壞消息！2019年世界經濟還會繼續變差

US stocks are on track their worst December since the Great Depression. Financial stocks are already in a bear market. The central bank for central banks thinks it’s only going to get worse.

美國股市剛剛經歷了幾乎是大蕭條之後最慘的一個12月。金融股已經進入熊市了。而中央銀行覺得事態的發展只會更糟。

“It was not the first, and it will not be the last,” said Claudio Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the Bank of International Settlements. “It was just another bump along the narrow path of monetary policy normalization.” 

國際清算銀行的財政及經濟部主管 Claudio Borio 說：“這不是第一次，也不會是最後一次。這只是貨幣政策正常化這條狹窄道路上的又一次顛簸。”

He’s referring to interest rates returning to normal, as is now underway in Europe and continued in the US today with another rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

他說的正常化是指利率迴歸正常，這種情況目前正要在歐洲出現，並且已經在美國發生了，其間美聯儲又進行了一次提息。

Among the other causes for concern for investors: the inverting yield curve (which many take to be an indicator of an imminent recession), Brexit, the weakness of European banks, and the ongoing trade war between the US and China. 

除了這些外，投資者們需要擔心的事還不少：反向的收益曲線（很多人把這視爲經濟衰退在即的標誌）、英國脫歐、歐洲銀行的疲軟，以及中美之間持續的貿易戰。

Borio also noted that a lot of low-quality corporate debt “hovers like a dark cloud over investors,” which Quartz warned about in relation to the revelation that 90% of the debt issued by private-equity firms are the worst possible junk bonds.

Borio 還發現，有很多劣質的公司債務“像烏雲一樣糾纏着投資者們”，而《石英》雜誌此前也對此做出過警告：這些債務裏的90%都是爛到不能再爛的債券。

“Faced with unprecedented initial conditions—extraordinarily low interest rates, bloated central-bank balance sheets and high global indebtedness, both private and public—monetary policy normalization was bound to be challenging especially in light of trade tensions and political uncertainty,” Borio added. “The recent bump is likely to be just one in a series.”

Borio 還補充到：“這場最近發生的經濟顛簸只是一連串顛簸中的一個，畢竟現在這麼多不利因素史無前例地齊聚一堂：極低的利率、央行臃腫的資產負債表、全球性的高債務率（公債和私債都有）。這意味着貨幣政策的正常化會非常艱難，尤其是現在貿易上的摩擦和政局上的不確定性又這麼大。”

After a year that saw a massive increase in risk and uncertainty, putting fears that the longest bull market in US history is coming to an end, investors might be wary to hear that 2019 is looking even worse. But Borio’s remarks did have one silver lining.

在這一年裏，我們見證了風險和不確定性的大幅上升，恐怕美國史上最長的一次牛市就要終結了，而更讓投資者們揪心的或許是：2019年的情況會更加糟糕。不過Borio的評論裏還會有一點兒帶來希望的東西。

Research conducted by Borio, Mathias Drehmann, and Dora Xia comparing recessions and financial cycles suggests that, at least since the early 1980s, economic downturns have typically been preceded by financial booms rather than higher interest rates. This suggests that we shouldn’t fear that inverted yield curve.

Borio、Mathias Drehmann和Dora Xia三位主導了一項研究，他們對比了數次經濟衰退和金融週期，然後發現：至少在1980年代以後，經濟下行之後基本都會是一次金融繁榮，而不會是利率升高。這告訴我們，其實不用太擔心反向的收益曲線。

翻譯：能貓