Beware falling BRICs
当心”金砖四国”衰退

Emerging countries are not the havens some people thought
新兴市场并非某些人想象中的安全港湾

The rouble in the rubble
废墟中的卢布

SO MUCH for decoupling. In the wake of Lehman Brothers’ failure, emerging markets have suffered one of their biggest sell-offs in years. On September 18th Russia’s main bourses suspended trading in shares and bonds for a third day in a row after the largest one-day stockmarket fall for a decade; the central bank poured billions into big banks and the money market in a forlorn bid to calm fears. JPMorgan’s emerging-markets bond index fell by more than 5% in the week to September 16th, giving up in a few days all the gains it had made this year. Prices of Argentina’s credit-default swaps, a gauge of credit risk, rose to their highest-ever level. Unexpectedly, the People’s Bank of China cut its benchmark lending rate by 27 basis points on September 15th, to 7.2%, the first cut for six years.

所谓脱钩不过如此。随着雷曼的倒台，新兴市场经历了今年最大的抛售。9月18日，经历了十年来的单日最大跌幅后，俄罗斯主要证券交易所的将股票和债券业务连续停止交易三天。同时俄罗斯中央银行给大型商业银行和萧条的货币市场注资数十亿元以稳定惊恐的气氛。在到9月16日之前的一周内，摩根大通的新兴市场债券指数下降了5％还多，在这几天内已将这今年的收益消耗殆尽了。阿根廷的信贷风险的一种度量信用违约互换的价格（这是信贷风险的一种度量）上升到史无前例的高度。更出人意料的是，中国人民银行将其贷款利率下调27个基点至7.2％，这是其六年来首次下调贷款利率。

These actions reflected a variety of concerns, such as a darkening economic mood in China and political worries in Russia. But they all have something in common: investors may be changing their minds about emerging markets.

这个举措反映了多种的忧虑，例如中国国内的低迷的经济形势和俄罗斯的政治烦恼。但是它们有个共同点：投资者可能正在改变他们对于新兴市场的看法。

For the past few years, China, Brazil and others, with their high growth rates and large current-account surpluses, began to seem like desirable alternatives to developed markets. For part of last year, the MSCI emerging-markets index was even trading at a higher multiple of earnings than the index of rich-world shares.

在过去几年里，中国、巴西和其它有着高速经济增长率和巨大经常帐户盈余的国家被看作发达国家理想的替代品。在去年的一段时间内，摩根斯坦利资本国际新兴市场指数的市盈率比发达国家的股票指数高出数倍。

That is changing as investors lose their appetite for risk. Merrill Lynch’s most recent survey of fund managers found that they are now holding more bonds than normal for the first time in a decade (indicating a flight to safety). They also have smaller positions in emerging-market equities than at any time since 2001. In the past three months, says Michael Hartnett of Merrill Lynch, emerging-market funds have seen an outflow of $26 billion, compared with an inflow of $100 billion in the previous five years.

随着投资者愈来愈不敢承受风险于是就发生了上述变化。美林对基金经理的最新调查显示他们开始比平时持有越来越多的债券（这显示他们是逃向安全之地），这种状况是十年来首次发生。而且其在新兴市场的股票头寸处于2001年来的最小值。美林的Michael Hartnett认为，在过去三个月，新兴市场的基金有260亿美元的流出量，而之前五年则是1000亿美元的流入量。

Falling oil and commodity prices are partly to blame. When these were rising, money poured into Brazil and Russia, which became targets of the “carry trade” (investors borrow in low-yielding currencies and buy high-yielding ones). Now oil prices are falling (dipping almost to $90 a barrel this week), they are undermining the carry trade and forcing Russia to prop up the rouble. Indebted investors are also being forced by their banks to sell as falling prices reduce the value of their collateral.

石油和（大宗）商品价格的下跌对此负有一定的责任。当它们价格上升的时候，就有大量的钱流入巴西和俄罗斯–这些地方也是”套利交易”（投资者借入低产出的货币来购买高产出的货币）的目的地。现在石油价格正在下跌（本周几乎下探至每桶90 美元），这严重影响了套利交易而且迫使俄罗斯必须来支持卢布。随着其在银行抵押品价值的缩水，获利的投资者同样被银行强迫卖出自己手中的货币。

Lower oil and commodity prices ought to benefit China and India, by lowering import bills and assuaging worries about inflation. Yet India’s foreign-exchange reserves fell by $6.5 billion in the first week of September as the central bank sold dollars to slow the fall of the rupee. In China, worries are growing about weakening export demand (growth in export volumes has fallen by almost half over the past year to 11%) and falling property prices, which seem to play a role similar to equity prices elsewhere. In the past three months, property sales in big cities were 40-50% lower than a year ago, according to figures tracked by Paul Cavey of Macquarie Securities. An agent for one of Hong Kong’s largest property companies says “confidence ended this week with the fall of Lehman.”

低廉的石油和（大宗）商品对中国和印度有利，可以使其减少进口负担并缓解通胀压力。然而随着印度央行卖出美元以减缓其卢比汇率的下降，印度的外汇储备在九月的第一周内减少了65亿美元。在中国，令人担忧的是疲软的出口需求（出口量的增速比去年下降了一半，降至11％）和下跌的房价（中国的房价扮演的角色和其它地方的股票价格类似）。在过去的三个月，根据麦格理证券Paul Cavey的跟踪数据，中国大城市房屋销售量比去年低40-50％。一个香港大型地产商的代理商表示：”随着雷曼的倒下，信心也已终结。”

All these countries have the comfort of huge foreign-exchange reserves. On September 16th the new governor of India’s central bank said he would continue to cushion the rupee’s fall; he also raised the interest rate Indian expatriates can earn on deposits at home and let banks borrow a bit more from the central bank. China’s interest-rate cut shows that its government, too, has room for manoeuvre. But the cut will have little direct impact on the economy because lending is limited by quotas. It was intended to boost confidence at a time of falling share and house prices. Too bad that among emerging-market investors, confidence is in short supply.

所有这些国家都可以拿巨额的外汇储备聊以慰藉。9月16日，印度央行的新行长表示他会继续阻止卢比的下跌。他还提高了印度的侨民在其祖国的存款利率，而且允许商业银行从央行能借更多的钱。中国的减息显示了其政府也有调控空间。但是这次减息对经济产生的直接作用很小，因为贷款额依然受限。中国政府意在提升处于股价和房价下跌背景下的投资者的信心。但是糟糕的是，在新兴市场的投资者中，信心严重不足。