美联储毁不了债券市场

    美国经济的最后一块“创可贴”行将脱落，问题在于这会有多疼。到目前为止，债券市场已经有了很大反应。周二，美国10年期国债收益率猛增至2.3%，原因是美联储（Federal Reserve）主席本•伯南克表示，美联储将会停止通过购买债券来刺激经济的做法——不是马上结束，也不会戛然而止。他是这么说的没错。但伯南克指出，如果美国经济保持现状，他预计美联储将在今年晚些时候压缩债券购买规模；如果失业率降至7%，到明年年中，美联储就会完全停止购债。

    包括周二在内，美国10年期国债收益率在大约一个月时间里上升了0.8个百分点。这样的涨幅听起来或许不是很高，但10年期国债的价格因此下跌了8%。这样的损失对债券投资者来说并不常见。

    但有些人的预期要比这差得多。好几个响当当的名字，包括沃伦•巴菲特、杰米•戴蒙以及高盛（Goldman Sachs）首席执行官劳尔德•贝兰克梵和首席运营官加里•科恩，都已告诫我们，要当心正在上升的利率。其中大多数人所关注的焦点是美联储停止购债后会出现什么样的情况。因此，在这种氛围之下，伯南克示意购债大幕终将落下后，投资者纷纷逃离市场，并不令人意外。但问题在于，没有确凿证据表明美联储的行动会毁了债券市场，至少在投资者保持冷静的情况下不会这样。

    你可以说，美联储本身就是造成当前混乱局面的部分原因。去年美联储曾表示，失业率降到6.5%以前不会提高已经接近于零的短期利率。在何时结束量化宽松方面，美联储并没有制定目标。这在一定程度上让债券市场感到困惑。如果美联储能够明确它会在什么时候以怎样的节奏停止购债，利率就不会上升得这么快。周二，在量化宽松何时终结的问题上，美联储朝着确定指导方针的方向迈进了一步。但伯南克对7%的失业率目标进行了解释，他说美联储将根据经济前景来调整对购债计划的看法。摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）策略分析师文森特•莱因哈特指出：“没有始终如一的指导方针是个错误。”

    但有一批人担心债券市场必将遭遇厄运（我不得不说有时我也是其中一员），他们让美联储及其购债行为对债券市场的意义超过了实际水平。美联储持有的美国国债差一点儿不到2万亿美元（12.34万亿元人民币），和所有美国国债近16万亿美元（98.72万亿元人民币）的价值相比还不到20%。

    此外，大部分国债都不会经常流通。和伯南克领导下的美联储类似，银行、主权财富基金和其他大型投资者也持有同等规模的国债，而且他们都不太可能把这些国债脱手，甚至是在国债价格下跌的情况下。和他们一样，美联储也表示不打算抛售手中的国债。

    目前美联储每月购买850亿美元（5,244.5亿元人民币）债券。其中450亿美元（2,776.5亿元人民币）用于购买国债，占总金额的50%多一点儿，其余资金购买的是抵押债券。

    The last of the economy's Band-Aids are coming off. The question is how much it will hurt.

    So far the answer from the bond market has been quite a lot. The yield on 10-year Treasuries spiked to 2.3% on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that, yes, the bond stimulus will come to an end. Not immediately, or all at once. But Bernanke said if the economy remains on its current path he expects the Fed to curtail bond purchases later this year, and stop completely by mid-2014 if the unemployment rate hits 7%.

    With Tuesday's move, bond yields have risen 0.8 percentage points in about a month. That might not sound like a lot, but the move translated into a 8% drop in prices for the 10-year. Bond investors aren't used to those kind of losses.

    Some, though, are hunkering down for much worse. A stream of boldface names, includingWarren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Goldman Sachs' (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein and COO Gary Cohn, have told us to watch out for rising interest rates. Most of them have focused on what will happen when the Fed stops buying. With that much buildup, it's no surprise that investors have rushed for the gates now that Bernanke has signaled the final countdown. The problem is there's no real evidence the Fed's moves will blow up the bond market, at least not if investors keep their heads.

    You can blame the Fed itself for some of the frenzy. Last year, the Fed said it wouldn't raise short-term interest rates, which are near zero, until the unemployment rate hits 6.5%. There is no target for when the Fed will end its quantitative easing program. That's created some confusion in the bond market and caused interest rates to move up faster than if the Fed had laid out when they would stop buying bonds and how much at a time. The Fed came closer on Tuesday for setting down some guidance as to when QE would end, but Bernanke qualified his 7% target, saying the Fed would adjust its view on the program based on the economic outlook. "Not having consistent guidance has been a mistake," says Vincent Reinhart, a Morgan Stanley strategist and former top Fed economist.

    But what is also true is that stream of debt doom worriers (which I have to say at times hasincluded me) has made the Fed and its buying seem more important to the bond market than it may actually be. The Fed owns just under $2 trillion in Treasury bonds. That's less than 20% of the nearly $16 trillion in U.S. debt.

    Still, much of that is not traded regularly. Banks, sovereign wealth funds, and other large investors own a similarly big amount of U.S. bonds as Bernanke & Co. And they aren't likely to sell even if prices drop. The Fed, too, says it has no plans to sell off its own holdings.

    Currently, the Fed is adding $85 billion a month to its bond portfolio. Of that, slightly more than half, $45 billion, in going into Treasuries. The rest is going into mortgage bonds.