對衝基金處境艱難 優秀投資者懂得認輸

The past six months have been a hard time for some high-profile hedge funds. Crispin Odey’s Swan Fund and Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square have made losses of sufficient magnitude to wipe out years of accrued profits. Other star funds, from Blackstone’s Senfina to Paulson & Co, have also seen the second quarter of this year turn into a bloodbath.

一些知名對衝基金在過去6個月處境艱難。克里斯平•奧迪(Crispin Odey)的天鵝基金(Swan Fund)和比爾•阿克曼(Bill Ackman)的Pershing Square出現大幅虧損，抹掉了多年來累積的利潤。從黑石(Blackstone)的Senfina到Paulson & Co，其他明星基金也在今年第二季度遭遇鉅額虧損。

Some of the losses are attributable to the normal things that go wrong in investing — mergers which fall apart, commodity prices following their own logic and so on. But some of the worst pain has been caused by trades which looked like they made a lot of sense at the time. Pershing Square’s losses, for example, are largely attributable to one stock — Valeant and one macro theme: short China.

一些虧損可歸因於正常的投資失誤——併購告吹、大宗商品價格走勢遵從其自身規律等等。但一些最糟糕的損失是當時看起來非常明智的交易導致的。例如，Pershing Square的虧損在很大程度上歸因於一隻股票Valeant和一個宏觀主題：做空中國。

Neither of these trades could be considered a dumb mistake. Valeant had been one of the best-performing stocks in the pharmaceuticals sector until last year. And speculating on a Chinese economic slowdown not only had a sound economic rationale, it was delivering the goods until quite recently. It all serves as a grim reminder that it is not always the bad ideas that do the damage. What you have to look out for is good ideas that have stopped working.

這兩個交易當初都不算是愚蠢的錯誤。直至去年以前，Valeant還是製藥行業中表現最好的股票之一。猜測中國經濟放緩不僅有靠譜的經濟理由，而且直到不久以前還頗有斬獲。結果我們付出慘痛代價才明白，並不總是壞主意纔會造成破壞。你不得不當心那些不再奏效的好主意。

At a brokerage firm I once worked for, a constant source of irritation for the research department was the Best Ideas portfolio. This was a model portfolio consisting of the analysts’ highest conviction “buy” recommendations with the greatest upside, hedged against a selection of the “sell” recommendations with the biggest downside. Its performance was, generally, terrible.

在我曾經工作過的一家經紀公司，研究部門常常感到不滿的根源是“最佳想法”投資組合。這種組合包含分析師以最高信念給予“買入”評級，並堅信具有最大上漲潛力的股票，相對衝的是一些“賣出”評級，被認爲具有最大下跌空間的股票。這種組合的表現通常非常糟糕。

However, the same firm also maintained a head of Research’s portfolio. This was a similar long/short selection and its performance was much better. In fact, during the time I worked there, the Head of Research portfolio outperformed major market indices in bull and bear markets.

然而，這家公司同時還保持了“研究主管”投資組合。這是一個類似的多空組合，但其表現要好得多。實際上，在我在這家公司工作期間，研究主管的投資組合在牛、熊市期間的表現都跑贏了主要股指。

What was particularly impressive was that the head of research did no work at all in selecting his eponymous portfolio. It was simply constructed by taking the Best Ideas portfolio, and using a “stop loss” rule which took out any stock that had gone the wrong way by 10 per cent since being included.

尤其令人印象深刻的是，研究主管根本沒有爲這個以他的職位命名的組合挑選股票。它只是採用“最佳想法”組合，然後使用“止損”規則來剔除自納入組合以來反向波動10%的股票。

It seemed to be the case that the Best Ideas portfolio had a lot of potential value in it but that all the positive returns generated by the good ideas, and more besides, was being destroyed by a comparatively small number of ideas that did not work, but which the analyst liked too much to downgrade.

“最佳想法”組合似乎有許多潛在價值，但好想法產生的所有正回報，被相對數量不多的未奏效想法破壞——但相關分析師過於喜歡自己的想法而不願調降評級。

This seems to be a large part of the problem with the hedge funds this year. Mr Odey and Mr Ackman are strong-willed characters and both had a record which justified their self confidence. But all this goes to show is that it is not just mediocre investors who make mistakes.

這似乎是上述對衝基金今年面臨的主要問題。奧迪和阿克曼都是意志堅強的人物，而且都有證明他們的自信正確的過往記錄。但這一切表明的是，不僅僅是平庸投資者纔會犯錯誤。

An old City saying has it that the definition of a “long-term investment” is a short-term investment that went wrong. The behavioural tendency it describes is one of the most dangerous things in finance. Of all the factors which drive someone to take unacceptable risks, the most common and most serious is arguably the refusal to admit that a mistake has been made.

倫敦金融城的一句老話是，“長期投資”的定義是出了錯的短期投資。它所描述的行爲傾向是金融領域最爲危險的事情之一。在推動某人甘冒不可接受的風險的所有因素中，最常見且最嚴重的可以說是拒絕承認犯錯。

This is not to say that the market is never wrong or that it is a good idea to be shaken out of a position by market volatility. Mr Ackman and Mr Odey have made their reputations and fortunes out of betting against the herd.

這不是說市場永遠不會犯錯，或者說被市場波動踢出某一頭寸是個好主意。阿克曼和奧迪都曾因逆向押注贏得了名聲和財富。

But it is always worth looking out for the indicators that a fund manager might be in denial. Changing rationales for a trade, ignoring bad news, blaming central bankers — these are all signs that contrarianism might have slipped into cognitive dissonance. Investors should remember that although Best Ideas portfolios are occasionally referred to as High Conviction, the two terms are definitely not synonymous.

但始終有必要留意基金經理死不認錯的跡象。改變某一筆交易的理由、忽視壞消息，指責央行行長——這些都是逆向思維淪爲認知失調的跡象。投資者應該記住，儘管“最佳想法”投資組合有時被稱爲“高信念”(High Conviction)組合，但這兩個詞絕不是同義詞。