沃尔克规则不是末日，华尔街无需呼天抢地

    由于固定收益业务占用了华尔街公司用于资本市场活动的总资本的约60%，欣茨认为，收入和利润的下降将使金融公司举步维艰，甚至难以赚回资本成本。“届时，就必须进行一些改革，开支削减和资产负债表萎缩，”他说，“考虑到50%的净交易收入都作为雇员薪酬派发了出去，我们都知道哪项开支会被削减得最厉害。”他还强调，降低薪酬还不够，那怎样做才行？把“库存”降低20-25%。那将意味着美国公司债市场的流动性下降，公司债发行人的买卖价差更大，许多企业将宁愿到海外市场去发行债券——因为这些市场并未被过于亢奋的监管者束缚。

    换句话说，洛克法则对所有人来说都是坏消息，事实上……恐怕并不是所有人。欣茨指出，美国政府“便利地豁免了”国库券，使其不受新规提案中自营交易禁令的限制。政府这么做有什么奇怪的吗？如果你本身就是制定规则的人，通常你肯定不会让自己深受其害。

    不过，这一套末世预言大可不必全信。多数需要融资的公司仍可通过其他市场完成，难道银行贷款市场不能分担一些责任吗？对冲基金的借款不行吗？新股发行有何不可？“没错，可这让我想起了‘握紧一个气球，里面的空气自然会被挤压到其他地方’的比喻，”欣茨表示，“可是，资本市场的各个参与者并非在任何市场都同样娴熟，因此总体融资成本将会上升，进而影响到经济增长。”

    如同资本市场的其他许多东西，欣茨和戴蒙提出的观点至少在理论上说得通。归根结底，市场流动性越好，其运行也就应该越顺畅。可实际情况如何呢？

    “魔鬼显然存在于细节，”标准人寿投资（Standard Life Investments）全球战略主管安德鲁•米利甘称，“一方面，大多数发行公司债的企业也可以在其他任何市场进行融资。沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）可以筹集英镑或日元资产，然后将其换成美元；另一方面，如果新规则确实有影响投行充当做市商积极性的效果——这似乎正是新规制定者的意图，那我们就损失了一个冲击缓冲器。监管者希望减少‘大’波动——比如2008年那种——其代价却是短期内市场波动可能加剧。我们只是在长期波动和短期波动之间做选择题。”

    有些人则认为，欣茨只不过是在大敲警钟——沃尔克规则将禁止所谓的“流交易”（flow trading）——而这根本就是危言耸听。“只要一提出新的监管政策，金融行业就会大声疾呼，宣称将会带来一场衰退，它们哪次不是这样？”经济学家西蒙•约翰逊向《华尔街日报》（The Wall Street Journal）表示。

    如果你接受欣茨的第一个假设，那他的一套算法或许有些道理。如果你不信，那他得出的灾难性结论就根本不足为虑。限制证券经纪人的行为在短期内是否会对金融市场造成负面影响，并因此提高融资成本？没错，有可能。可是，改革总有代价，而且这并不是世界末日。就算是布拉德•欣茨本人其实也明白这个道理。

    译者：小宇

    Because fixed income uses about 60% of the capital committed to Wall Street capital markets activities, Hintz concludes that the decline in revenues and margins will challenge firms to even earn their cost of capital. "The changes then necessary will be expense reductions and balance sheet shrinkage," he says. "And with 50% of net trading revenues being paid out in compensation, we know which expense line will be cut!" Even so, he argues, that won't be enough. What will? A reduction in "inventory" of 20% to 25%, the result of which will be a less liquid U.S. corporate bond market, wider bid-offer spreads for corporate borrowers, and a migration of issuance to offshore markets not crimped by overzealous regulators.

    In other words, it's bad news for all of us. Actually…not quite all of us. Hintz points out that the U.S. government "conveniently exempted" Treasury bonds from the ban of proprietary trading in the new proposed rules. And why not? When you're the one making the rules, you don't normally screw yourself in the process.

    But don't believe all the doomsaying. Most companies in need of financing can just tap another market. Couldn't the bank loan market pick up the slack? Or lending by hedge funds? Or even equity issuance? "Sure, the analogy of a balloon being squeezed comes to mind," says Hintz. "But not every player in the capital markets is equally good in every market. So the overall cost of financing could be driven up. And that could hurt economic growth."

    Like many things in the capital markets, the argument put forth by Hintz and Dimon makes sense, at least on paper. The more liquid a market, after all, the more smoothly it should function. But what about in practice?

    "The Devil is obviously in the details," says Andrew Milligan, Head of Global Strategy for Standard Life Investments. "On the one hand, the majority of companies issuing corporate debt could do it in any market they want to. Wal-Mart can raise money in sterling or yen, and then swap it back into dollars. On the other hand, if the rules do have what appears to be the desired effect of discouraging investment banks from being market makers, then we lose a shock absorber. Regulators are looking to reduce 'big' volatility—like that of 2008—at the expense of what might be increased volatility in the short-term. We're trading long-term volatility for higher short-term volatility."

    There are others who think Hintz is merely sounding an alarm—that the Volcker Rule will prevent so-called "flow trading"—that has no business being sounded at all. "When is [the] last time the financial industry didn't see a regulation that they [said] was going to cause a recession?" economist Simon Johnson asked The Wall Street Journal.

    If you accept Hintz's first premise, then his numbers might make sense. If you don't, then his catastrophic conclusions are irrelevant. Could constraining the behavior of dealers in the short-term have a negative impact on financial markets and therefore financing costs? Sure, it could. But reform isn't free, and it's not the end of the world. Even Brad Hintz knows that.