重新审视ETF基金

They are among the biggest and most useful innovations for the retail investor since the advent of mutual funds. But it is time for those investors to look a little more closely at exchange traded funds.

交易所交易基金(ETF)是共同基金出现以来，对散户投资者最重要、最有用的创新。但现在，投资者应该更近距离地审视它了。

The industry itself is reconsidering. As the Financial Times reported this week, after a race to get on board the ETF bandwagon, a quarter of the funds listed in the US have failed to attract enough cash to be viable. The shakeout of the $1.7tn industry, which is still pulling billions away from traditional mutual funds, is solidly under way.

行业本身也在反思。英国《金融时报》上周报道，在经历了一波ETF上市大潮之后，四分之一在美国上市的ETF基金因无法吸引到足够资金而难以为继。这个价值1.7万亿美元的行业仍然在吸走传统共同基金业数十亿美元的资金，但其洗牌也是势在必行。

Retail investors have faith in ETFs, and in many ways they are right. They are flexible instruments that allow them to invest in indices such as the S and P 500 and the FTSE 100 more cheaply than alternatives. Instead of the complexities of trading in stocks and bonds, or the expense of actively-managed funds, they can track the market efficiently.

散户投资者对ETF抱有信心，从很多方面来看，他们是对的。利用这一灵活的投资工具，他们可以花费比其他投资工具更小的成本，投资于标准普尔500(S and P 500)和富时100(FTSE 100)等指数。与复杂的股票债券交易和高成本的主动型基金不同，投资ETF可让投资者高效地对市场进行追踪。

Yet the funds also appeal to institutions and professionals and are used for other purposes – to short the market, or to hedge and trade in opaque ways. Most of the time, the two groups can coexist happily, but the potential for trouble is growing along with the industry.

然而，这些基金也吸引了机构投资者和专业人士，将之用于其他目的——做空市尝对冲、以不透明的方式交易。大多数时候，这两类投资者可以和谐相处，但随着行业的发展，爆发问题的可能性正在不断增加。

So far, there hasn’t been a disaster. No fund has collapsed, or been pushed so far from the value of its underlying index that retail investors have lost heavily. Yet it is no longer clear that everyone knows exactly how they are investing their money, and the risks they run.

目前，尚无灾难发生。基金没有倒闭，也没有过分偏离标的指数的价值，让散户投资者损失惨重。但大家不再清楚它们的投资方式，以及它们所面对的风险。

It would be a tragedy if an ETF scandal or failure tainted the reputation of the whole industry, for the funds offer individuals benefits that used to be available only to institutions. They can invest in a variety of global markets – equities, bonds and commodities – cheaply and move money easily.

由于这些基金为散户提供的好处过去只有机构投资者才能享受到，因此如有ETF发生丑闻或崩盘，玷污全行业声誉的话，将是非常可悲的。ETF可以投资于多种全球市场——股票、债券和大宗商品，并且成本更低，资金转移更方便。

“ETFs democratise investing – retail investors come together with the biggest and smartest institutions in one product, and are treated fairly and the same, says Joseph Linhares, who runs BlackRock’s iShares business, one of the big three ETF providers, in Europe.

“ETF让投资民主化——散户投资者与最庞大、最精明的机构投资同一种产品，并得到公正平等的待遇，欧洲三大ETF供应商之一贝莱德(BlackRock) iShares的负责人约瑟夫·利尼亚雷斯(Joseph Linhares)说。

It is cheaper to pay a fee of one-third of a per cent to a passive ETF than to invest in expensive actively-managed funds, many of which underperform the same indices anyway. ETFs cost less than passive mutual funds and, unlike mutual funds, investors can buy or sell shares in the trading day.

投资被动型ETF只需支付0.3%左右的费用，比昂贵的主动型基金便宜——何况很多主动型基金的表现还比不上同样的指数。ETF成本低于被动型共同基金，而且与共同基金不同的是，投资者可以在交易日中买卖基金份额。

This is a mixed blessing – the “temptation effect could encourage investors to trade in and out of ETFs constantly, reducing their long-term investment returns. One study by Vanguard found that 62 per cent of its retail ETF investors tend to “buy and hold compared with 84 per cent of mutual fund investors. Yet even that ratio does not suggest a huge amount of day-trading.

这可谓是好坏参半——受到“诱惑的投资者可能会不停地买进卖出ETF，从而减少了长期投资回报。先锋集团(Vanguard)的一项研究显示，62%的ETF散户投资者倾向于“买入并长期持有，而共同基金投资者中有84%持此策略。但即便是此比率，也不意味着每日交易规模很庞大。

The big question is whether individuals and institutions really are treated in the same way by ETFs – and treat them equally in return. Given the way the industry has developed over the past two decades, that is questionable.

