rapidly growing earnings, in other words, might justify a buoyant stockmarket even in the face of tight monetary policy.
换句话说，即使货币政策紧缩，收入快速增长的前景也可能证明股市上涨是合理的。
Yet it appears investors had also taken a Pollyanna-ish view of interest rates, and not just because the most recent fall in prices was triggered by pronouncements from central bankers.
然而，投资者似乎也对利率过于乐观，这不仅仅是因为央行官员的声明引发了最近的股市价格下跌。
Since shares are riskier than bonds, they must offer a higher expected return by way of compensation.
由于股票的风险高于债券，因此股票必须提供更高的预期收益作为补偿。
Measuring this extra expected return is difficult, but a proxy is given by comparing the stockmarket’s earnings yield (expected earnings per share, divided by share price) with the yield on safer government bonds.
衡量这种额外的预期收益很困难，但有一个替代办法：比较股票市场的收益率(预期每股的收益除以股价)和更稳妥的政府债券的收益率。
Do this with the S&P 500 index and ten-year Treasuries, and the “yield gap” between the two has fallen to just one percentage point, its lowest since the dotcom bubble.
以标准普尔500指数和10年期美国国债为例，两者之间的“收益率差”已降至仅1个百分点，为互联网泡沫以来的最低水平。
One possibility is that investors are so confident in their shares’ underlying earnings that they barely demand any extra return to account for the risk that these earnings disappoint.
出现这种现象的一个可能性是，投资者对其股票的潜在收益非常有信心，以至于他们几乎不要求有任何额外回报来弥补收益令人失望的风险。
But this would be an odd conclusion to draw from economic growth that, while robust, has presumably not escaped the business cycle entirely, as recent disappointing consumer-confidence and housing data demonstrate.
但从经济形势中得出这一结论很奇怪，因为虽然经济增长强劲，但大概率并未完全逃脱商业周期的影响，最近令人失望的消费者信心和房地产数据就表明了这一点。
It would be an even odder conclusion to draw in relation to profits from AI, a still-developing technology whose effect on firms’ bottom lines remains mostly untested.
如果是从人工智能的利润中得出这一结论，那就更奇怪了，因为人工智能仍在开发中，其对公司利润的影响基本上还没有得到检验。
The alternative is that, until now, investors have simply not believed that interest rates will stay high for as long as the bond market expects—and central bankers insist—they will.
另一种可能性是，到目前为止，投资者根本不相信利率会像债券市场预期的那样--以及像央行官员们坚称的那样--长期保持在高位。
If that is the case, and they are now starting to waver, the next few months could be crueller still.
如果是这种情况，而且投资者现在开始动摇了，那么未来几个月可能会变得更加残酷。
