A long stretch of unusual calm in the stock market gave way to a succession of violent swings in the third quarter as investors worried that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates at last and then were disappointed — after the briefest spurt of euphoria — when the Fed demurred.

在经历了一段异乎寻常的长期平静后，美国股市在第三季度出现了剧烈震荡，这是因为投资者担心美联储终将提高利率，但美联储却没有这么做，让他们在极为短暂的一波兴奋后，又跌入了失望之中。

The net result was the worst quarter in four years, and some strategists predicted further trouble ahead.

结果就导致了四年来表现最糟糕的一个季度，而据一些分析师预测，之后还会有更多麻烦。

“This doesn’t end happily,” said Komal S. Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, an investment consulting firm. “2016 looks like a volatile and pretty difficult year for markets in the United States and around the globe.”

“这种走向不太好，” 投资咨询公司斯里库玛全球策略(Sri-Kumar Global Strategies)的总裁科玛尔·斯里-库马尔(Komal Sri-Kumar)说。“看起来无论是美国还是全球市场，2016年都会是很不稳定、相当不顺的一年。”

It was certainly a difficult quarter. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 6.9 percent in the three months through September, closing at 1,920, roughly where the benchmark stood in May of last year.

而上季度无疑是一个很不顺的季度。标准普尔500指数在截至9月底的三个月内跌去6.9%，收于1920点，大致相当于去年5月的基准水平。

The decline was part of a broader trend toward shunning the risky assets that had been coveted for six-plus years. High-yield bonds fell, as did many commodities.

这种下跌反映了一个更广泛层面上的趋势：人们在回避已被垂涎了六多年的风险资产。高收益债券下跌，很多大宗商品也是如此。

Treasury prices rose as their yields fell during the quarter, with the return on the benchmark 10-year note dropping to 2.04 percent from 2.35 percent at the end of the previous quarter. Treasuries are often a safe harbor during turbulent market conditions, and with the Fed maintaining its target for short-term rates at zero to 0.25 percent, as it has for nearly a decade, traders saw no reason to expect the outlook for long-term rates to change anytime soon.

上个季度国债价格上涨，其收益率下跌。在上一季度末，十年期基准国债的收益率从2.35%降到2.04%。国债往往是市场动荡时期的安全港，美联储的目标是把短期利率维持在零至0.25%之间，近十年来一直保持在这一区间内，交易者认为，没有理由预期长期利率的前景会很快改变。

The Fed’s action, or absence of it, on Sept. 17 and accompanying remarks were as benign as investors possibly could have imagined. The central bank, in its statement and in the news conference held by its chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, highlighted a slightly diminished emphasis on domestic economic growth and inflation and a more pronounced concern about developments abroad.

美联储9月17日维持利率的决定以及相应的评论，在投资者看来是极为良性的。通过其声明以及珍妮特·L·耶伦(Janet L. Yellen)主席的新闻发布会，美联储略微减少了对国内经济增长和通货膨胀的强调，而对海外形势表示了更多的关切。

If Wall Street seems unwilling to take yes for an answer, investment advisers say, it’s because the Fed’s welcome caution in raising rates is more than offset by the fact that the Fed sees so much to be cautious about.

投资顾问表示，如果说华尔街表现得像是它不愿接受一个肯定的答案，那是因为，联储在加息方面的谨慎态度虽然是受欢迎的，但它看上去担忧得有些太多了。

“The market didn’t expect a rate hike, and it didn’t get one,” said Katie Nixon, chief investment officer for wealth management at Northern Trust. “The problem is the tone of the minutes and press conference that suggested the Fed is worried more about the global growth outlook than previously. That’s really spooking the market.”