一个重要的问题是，ETF是否真的平等对待散户和机构投资者，提供同等的收益率？考虑到该行业在过去二十年的发展方式，这确实值得疑问。

From plain ETFs such as State Street’s huge SPDR US fund, which follows the Standard and Poor’s 500 and has $107bn in assets, the sector has produced a myriad of funds – 4,600 at the last count. Small ones track esoteric indices and industries, using various baskets of securities.

从跟踪标准普尔500指数、资产达1070亿美元的道富银行(State Street)大型SPDR US基金等普通ETF算起，该领域已经诞生了数量庞大的基金——最新统计为4600支。小基金则追踪冷门指数和行业，投资于不同的证券篮子。

Central banks and regulators are most worried by the rise of synthetic ETFs, constructed by banks using derivatives rather than physical securities. About 45 per cent of the European market is synthetic and the Bank of England has warned that their complexity and opacity poses a systemic risk.

央行和监管机构对合成ETF最为头疼，它们是银行用衍生品而非实物证券打造的。欧洲市场有45%的ETF是合成基金，英国央行(Bank of England)警告称它们的复杂性和不透明性会造成系统性风险。

The big three ETF managers – BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – want to protect their franchises by drawing a line between “physical ETFs and newfangled derivatives, some of which are leveraged. They would like more transparency and clearer labels.

三大ETF管理公司——贝莱德、道富银行和先锋集团——希望划清“实物ETF和新型衍生品（其中一些已被杠杆化）之间的界限，以保护它们的业务。它们希望交易更加透明、基金说明更加清晰。

But even plain ETFs have pitfalls for retail investors. For one thing, US institutions and retail investors are not actually treated equally – ETFs in the US only trade blocks of securities with approved institutions, while retail investors only obtain shares through brokers.

但即便是普通ETF也为散户投资者埋下了陷阱。首先，美国机构和散户投资者事实上没有得到平等对待——美国的ETF只与获批准的机构进行大额证券交易，而散户投资者只能从经纪商处获得基金份额。

In this two-tier market, retail investors tend to buy and hold ETFs while traders and market-makers move in and out of funds rapidly for many different reasons. ETFs, for example, have become the primary vehicle for institutions to short markets: it is easier to trade in one index fund than to borrow many different securities.

在这种两级市场，散户投资者通常购买并长期持有ETF，交易员和做市商却由于诸多不同原因快速地吃进、卖出基金。例如，ETF已经成为机构做空市场的主要工具：交易一种指数基金，比借入众多不同证券更加容易。

That need not be a problem for retail investors itself – indeed, it can be an advantage. A lot of trading in an ETF tends to narrow the spreads at which its shares are offered and thus lower the ultimate costs for individuals. Market-makers also tend to seize on gaps that open up between the value of an ETF and its underlying index, and eliminate them through arbitrage.

散户投资者不一定要为此感到烦恼——其实，它可能有好处。对一支ETF基金进行大量交易，通常会缩小基金份额价差，从而降低散户投资者的最终成本。做市商也常常会抓住ETF价值和标的指数之间的差距，并通过套利来填平差距。

But things do not always work in favour of the ordinary investor. Moody’s cited one case earlier this year in which the value of one bond ETF was heavily reduced by one investor trading a single $780m block of shares. “For the most part, anything that brings liquidity is a good thing, but we care about extreme events, says Neal Epstein, a senior credit officer at the agency.

但情况并非总是对普通投资者有利。穆迪(Moody’s)在今年早些时候引述过一个案例——一位投资者进行了一笔价值7.8亿美元的大宗份额交易，导致一支债券ETF价值损失惨重。“大多数情况下，任何带来流动性的东西都是好事，但我们担心的是极端事件，穆迪高级信用官尼尔·爱泼斯坦(Neal Epstein)说。

That single incident led Moody’s to warn asset managers about the “irregular use of ETFs. In a crisis, many more could pile on top of each other, leading to sharper price changes in ETFs than in the markets they are designed to track. Bogan Associates, a research firm, has even suggested that an ETF could fail, leaving its investors stranded, if it is too heavily shorted.

这一事件促使穆迪向资产管理公司发出“非常规使用ETF的警告。在危机中，一连串的事件累积起来，可导致ETF的价格变动高于它原本所跟踪市场的变动幅度。研究公司Bogan Associates甚至暗示如果过度做空ETF，可能导致其崩盘，让投资者陷入困境。

The irony is that ETFs generally have a good record and have so far been friends to retail investors. It is important for their virtues not to be sacrificed to the other uses traders find for them.

讽刺的是，ETF大多业绩不错，也与散户投资者维持着良好关系。ETF切不可为了交易员发现的其他用途而牺牲这些优点。