华尔街对新兴市场的看法为什么这么分裂

    投资者到底应该如何应对新兴市场最近的波动？德高望重的专家们对这个问题的意见相当不统一。一部分专家，比如著名新兴市场股票基金经理马克•莫比乌斯预计，这种震荡格局将继续下去。他们还警告投资者，在增仓方面要小心谨慎。另一部分专家，比如高盛资产管理前董事长吉姆•奥尼尔则相信，这些人担忧过度。奥尼尔等人认为，投资者应该利用眼下的机会大举买进。

    上述专家的意见出现这样的反常分歧，我怀疑这不仅仅是因为他们对同一批经济、金融和技术面数据的解读不同。另一个原因可能是因为基本框架不一样。更仔细地分析了相关问题后，我找到了第三条理由，那就是，他们意识到新兴市场又犯了老毛病，但对这种表现的结果和影响观点各异。

    新兴市场资产的大幅震荡已经存在了一段时间，而且出现了几次相当严重的情况。这次大跌始于差不多一年前，原因是人们担心美联储可能收紧货币政策（即削减债券购买规模）。结果，几乎所有新兴市场都受到了沉重打击，不论是绝对值还是相对于其他资产类别的表现，而后者表现得尤其明显。实际上，在2013年的数据中，很难看到哪一波行情的波动幅度如此之大而且范围如此之广，因为它跨越了股市、汇市、主权和公司债券市场。

    具体到新兴市场，有三个因素加重了全球金融环境相对紧张所产生的影响，包括部分新兴经济体增长速度放慢，人们对某些新兴经济体感到担心，以及投资者失衡现象（特别是专门从事新兴市场投资的小群体和跨界资金之间的不平衡，前者很了解这类资产，而且能够更有准备地迎接市场震荡；后者则很敏感，市场急剧波动初露端倪时他们就会逃离）造成的技术面缺陷。

    这些因素的共同影响让许多人再次想起“新兴市场的老毛病”。难怪传导效应（尽管基本面大相径庭，但表现较差的新兴市场出现的波动仍会影响到表现较好的新兴市场）已经不再是20世纪80、90年代以及本世纪初才有的老传统。考虑到一系列下跌行情都高度相关，特别是和汇率的急剧波动联系紧密，现在人们更多地认为这就是当前的现状。

    面对这样的变化，许多人都措手不及，其中不仅包括无法忍受市场大幅震荡的投资者，还包括一些慌忙处理自身外汇风险的公司。

    本轮新兴市场滑坡的下一个阶段对我这样的老手来说似乎同样不会让人觉得陌生。具体来说，由于一部分国家和地区除了提高利率、削减财政赤字外别无选择，经济增速将进一步放慢，那些未能及时调整政策的国家和地区相互产生不利影响的内部风险就会凸显出来。在这个过程中，原本就已经很紧张的社会和政治局势可能进一步激化，结果进一步提高了政府采取果断措施的难度。

    Established and highly regarded experts are quite divided on how investors should react to the recent volatility in emerging markets (EM). Some, like the famous EM equity fund manager Mark Mobius, expect the instability to continue and warn investors to be cautious and measured in adding exposure. Others, such as Jim O'Neil, the respected former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, believe that such concerns are overdone. They think investors should be exploiting now a huge buying opportunity.

    I suspect that this unusually large divide among such experts reflects more than diverse interpretations of the same set of economic, financial, and technical data. It may also point to different underlying frameworks. By analyzing the contextual issues in greater detail, a third approach emerges -- one that recognizes the recurrence of bad old EM behaviors yet suggests a different mix of outcomes and implications.

    The heightened volatility in EM assets has been going on for a while now; and it has been quite severe at times. The major selloff was triggered almost a year ago by concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve would tighten monetary policy ( called "taper"), bruising badly every segment of EM -- both in absolute terms and particularly when compared to what has been happening to other asset classes. Indeed, when you look at the 2013 numbers, it is hard to recall such a large and broad-based dispersion in performance across equities, currencies, sovereign, and corporate bonds.

    Three EM-specific factors aggravated the impact of relatively tighter global financial conditions: slowing growth in several emerging economies, concerns about policy incoherence in some of them, and technically vulnerable investor imbalances (particularly between the small group of "dedicated" investors who know the asset class relatively well and can withstand more readily volatility bouts, and "crossover" money susceptible to running out at the first sign of serious dislocations).

    It is this mix of drivers that reminds many of the "bad old EM." No wonder contagion (whereby disruptions in weaker EM names contaminate stronger ones despite very different fundamentals) is no longer as a relic of the bad old EM days of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. It is now more appreciated as a current day reality given the series of highly correlated selloffs, with particularly sharp moves in currencies.

    Many were caught offside by the change -- and not only investors who were unable to stomach the heightened volatility but also some companies that have scrambled to deal with their foreign currency exposures.

    The next step of this EM dislocation will also seem very familiar to old-timers like me. Specifically, with some countries facing no choice but to hike interest rates and cut fiscal deficits, growth will slow even more, heightening the domestic risk of a negative feedback loop for those countries unable to reformulate promptly their policy mix. In the process, this may fuel preexisting social and political tensions, making it even harder for these governments to act decisively.