债券市场被人为操纵了吗？

    2013年，投资级公司债的发行规模为1.1万亿美元。也就是说，中了签的债券投资者获得了近120亿美元的收益。这些资金本来有希望留在借款人的手里，但华尔街可能把由此产生的一笔巨资送给了自己的最佳客户，目的大概是为了随后换来更多的生意。

    有人指出，对承销业务展开调查可能给华尔街带来麻烦，原因是债券发行量正在上升，而监管部门则开始整顿债券交易。但重点并不在这里。

    华尔街公司的债券交易收入仍远远超过它们拿到的承销费，尽管二者的差距正在缩小。以高盛为例，2013年这家公司的债券承销收入为24亿美元，它的固定收益交易业务则实现收入87亿美元，其中包括大宗商品和货币交易。这样大家就可能明白，为什么高盛为了保证交易业务的顺利运作而愿意让承销业务客户空手而归。在大型银行中，高盛在承销方面的潜在损失可能最少——2013年它的投资级公司债承销费收入在这些银行中排名第六——而它在交易领域的潜在获利规模最大。这也许可以解释为什么高盛第一个遭到调查。同样的，花旗银行在投资级债券发行方面也落后于摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）和美银（Bank of America）。

    那么，为什么在这些做法可能已经存在一段时间后才开始进行调查呢？原因之一是，由于利率处于历史低点，债券投资者对大公司享有的不公平优势发出了更响亮的抱怨。出于同样的原因，认购威瑞森等公司的宝贵债券有了风险，而这些债券的利率略微高一些。

    同时，金融危机以来，由于那些“大得不能倒闭的”银行进一步扩大了规模，即使觉得受到了不公平待遇，企业借款人也可能更难找到其他公司来帮助自己发行债券。

    虽然大型债券基金受到优待可能显得不公平，但这样做是否违法尚不明朗。彭博（Bloomberg）专栏作家马特•莱文似乎认为，某些债券投资者得到优待似乎有很多看似合理而且合法的理由。企业可能很重视把自己的债券交给少数几名大型债券经理人。但债券价格持续上涨，这表明有人在不断地买卖这些债券，而且发行人最终面对的仍然有可能是一大堆投资者。

    此外，在一级市场，将发行价定在市场价值以下是可以接受的做法。而且，在经历了Facebook的惨痛教训后，这种做法尤其得到提倡。20世纪90年代末的IPO风潮过后，华尔街公司因操纵IPO交易而遭到罚款和起诉。然而，按今天的标准衡量，这些罚款数额很少。高盛和摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）都缴纳了2000万美元的罚款。华尔街公司一共花了5.86亿美元，就了结了相关的集体诉讼。

    在这项集体诉讼中，监管部门收集的证据显示，华尔街公司在操纵IPO的过程中为部分投资者认购新股另辟蹊径，并且因此拿到了更高的佣金或其他形式的回扣。要在债券市场证明这一点，难度要大很多。原因是，佣金经常包含在投资者认购债券的资金之中，而且总的来说，债市的不透明程度要高得多。更重要的是，直接购买债券的个人投资者极少，因此可能很难集中动用证券交易委员会或其他部门的资源，特别是眼下促成调查的原因似乎是因为一部分华尔街公司对另一部分同行感到不满。

    所有这些都表明，就算华尔街债券承销业务的确需要整顿，我们也绝不可能看到这项疑点重重的业务真的会得到整顿。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    Some suggest that an investigation into underwriting practices could pose a problem for Wall Street as bond sales are rising while regulators are cracking down on trading. But that misses the point.

    Wall Street firms still make far more money on their bond trading desks than they do from underwriting fees, even if that spread is narrowing. Goldman, for instance, generated $2.4 billion from debt underwriting in 2013. But it got $8.7 billion from its fixed-income trading business, which also includes commodities and currency trades. So you could see why Goldman would be willing to stiff its underwriting clients to keep its trading business flowing. And among the biggest banks, Goldman probably has the least to lose in the underwriting business -- it's ranked sixth in investment grade corporate bond fees in 2013 -- and the most to gain in its trading business, which could explain why it is the first to come under investigation. Citi, too, ranked behind JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) in investment-grade bond deals.

    So why is this being investigated now, when these practices have probably gone on for a while? For one, with interest rates at all-time lows, bond investors are complaining louder about the unfair edge that the bigger players enjoy. For the same reason, the stakes of getting into prized deals like Verizon's, which yield slightly higher interest rates. Also, as too-big-to-fail banks have gotten even bigger since the financial crisis, it may be harder for corporate borrowers to take their business elsewhere if they feel like they are getting a raw deal.

    While the preferential treatment to big bond funds may seem unfair, it's unclear it's illegal. Matt Levine seems to think there are a number of plausible and legit reasons certain bond investors get preferential treatment. Corporations might value placing their bonds in the hands of a fewer large bond managers. But the fact that prices are rising suggests there is buying and selling, and issuers probably end up with a jumble of investors anyway.

    What's more, underpricing deals is accepted in the IPO market and, after the Facebook (FB)debacle, practically encouraged. After the IPO boom of the late 1990s, Wall Street firms were fined and sued for manipulating IPO offerings. But the fines were small by today's standards. Goldman and Morgan Stanley (MS) paid a $20 million fine each. And Wall Street firms collectively paid $586 million to settle a class action suit on the matter.

    In the class action, regulators gathered evidence that Wall Street firms were receiving higher commissions or other forms of kickbacks in return for giving certain investors special access to rigged IPOs. That would be much harder to prove in the bond market, where commissions are often built into the price that investors pay for their bonds, and the market in general is much more opaque. On top of that, few individual investors directly buy bonds, so drumming up resources inside the SEC or another agency might be tough, especially when the impetus of the investigation appears to be one part of Wall Street complaining about another.

    All this suggests that we're not really all that likely to see a crackdown of Wall Street's shady bond underwriting practices, even if one is actually deserved.