共同基金何去何从

2000 · oped · 原文约 1410 词

译文与英文原文逐段对齐可在本页展开英文，也可打开发布者原址核对上下文。

8/10/22, 9:43 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » How Mutual Funds Lost Their Way The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20170630092122/http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/2006/0… 共同基金何以迷失方向 JCB - 2006 年 3 月 15 日《华尔街日报》– 2000 年 6 月 20 日过去 50 年间，共同基金已从金融服务业中一个资产规模 25 亿美元的无名小卒，成长为 7 万亿美元的巨人。如今基金占据着无可挑战的领先地位，在过去五年美国家庭新增的 2 万亿美元储蓄中，基金贡献了其中的 70%。

8/10/22, 9:43 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » How Mutual Funds Lost Their Way The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20170630092122/http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/2006/0… HOW MUTUAL FUNDS LOST THEIR WAY JCB - Mar 15, 2006 The Wall Street Journal – June 20, 2000 In the past 50 years, mutual funds have gone from a $2.5 billion also-ran in the financial-services industry to a $7 trillion titan. Funds now enjoy an unchallenged position of leadership, accounting for 70% of the $2 trillion that U.S. families added to their savings over the past five years.

然而，虽然共同基金或许是目前最好的选择，但它们远未达到本该有的表现。股票型、债券型和货币市场基金的持有人回报，都远远落后于这些市场本身能够提供的收益。原因在于，对受托责任的关注日益减弱，投资视野不断缩短，成本却急剧攀升。共同基金行业已经迷失了方向。

But while mutual funds may be the best game in town, they aren’t playing nearly as good a game as they should. The returns of fund shareholders in stock, bond and money markets have fallen far short of what is available in those segments. A diminishing focus on stewardship, shrinking investment horizons and soaring costs are responsible. The mutual fund industry has lost its way.

我从 1949 年就开始研究共同基金，那时我正在普林斯顿大学为我的本科毕业论文做调研。行业方向的变化可谓天翻地覆。那时候，共同基金行业更像是一门管理生意，而非营销生意；如今恰恰相反。我们已经从把基金当作服务所有者—受益人的投资信托，转变成把基金当作消费品，旨在吸引尽可能多的资产。这种新做法严重损害了基金股东的利益。

I’ve been studying mutual funds since 1949, when I began researching my senior thesis at Princeton University. The change in industry direction has been dramatic. Back then, the mutual-fund industry was more a management business than a marketing business; today the reverse is true. We have moved from treating funds as investment trusts designed to serve their owner-beneficiaries to treating funds as consumer products, designed to attract the largest possible assets. This new approach has ill-served the interests of fund shareholders.

投资视野的急剧缩短也改变了这个行业。在 1950 年至 1965 年期间，基金是长期投资工具；基金经理是长期投资者；基金股东持有其股份的时间超过十年。成本不算过高，而共同基金的业绩也达到了投资者合理的预期。

A dramatic decline in investment horizons has also changed the industry. In 1950-65, funds were long-term investments; fund managers were long-term investors; and fund shareholders held their shares for more than a decade. Costs weren’t excessive and mutual-fund performance measured up to the reasonable expectations of investors.

如今，这一切都不复存在。曾经被视为终身投资的基金，现在以惊人的速度来了又去。有些基金在未能实现投资目标后便退出历史舞台——或被清算，或与其他基金合并。另一些基金当初是为了迎合当时的投资风尚而设立，当这股热潮一过，它们也随之消失。20 世纪 60 年代末的“狂飙基金”和 80 年代末的“政府增强基金”只是其中两个例子。今天许多互联网基金和科技基金，恐怕也难逃同样的命运。

None of this is true today. Funds, once investments for a lifetime, now come and go at a remarkable rate. Some vanish when they fail to achieve their investment objectives, liquidated or merged into other funds. Others, created to reflect the investment fashions of the moment, disappear when the fad passes. The go-go funds of the late 1960s and the government-plus funds of the late 1980s are but two examples. Many of today’s Internet funds and technology funds will probably meet the same fate.

1990 年代，55% 的股票型基金以失败告终，失败率几乎是 1960 年代 14% 的四倍。如果近期的失败率持续下去，那么如今 4500 只股票型基金中，将有 2500 只撑不到 2010 年。它们的持有者将沦为劣质业绩的牺牲品，要么在清算份额时缴纳不必要的税款，要么被迫转入一只新基金。

During the 1990s, 55% of equity funds failed, almost four times the 14% failure rate of the 1960s. Should the recent failure rate hold, 2,500 of today’s 4,500 equity funds won’t be around in 2010. Their owners will be victims of inferior performance and will be subject either to paying unnecessary taxes when they liquidate their shares or forced transfer to a new fund.

