华尔街重拾“动物精神”

Demonstrators were camped outside Goldman Sachs’ headquarters in Lower Manhattan for a second day yesterday, as the investment bank unveiled its fourth-quarter earnings. Some were dressed in monster masks, protesting the slew of appointments of senior Goldman people to the new government of Donald Trump — in spite of his campaign-trail pledge to “drain the swamp.”

近日，在高盛(Goldman Sachs)公布第四季度利润之际，示威者在这家投行位于曼哈顿下城的总部外连续第二天扎营抗议。部分示威者头戴怪物面具，抗议多名高盛高管获得唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的新政府的任命——尽管他在竞选期间曾誓言要“排干沼泽”(drain the swamp)。

But inside the bank, things are looking better than they have done in a while. Return on equity edged up to 11.4 per cent on an annualised basis, marking the second quarter in a row of returns above the roughly 10 per cent threshold between creating and destroying value for shareholders.

但在高盛内部，情况看上去比前一段时期更好。股本回报率按年率计算小幅攀升至11.4%，标志着回报率连续两个季度高于10%上下这个区分为股东创造还是摧毁价值的分水岭。

But it is not just Goldman. All over Wall Street, animal spirits are beginning to return, helped by promises of more vigorous growth under Mr Trump, and prospects of regulatory relief after years of intense oversight and ever-tougher standards on capital and liquidity.

但有此表现的并不只是高盛。在特朗普有望开启更强劲增长和监管放松的前景的推动下，整个华尔街的动物精神正开始回归。此前多年，资本和流动性面临高强度监管和越来越严苛的标准。

Capital markets revenues during the quarter for the big five US banks were up 16 per cent from a year earlier, according to Compass Point, a research house. Fixed-income sales and trading was a particular hotspot, up 63 per cent.

根据研究机构Compass Point的数据，美国五大银行最新报告季的资本市场收入同比增长了16%。固定收益产品销售和交易尤其火爆，飙升63%。

“We feel as front-footed about our franchise as we ever have,” said Harvey Schwartz, Goldman’s chief financial officer, on a call with analysts. Clients had been gaining in confidence from the second half of 2016 onwards, he said, expecting “stronger” fiscal policy from the US and tighter monetary policy.

高盛首席财务官哈维•施瓦茨(Harvey Schwartz)在面向分析师的电话会议上表示：“我行从来没有像现在这样对业务充满信心。”他说，客户的信心自2016年下半年以来一直在增强，他预期美国将实行“更强有力的”财政政策，而货币政策将会收紧。

Goldman’s daily average value-at-risk, a measure of how much it could lose on a given day, crept up to $61m, from a post-crisis low of $57m in the third quarter. (In the aftermath of the crisis it was more than $200m). “I’d say there was increased optimism around the world,” said Mr Schwartz, noting abundant capital and liquidity on Goldman’s balance sheet. “To the extent that there is demand, we can respond to it.”

高盛的日均在险价值——衡量其在一个交易日可能遭受的最大亏损——已从去年第三季度的后危机时期最低点5700万美元升至6100万美元。(金融危机爆发后曾超过2亿美元)。“我认为，世界各地的乐观情绪都在上升，”施瓦茨说。他还特别提到了高盛资产负债表上充裕的资本和流动性。“只要有需求，我们都可以作出回应。”

This was typical stuff from Goldman, several shades stronger than remarks from other senior executives such as James Gorman, chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley, which reported a day earlier. But each of the big five US banks made encouraging noises on the trading outlook and said that pipelines for investment banking activities — mergers and fundraising — looked promising, after an indifferent end to the year.

这是典型的高盛风格，比业内其他高管的言论——如一天前报告业绩的摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)董事长兼首席执行官詹姆斯•戈尔曼(James Gorman)——乐观了几分。但美国五大银行都对交易前景发出了令人鼓舞的声音，它们表示，在经历去年底的低潮期后，投行业务活动(并购和募资)的管道看上去相当光明。

“We like the momentum that we’ve got going into 2017,” said John Gerspach, chief financial officer of Citigroup, yesterday. The bank, the fourth largest in the US by assets, said that fourth-quarter revenues from trading bonds and stocks were up 36 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier.

