2023年经济学人 投资银行的时机（1）

（单词翻译）

投资银行的时机（1）

    Who would want to own shares in a bank?

    谁会想拥有一家银行的股份呢?

    Rising interest rates should have been a blessing¹, lifting the income they can earn on assets.

    利率上升本应是一件好事，因为它提高了他们从资产中获得的收入。

    But a few banks that had lent and invested freely at rock-bottom rates faced runs, which pushed up funding costs for the rest.

    但少数以极低利率自由放贷和投资的银行面临挤兑，这推高了其余银行的融资成本。

    More may yet fail.

    更多的融资可能会失败。

    And new regulations, ominously² named Basel 3 “endgame” rules, could raise the capital requirements on some American banks by as much as a quarter if they are introduced in their current form in 2025.

    新的法规，被不祥地命名为巴塞尔协议3“终局”规则，如果在2025年以目前的形式实施，对一些美国银行的资本要求可能会提高多达四分之一。

    This would scupper any chance that shareholders³ can be paid much out of profits, perhaps for years.

    这将破坏股东从利润中获得丰厚回报的机会，这种情况可能会持续数年。

    Nasty stuff.

    令人不快的东西。

    Indeed, the KBW index of large American bank stocks has shed 15% this year, even as American stocks have risen by 19%.

    事实上，美国大型银行股的KBW指数今年下跌了15%，尽管美国股市上涨了19%。

    This underperformance, after a decade of mediocrity, means that banks now make up less than 5% of the S&P 500 index of large American firms.

    在十年的平庸之后，这种不佳的表现意味着银行现在在美国大型公司的标准普尔500指数中所占的比例不到5%。

    Blackstone, a private-markets giant, has a market capitalisation 20% bigger than that of Goldman Sachs.

    私人市场巨头黑石集团的市值比高盛集团高出20%。

    Just about any measure of valuation shows banks to be at or near an all-time low.

    几乎任何估值指标都显示，银行股处于或接近历史低点。

    Yet being cheap is not the same as being a bargain.

    然而，便宜并不等同于便宜货。

    Banks are not startups selling a growth story.

    银行不是兜售发展故事的初创公司。

    Nor are they tech firms building innovative⁴ new products.

    它们也不是制造创新产品的科技公司。

    Banking⁵ is a mature business; its fortunes are closely tied to the macroeconomic environment.

    银行业是一项成熟的业务; 它的命运与宏观经济环境密切相关。

    Investors⁶ therefore look for institutions where profits or earnings⁷ might grow in the near future and where those profits may be returned to investors via dividends⁸ or buy-backs.

    因此，投资者寻找的是，可能在不久的将来迎来利润或收益增长的机构，这些利润可能通过股息或回购返还给投资者。

    On neither front do American banks look appealing.

    在这两个方面，美国银行看起来都没有吸引力。

    Net interest income, a measure of the difference between the interest banks earn on loans and that which they pay out on deposits, seems to have peaked.

    净利息收入(衡量银行从贷款中赚取的利息与支付给存款的利息之间的差额)似乎已经见顶。

    Although rising rates boost income, the climb in funding costs has eaten into this.

    尽管利率上升会增加收入，但融资成本的攀升已经侵蚀了这一点。

    Customers fled regional banks following collapses⁹ earlier in the year and have moved away from all banks in favour of money-market funds, which offer higher low-risk returns.

    在今年早些时候银行倒闭后，客户纷纷逃离地区性银行，并从所有银行撤出资金，转而青睐提供低风险高回报的货币市场基金。

    Even in the best-case scenario¹⁰ for America’s banks—a “soft landing” or “no landing” at all, in which there is no recession, few loan defaults and interest rates do not come down much—earnings would probably remain only around their present levels.

    即使在美国银行最好的情况下——“软着陆”或“不着陆”，即没有经济衰退，很少有贷款违约，利率也不会大幅下降——收益也可能只会维持在目前的水平。