华尔街暗藏的欧洲风险

    这些美国大银行的欧洲风险有多高？华尔街对此似乎也不明了。欧洲危机看来正在影响到当地的业务。例如，欧洲并购交易和美国银行在这些交易上获得的咨询费目前都接近历史低点。相比这些美国银行在按揭债券或美国房地产上的投资，欧洲敞口看来还比较小。只要它们的对冲交易能起作用，似乎不太可能有哪家美国银行会因为欧洲敞口而倒闭或濒临倒闭。衡量美国银行体系风险高低的堪萨斯城金融压力指数（The Kansas City Financial Stress Index）5月份为-11。低于零，就意味着美国大银行出问题的风险低于通常水平。

    不过，这并不意味着所有人都高枕无忧。资深银行业分析师汤姆•布朗最近就告诉彭博新闻社（Bloomberg News） 称，美国一家大银行的高管称，他现在“怕得要死”。这位高管最大的担心是如果欧洲出现违约，美国银行进行对冲的对手可能都没钱付清。

    银行业分析师克里斯托弗•惠伦说，现在很多人都在关注外汇风险。高盛的科恩表示，高盛花了很多时间来分析交易对手是否最终会付给它德拉克马或其他重新推出的货币。惠伦说，谈到大银行，他并不是特别担心欧洲，但他也坦陈我们真的不知道。“华尔街的新游戏是猜测欧洲风险在哪里。”惠伦说，“我们会看到的。”

    译者：早稻米

    How much are the big U.S. banks at risk in Europe? Wall Street seems mixed on this. Europe's troubles seem to be costing them business. European M&A, for example, and the advisory fees that U.S. banks get on those deals, is around an all-time low for number of deals. Compared to say how much the U.S. banks had riding on mortgage bonds or U.S. real estate, the European bets appear to be small. As long as their hedges work, and that is a big if, it looks unlikely that any U.S. bank would fail, or even come close, due to its exposures in Europe. The Kansas City Financial Stress Index, which ranks how much risk there is in the U.S. banking system, had a reading of -11 in May. Anything under zero means that the risk of having trouble at any of the U.S.'s largest banks is lower than usual.

    That doesn't mean everyone thinks there is nothing to worry about. Veteran bank analyst Tom Brown recently told Bloomberg News that a director at one of the nation's largest banks told Brown that he is "scared to death." The director's main fear was that the counterparties that U.S. banks have placed their hedges with might not have the money to pay up if there were a default in Europe.

    Bank analyst Christopher Whalen says there are a lot of people looking into currency risk. Goldman's Cohn said his firm has spent a lot of time looking into whether trading parties could eventually pay the firm in drachma or other currencies should they reemerge. Whalen says he is not particularly worried about Europe when it comes to the big banks, though he says we really don't know. "The new game on Wall Street is guessing where the European risk is," says Whalen. "We'll find out."