“市场并不期待利率上调，而利率确实没有上调，”北方信托公司(Northern Trust)财富管理部门首席投资官凯蒂·尼克松(Katie Nixon)说。“问题是备忘录及新闻发布会的基调说明，美联储对全球增长前景的担忧超过以往。这让市场十分恐慌。”

Laird R. Landmann, co-head of fixed income at the TCW fund-management company, agreed that central bankers were unnerving investors and suggested that they might have given themselves the jitters, too.

TCW基金管理公司固定收益业务联席主管莱尔德·R·兰德曼(Laird R. Landmann)认同央行令投资者感到不安这一观点，并表示央行自己也许也被吓到了。

“There’s a mind-set that has developed at the Fed where they’re waiting for a perfect moment that never comes,” he said.

他说，“美联储形成了这样一种心态，他们在等待一个永远不会到来的完美时刻。”

With or without the Fed’s help, enough happened in the third quarter to leave owners of stock funds feeling a bit twitchy. The average domestic portfolio fell 7.8 percent, according to Morningstar, led lower by specialists in energy and other natural resources, communications and technology.

不管有没有美联储的帮助，第三季度发生的事情足以让股票基金持有者感到有些不安。据投资研究公司晨星(Morningstar)透露，国内投资组合平均跌7.8%，能源、其他自然资源及通讯和技术股票领跌。

Looking at a broad array of American economic indicators, it’s hard to see what investors are afraid of. The United States is a paragon of growth, at least by the tepid standards of the last decade, especially the job market. The unemployment rate is hovering just above 5 percent, and the number of job openings hit 5.8 million in July, the most since the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting the figure in 2000.

看看一系列美国经济指标，很难看出投资者在担心什么。美国是增长典范，至少以过去10年不温不火的标准来看是这样，特别是就业市场。失业率在刚刚超过5%的水平徘徊，7月的就业机会达到580万个，这是自2000年联邦劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)开始报告该数据以来的最高值。

“There are yellow lights flashing out there in terms of the global economy, but there’s no deterioration in the U.S. economy,” said Stephen E. Kylander, manager of the RBC Mid Cap Value fund.

“全球经济在闪黄灯，但美国经济并未走弱，”加拿大皇家银行中盘价值基金(RBC Mid Cap Value)经理斯蒂芬·E·屈兰德(Stephen E. Kylander)说。

That should be good news for small and medium-size companies. They depend on foreign markets for a smaller proportion of their sales than big companies do, but they benefit just as much from lower interest rates. Yet mid- and small-capitalization funds underperformed in the third quarter: Midcap portfolios lost 9.4 percent and small caps lost 10.8 percent.

对中小型企业而言，这本应是个好消息。与大型企业相比，它们的销售对海外市场的依存度较小，但从低息上得到的好处又是同样的。然而，中小市值基金在第三季度的表现并不如人意：中盘投资组合的价值下滑了9.4%，小盘则蒸发了10.8%。

One reason for the weakness, Mr. Kylander said, is that while smaller companies tend to have a domestic focus, many would like to gain a foothold overseas and cannot.

屈兰德表示，造成这种疲软表现的一个原因是，尽管中小企业往往把重心放在国内市场上，但其中不少是想去海外发展而无法做到。

But he sees value in market segments that offer decent dividend income, like utilities and commercial real estate investment trusts, and in domestically focused industries like trucking.

不过，他看好能提供良好分红的市场板块，比如电力和商业地产投资信托，以及货车运输这类专注于国内市场的行业。

Shareholders in international stock funds used the third quarter mainly as an opportunity to sell, driving the average one down 10 percent. Europe displayed newfound stability over the summer as Greece ceased to be an urgent problem for the moment, but that was more than offset by deteriorating conditions in emerging markets. Funds that specialize in Latin America, Asia and diversified emerging markets had average losses of 12.8 percent or more.

