《沃尔克规则》会打垮高盛吗？

    保罗•沃尔克提出的《沃尔克规则》有望最终获得通过.

    对华尔街来说，《沃尔克规则》（Volcker Rule）可能要比看上去更麻烦。

    这项规则的目的是限制投资银行通过有风险的内部交易来获得利润的能力。过去几年，大多数华尔街公司都剥离了那些显然不符合要求的业务。而且，大多数主要投行的首席执行官都表示，他们的公司达到这项规则的要求已经有一段时间了。

    不过，预计本周二针对《沃尔克规则》进行的投票还是让某些人感到担心。据彭博（Bloomberg）报道，交易业务给五大华尔街公司——摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）、美银（Bank of America）、花旗集团（Citigroup）、高盛（Goldman Sachs）和摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）——带来的年收入高达440亿美元。不过，其中很大一部分收入并不是真的有风险。这440亿美元中，有一部分来自为客户执行交易收取的手续费。《沃尔克规则》并没有对这部分收入下达禁令。

    看来，最终获得通过的《沃尔克规则》有可能禁止所谓的投资组合对冲（portfolio hedging）。它是一种覆盖范围很广的交易，目的是避免投行受到经济滑坡等宏观风险的冲击。摩根大通已经说过，惨淡收场的“伦敦鲸”交易就是投资组合对冲，这家公司因此亏损了60亿美元。

    但投行仍然可以从事对冲交易。最终投票结果可能给投行带来一些好消息。《沃尔克规则》草案提出，所有非客户交易都必须有“较为紧密的关联”，以抵消投行为客户承担的风险。要求对华尔街加强监管的人士则建议，应该将这条规定修改为所有非客户交易都必须存在“非常紧密的关联”。

    不过，消息人士透露，华尔街在这一点上已经占了上风，定于下周投票的最终裁决机构对“关联”问题只字未提。他们已将这项要求彻底排除在考虑范围之外。同时，监管部门将通过其他措施来限制非客户交易。但目前还不清楚这些措施能否奏效。

    此外，虽然股市已经复苏，而且债市一直较为平稳，上述440亿美元收入仍远远低于旨在实施金融改革的《多德弗兰克法案》（Dodd-Frank Act）通过之前的水平，表明大型投行已经放弃了很大一部分非客户交易。

    但问题在于，最终将遭到禁止的业务在这440亿美元中到底占多大比例？当然，和投行的自律条例相比，最终由监管部门执行的《沃尔克规则》将带来更多的限制。

    而且，某些公司受到的影响要比其他公司大。摩根士丹利分析师贝琪•格拉塞克上周三发表的研究报告认为，高盛可能是受影响最大的华尔街投行。高盛方面拒绝就此发表评论。

    以往高盛的交易业务收入一直高于其他华尔街公司。上个季度外汇业务大幅度滑坡已经开始让外界对高盛的交易部门感到担心。

    Wall Street may have a bigger Volcker problem than it's letting on.

    Most Wall Street firms have spent the past few years shedding businesses that clearly don't comply with Volcker, which is supposed to limit the banks' ability to make money on risky, in-house trading. What's more, most big bank CEOs say their firms have been Volcker-compliant for a while now.

    Nonetheless, this week's vote on the Volcker rule, which is supposed to come on Tuesday, has some worried. Bloomberg reported that the nation's five Wall Street firms -- JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS) -- generate as much as $44 billion a year from trading. A lot of that money, though, is not really at risk. That number includes some of the fees the firms get from executing clients' transactions. That business is not banned by Volcker.

    It looks likely that the final rule could ban so-called portfolio hedging, which are broad trades that are supposed to protect a bank against a macro-risk, like an economic downturn. JPMorgan has said the failed London Whale trade, which lost the bank $6 billion, was a portfolio hedge.

    But banks will still be allowed to hedge. There could be some good news for the banks in the final rule. The draft of the rule said that all non-client trades had to be "reasonably correlated" to offset a risk the bank was taking for a client. Some advocates of more Wall Street regulation pushed for that to be reworded to "highly correlated."

    But, sources say, in a win for Wall Street, that the final rule regulators will vote on next week says nothing about correlation. That requirement is out all together. Instead, regulators will use other measures to try to limit non-customer trading. It's not clear those measures will be effective.

    Also, the $44 billion figure is down significantly from what it was before financial reform law Dodd-Frank was passed, despite the fact that the stock market has come back and the bond market has been relatively stable. That suggests that the big banks have jettisoned much of their non-client trading businesses.

    Still, the question is how much of that $44 billion is generated by the big banks in trading that will eventually be banned. Surely, when the final rule is enforced by regulators, it will be more restrictive than the way in which banks have been policing themselves.

    And the impact will be bigger for some firms than others. In a research note out last Wednesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck said Goldman would be the most affected among Wall Street banks. Goldman declined to comment.

    Goldman has traditionally made more of its money trading than other Wall Street firms. And a big drop in its currencies business in the past quarter has reignited concerns about Goldman's trading operations.