2011年10大脱靶商业预言

美国市政债券暴跌

    2010年12月，沉寂的市政债券市场突起波澜，华尔街天后级的分析师梅里迪斯•惠特尼在美国哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）的《60分钟》（60 Minutes）节目中宣称市级和州级政府债券的违约规模可能达到几千亿美元。当时她估计可能有50-100宗较大规模的违约，其中很多将发生在“未来12个月内”。由于惠特尼是上次危机中最早发现问题的华尔街分析师，她的预言很快就有了追随者。市级政府的借款成本大幅上升。市政债券市场资金外流创下了新高。投资者们都在等待着清算日的到来。

    一年之后，他们还在等待。标准普尔的数据显示，2011年市政债券违约额不到10亿美元，甚至远低于2010年的水平。虽然没人知道2012年会怎样，迄今为止还没有其他人预测会有几千亿美元的违约。可以想见，惠特尼在媒体上已不太受欢迎。到目前为止，她尚未公开更新其投资主张。

Municipal bond meltdown

    Analyst Meredith Whitney sent tremors through the sleepy municipal bond market last December when she told 60 Minutes she expected hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults in city and state bonds. She guessed there might be 50 to 100 sizable defaults, many occurring "within the next twelve months." And because she spotted trouble early on Wall Street during the last crisis, her words were closely followed. Borrowing costs shot up for cities. Municipal bond funds experienced record outflows. And investors waited for a day of reckoning.

    A year later, they're still waiting. Standard & Poor's said muni defaults amounted to less than $1 billion this year, far less than even the 2010 figure. And while 2012 is anyone's guess, so far no one else is predicting hundreds of billions of dollars in defaults. Whitney has predictably taken a drubbing in the press. She hasn't publicly released an update to her thesis.