国际股票基金的股东们将第三季度主要用来抛售，令这些基金平均下滑了10%。随着希腊不再是迫在眉睫的问题，欧洲在今夏重新回归稳定，不过这一点未能敌过新兴市场的不断恶化。专注于拉丁美洲、亚洲及各类新兴市场的基金平均损失了至少12.8%。

Chinese stocks had an awful quarter; funds that focus on the country plunged 20.9 percent. The economic malaise there continued and may have contributed to the decline in American stocks and the limited relief experienced when the Fed stood pat.

这一季度中国股市惨淡，紧盯该国的基金下跌20.9%。中国的经济困境仍在继续，且可能是美国股市下跌的原因之一，导致股市在美联储保持现有政策不变时受到的救助有限。

Persistent money flows out of China forced its central bank in August to sell nearly $94 billion of foreign-currency reserves, much of it held in United States Treasuries, to try to prop up the currency, the renminbi. That would have produced an effect opposite to quantitative easing — the Fed’s substantial purchases of Treasury bonds that began during the financial crisis, ended about a year ago and are widely seen to have benefited stocks along the way.

8月，持续的资金流出迫使中国央行出售了近940亿美元的外汇储备，试图以此支撑人民币。这些外汇储备中，很多是以美国国债的形式持有的。此举可能产生了与量化宽松相左的影响——美联储在金融危机期间开始大量购买国债的行动在大约一年前结束，人们普遍认为股市从始至终都从中受益。

China is a huge exporter, and with the decline in the renminbi it has begun to export deflation to other developing countries, forcing them into a difficult, maybe hopeless, position. If they weaken their currencies to match the renminbi devaluation, the burden of their immense dollar-denominated debt will grow when expressed in their own currencies. If they keep their currencies relatively strong, however, their exports will become less competitive.

中国是一个庞大的出口国。随着人民币的贬值，中国已开始把通货紧缩输出到其他发展中国家，迫使它们陷入一种困难，甚至可能是绝望的境地。如果这些国家为与人民币贬值保持一致而让自己的货币贬值，那么在用本国货币计算债务时，它们以美元计价的巨额债务便会增加。但如果保持自己的货币相对坚挺，则其出口的竞争力会被削弱。

“There is no room for them to maneuver,” Mr. Sri-Kumar said. He expects the developing countries to devalue, even if it leads to credit downgrades, defaults and difficulty in refinancing debt for corporate and government borrowers.

“它们没有回旋的余地，”斯里-库马尔说。他预计那些发展中国家会让货币贬值，即便这么做会导致信用评级下降、违约以及难以为企业和政府借贷方的债务再融资。

“They will have to go through with it to have fewer negative effects on competitiveness,” he predicted.

“为了减少竞争力受到的不利影响，它们必须这么做，”他预言。

It’s a no-win situation. Mr. Sri-Kumar noted that emerging markets accounted for more than half of global economic output. They’re not the small, exotic growth stories of 10 or 20 years ago.

这是一种没有赢家的形势。斯里-库马尔指出，新兴市场贡献了全球一半以上的经济产出。它们不再是10年或20年前那些新奇的增长小国。

If those countries slow because of this crisis, “eventually it’s going to reverberate back to the United States,” he said.

如果这些国家的经济因这场危机而放缓，“最终会给美国造成严重影响，”他说。

Mr. Sri-Kumar predicted a year ago that the Fed would hold rates steady this year, and fragility in the developing world has persuaded him to extend his forecast through 2016. That could leave the stock market in a bad spot, in his view, as investors, desensitized to the putative benefits of ultra-easy monetary policy after nearly a decade, sell into any short-lived rally after the Fed postpones a rate increase, as it did last month.

一年前，斯里-库马尔预言美联储今年会让利率保持稳定。鉴于发展中国家的脆弱局势，他决定把这个预测延长至2016年全年。在他看来，这会让股市处境艰难，因为近十年后，投资者已对超宽松货币政策应带来的好处脱敏，在美联储像上月那样推迟加息后，他们会在一切短暂的反弹期间减持。

He recommends sheltering in high-quality bonds and blue-chip stocks that pay generous dividends.