花旗(Citigroup)首席财务官约翰•戈斯帕奇(John Gerspach)说：“进入2017年之际，我们喜欢当前的这种势头。”按资产规模计算为美国第四大银行的花旗表示，第四季度来自债券和股票交易的收入同比分别增长了36%和15%。

All the big banks had a brighter period in fixed-income sales and trading, a part of their businesses that has been squeezed in recent years by curbs on market-making and patchy client activity. At Morgan Stanley, for example, fixed-income trading revenues came in at $1.47bn, barely off the third-quarter pace of $1.48bn, during a traditionally slower time of the year.

在固定收益产品销售和交易方面，各大银行都经历了一段较好的时期，这部分业务近年一直受到抑制做市和客户活动不活跃的挤压。例如，摩根士丹利第四季度固定收益产品交易收入为14.7亿美元，仅略低于第三季度的14.8亿美元，而传统上这块业务在第四季度比较清淡。

To some analysts, it is a sign that the post-crisis tide is turning. The overall fixed-income fee pool has been cut in half since 2009, as interest rates have languished near zero and investors have been disinclined to reshuffle portfolios. But the big banks stand to benefit, as central banks around the world — led by the US Federal Reserve — move to more traditional monetary-policy settings.

在一些分析师看来，这种迹象表明，后危机时代的大潮正在转向。自2009年以来，固定收益佣金总额减少了一半，原因是利率长期处在接近于零的水平，而投资者在重组投资组合方面比较严谨。但随着世界各地央行在美联储(Federal Reserve)的带领下转向更传统的货币政策姿态，大型银行必将获益。

“Stronger [fixed-income] trading should not necessarily be seen as a fluke,” said Chris Kotowski, an analyst at Oppenheimer. “Perhaps we are in the early stages of witnessing this trend.”

“更强劲的(固定收益)交易不应想当然地被视为暂时现象，”奥本海默公司(Oppenheimer)分析师克里斯•科托夫斯基(Chris Kotowski)说，“或许我们正在见证这一趋势的早期阶段。”

On regulation, executives naturally shied away from questions from analysts as to what particular rules they would like to see expunged, and when.

在监管方面，投行高管自然而然地回避了分析师提出的关于他们希望废止哪些具体规则、以及何时废止的问题。

But Mr Schwartz said that, eight years on from the depths of the crisis, it was time to review the “incredible body of work” put in place by regulators. He listed capital ratios mandated by the Basel committee, the annual stress-testing process introduced by the Fed, and new global standards on liquidity.

但高盛的施瓦茨说，距金融危机最严重的时候已过去8年，是时候重审监管者出台的“令人难以置信的作品”了。他列举了巴塞尔委员会(Basel committee)规定的资本比率、美联储实施的年度压力测试，以及新的全球流动性标准。

“There should be some degree of pause and stepping back,” he said, taking his last earnings call before replacing the government-bound Gary Cohn as co-president and co-chief operating officer. “This seems like a very reasonable point in time to assess; we obviously got some great benefits but is there a cost in economic growth?”

“应该有某种程度的停顿和后退，”他在最后一次财报电话会议上表示;他即将替代到政府任职的加里•科恩(Gary Cohn)出任高盛联席总裁兼联席首席运营官。“这似乎是一个非常合理的评估时间点;我们显然得到了一些巨大好处，但经济增长是否为此付出了代价?”

The banks are still up against a similar cast of characters at the big US regulatory agencies, and squeezed by structural forces such as a steady shift to electronic markets. Ken Usdin, an analyst at Jefferies, noted that the weak fourth-quarter of 2015 gave Wall Street banks some “really easy” hurdles to clear.

各银行仍要面对美国各大监管机构的一批类似的人物，并受到结构性力量(比如向电子市场的稳步转移)的挤压。杰富瑞(Jefferies)分析师肯•乌斯丁(Ken Usdin)指出，疲软的2015年第四季度给华尔街银行带来了一些“极为容易”的基数。

For all the talk of better times at Goldman, the bank’s full-year figures still showed a 9 per cent fall in total net revenues, to $30.6bn. Among the ten key revenue items on the 2016 income statement, just two (debt trading and debt underwriting) were rising.

虽然有这么多关于高盛时来运转的言论，但该行的全年数据仍显示总净收入下降9%，至306亿美元。在2016年损益表的10大关键收入项中，只有两项(债务交易和债券承销)实现增长。