Lex专栏：一切照旧的中资银行

Perhaps it is their size that makes them so difficult to grasp. Maybe there is also a dash of that hard-to-quantify suspicion that lurks in investors’ minds when they get any numbers related to China. Either way, the country’s big banks have none of the market stabilisers to be expected of such behemoths.

也许是中国各家银行过大的规模，导致它们难以理解。当投资者们拿到任何与中国有关的数字时，心里总会带着一点难以用数字来回答的怀疑，对于中国的银行业也是如此。不管怎样，像中国大型银行这样的庞然大物应该具备的市场稳定机制，它们却都不具备。

China’s slowing economy has played a part, as have regulators’ efforts, in forcing competition by slowly liberalising interest margins. But that still makes a one-fifth rise in the earnings yields of, say, Agricultural Bankand China Construction Bankin the past year look extreme when earnings have risen a fifth and 12 per cent over the past year respectively in the latest quarter. Reported results from three of the big four show fairly resilient interest margins and limited signs of the growing bad loans that everyone fears.

随着中国经济放缓，加上监管机构的努力，中国正缓慢放松对息差的限制，这加剧了银行业的竞争。但中国农业银行(AgBank)和中国建设银行(CCB)的表现仍然显得非常极端：两家银行第三季度净利润同比分别增长16%和12%，但过去一年中它们的每股收益与股价比却增长了足足五分之一。中国四大银行中三家的报表都显示了相当坚挺的利差，也没什么迹象表明所有人此前担忧的不良贷款正在抬头。

For those who do consider earnings yields as a corollary to the risk priced into bond yields, then China’s big four are compensating investors for something: each is trading at an earnings yield of at least 16 per cent, or more than double their rates three years ago. China is not booming now as it was then but the slowdown is not terrible, either – especially when compared with the conditions facing developed-world banks. JPMorgan, BNP Paribasand Singapore’s DBSoffer earnings yields of 13, 13 and 10 per cent respectively.

有些人认为每股收益与股价比率就相当于债券收益率加上风险补偿。对他们而言，中国的四大银行肯定正在为某种风险向投资者提供补偿：每家银行的每股收益与股价比率都不低于16%，比三年前高出不止一倍。眼下中国经济已不像三年前那样增长迅猛，但也未经历剧烈下滑，尤其是与发达国家的银行业相比。比如，摩根大通(JPMorgan)、法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)以及新加坡星展银行(DBS)的每股收益与股价比率分别为13%、13%以及10%。

Shares of the big four have rallied from their summer lows but their sheer size means that the 2 per cent still lost from their combined market capitalisation this year amounts to $18bn – enough, say, to buy a decent-sized Scandinavian bank such as SEB. Short of such a shopping trip, extremely unlikely, business seems poised to continue as usual in China – the banks will get on with it, regulators will continue slowly to tweak the rules and investors will find reasons not to get excited.

中国四大银行的股价已从今年夏天的低点回升，然而它们的巨大规模意味着，即便它们的股价仅跌去2%，总市值已被抹去180亿美元，这一金额足以买下一家规模不小的北欧银行，比如瑞典北欧斯安银行(SEB)。除非真去做这样的收购——而这几乎不可能——其他似乎肯定会照旧，银行业也是如此：监管机构将缓慢地改进法规，而投资者也有理由对银行提不起兴致。

Lex专栏是由FT评论员联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析