他建议用优质债券和红利丰厚的蓝筹股避险。

Nothing goes down forever. At some point, perhaps in the first quarter, emerging stock markets will be cheap enough to present a low-risk buying opportunity, he said.

什么都不会永远走低。他说，在某个点上，或许就在明年一季度，新兴市场的股市就会便宜到出现低风险买入的机会。

Rebecca H. Patterson, chief investment officer of Bessemer Trust, a firm that advises wealthy families, expects a shorter wait for the Fed to move.

为富裕家庭提供咨询的公司贝西默信托(Bessemer Trust)首席投资官丽贝卡·帕特森(Rebecca H. Patterson)预计，美联储行动前的等待时间会更短。

“The Fed is still looking at raising interest rates at some point in the coming months,” she said.

“美联储仍旧在考虑在未来几个月的某个时间点上加息，”她说。

Ms. Patterson encourages investors to have a relatively heavy allocation in American stocks while they wait, particularly in financial services and consumer discretionary companies, and remain light in emerging markets and energy. She would also be comparatively light in bonds, although she finds mortgage-backed securities to be sound bets, she said, because they are less sensitive to rising rates and she detects consistent improvement in the housing market.

帕特森鼓励投资者在等待期间，让投资美国股市的份额相对大一些，特别是金融服务和非必须消费品公司的股票，并保持少量新兴市场和能源投资。她表示，自己还是会相对比较少地投资债券，不过她发现按揭抵押证券比较稳妥，因为它们对加息不那么敏感，而房地产市场也在持续改善。

Ms. Nixon at Northern Trust has a similar view of American and emerging markets: heavy in the first, light in the second. She also advocates a more modest than usual bond allocation. As for the Fed, it “wants to get off the zero,” she said, but “the job isn’t going to get any easier” given the global backdrop. So “if the Fed hikes, it may be one and done,” she said.

北方信托的尼克松对美国和新兴市场的观点类似：投资大头放在前者，小头放在后者。她还主张给债券分配比平时更少的资金。至于美联储，她表示，该机构“希望结束利率接近零的情况”，但考虑到全球背景，“这件事不会那么容易”。因此“如果美联储加息，可能也是一次就结束了，”她说。

Mr. Landmann at TCW contends that the Fed is content to keep rates where they are.

TCW的兰德曼认为，美联储愿意保持当前利率。

“They’re looking for reasons not to tighten,” he said. “It’s hard to believe, at any given meeting coming up, that we have more than a 50-50 chance of tightening if things stay as they are.”

“他们正在寻找不收紧的理由，”他说。“如果形势保持不变，在即将召开的任何一次会议上，我们都很难认为收紧的可能性会超过50%。”

But with rates so low, Mr. Landmann cautioned, if conditions deteriorate in China and elsewhere and begin to weigh more heavily on the American economy and markets, there will be little the Fed can do. For six years, investors have bought stocks after declines. Now might be a good time to sell after rallies, he advised.

但兰德曼告诫称，在利率这么低的情况下，如果中国和其他地方的形势恶化，并开始加大对美国经济和市场的压力，美联储将几乎无计可施。六年来，投资者一直都在下跌后买进。他建议说，现在可能是反弹后减持的好时机。

“If you’re a conservative, value-oriented investor, when prices go up you want to use it as an opportunity to take risk out of your portfolio,” he said. “Asset prices can’t stay high forever. There may be decent returns for the next quarter as the Fed stays on hold, but even that won’t work after a while. The rest of the world may take matters into their own hands. It may not matter what the Fed does.”

“如果是以价值为导向的保守型投资者，价格上涨时你会希望借机消除投资组合中的风险，”他说。“资产价格不可能永远处于高位。随着美联储保持现有利率水平，下个季度可能会有不错的回报，但即便是这一招也不会长期有效。世界其他地区可能会自己出手。美联储的行动可能不重要。”