基金经理们，曾经是长期投资者，如今已变成短线玩家——如果你相信平均持股 406 天与投资几乎无关，那他们就是投机者。在我入行最初的 15 年里，基金投资组合的换手率平均每年约 17%，去年已升至 90%。

Fund managers, once long-term investors, have become short-term players — speculators, if you believe that holding stocks for an average of 406 days has little to do with investing. Fund portfolio turnover, averaging about 17% annually during my first 15 years in this industry, rose to 90% last year.

当日高度活跃的交易氛围是部分原因。但控制权从投资委员会向投资组合经理的转移也起到了主要作用。无论好坏，这个行业的主导力量已从共识变成了冲动。更甚的是，投资组合经理的更换速度很快。普通经理平均只干六年，然后新官上任就把投资组合清空。共同基金的天穹中似乎少有恒星，只有众多彗星。

The hyperactive trading atmosphere of the day is partly responsible. But the shift in control from investment committee to portfolio manager has also played a major role. For better or worse, the industry’s dominant force has changed from consensus to impulse. What’s more, portfolio managers turn over at a rapid rate. The average manager lasts just six years, and then a new broom sweeps the portfolio clean. It seems there are few stars in the mutual-fund firmament, just many comets.

由于大部分基金交易发生在基金之间，基金投资者作为一个整体不可能通过这种频繁转手提高收益。高昂的交易成本带来的好处，大部分落入了执行交易的人手中。最大的受益者是联邦政府，它从长期资本利得税中收取了数十亿美元——更不用说对大量短期利得征收的更高所得税了。1999 年，基金投资者缴纳的 300 亿美元联邦税中，过早实现收益占了很大一部分。

Since most fund trading takes place with other funds, the returns of fund investors as a group can’t possibly be enhanced by all of this turnover. Its heavy costs create benefits that go largely to those who execute the transactions. The biggest beneficiary is the federal government, which has reaped billions of dollars from taxes on long-term capital gains — not to mention higher income taxes on substantial short-term gains. The premature realization of gains accounted for a major portion of the $30 billion of federal taxes paid by fund investors in 1999.

这种具有传染性的短期病毒现在已经蔓延到基金持有人身上。赎回率在 20 世纪 60 年代约为基金资产的 8%，70 年代为 15%，到 90 年代跃升至 30%，而 2000 年更是达到了惊人的 47%（见附图）。这一急剧增长表明，原本由长期投资者持有平均 12.5 年的基金份额，如今平均持有期仅为两年多一点。对于原本被设计为长期投资者完美媒介的投资品种而言，这是一个可悲的命运。

This contagious short-term virus has now spread to fund shareholders. Share redemptions, which ran at about 8% of fund assets during the 1960s and 15% during the 1970s, leaped to 30% during the 1990s, and are running at an astonishing 47% rate in 2000 (as shown in the nearby chart). This dramatic increase suggests that fund shares — once held by long-term investors for an average of 12.5 years — are today held for an average of just over two years. This is a sad fate for an investment that was originally designed to be the perfect medium for the long-term investor.

8/10/22, 9:43 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » 共同基金如何迷失方向与此同时，赎回率大约是行业公布数据的两倍。行业数据排除了在同一基金家族内部基金间再投资的赎回资金。这些转换赎回的金额，与流入其他基金、个股、银行、或用于购房购车的常规赎回金额大致相等。

8/10/22, 9:43 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » How Mutual Funds Lost Their Way Redemption rates, meanwhile, are about twice as high as those published by the industry. Its data exclude redemption proceeds that are reinvested in funds of the same fund family. These exchange redemptions are about equal in amount to the regular redemptions that find their way into other funds, or individual stocks, or the bank, or to purchase a home or car.

所有这些衡量共同基金投资活动的指标——资金进进出出、投资组合不断换手、基金经理来来去去、基金股东申购赎回——都阻碍了长期投资目标的实现。同样适得其反的，还有共同基金费用与开支的沉重负担。50 年前我研究这个行业时，费用占普通股票基金资产的比例为 0.77%。这一费率此后持续攀升。到 1999 年，已达到 1.61%，涨幅超过 100%。

All of these measures of mutual-fund investment activity — funds that come and go, portfolio holdings that come and go, portfolio managers who come and go, and fund shareholders who come and go — frustrate the achievement of long-term investment objectives. Equally counterproductive is the heavy burden of mutual-fund fees and expenses. When I studied the industry 50 years ago, expenses amounted to 0.77% of the assets of the average equity fund. This expense ratio has risen ever since. In 1999, it reached 1.61%, an increase of over 100%.

考虑到基金资产规模的惊人增长，管理费率未能下降的事实令人意外。共同基金运营中存在巨大的规模经济效应，但这些效应并未充分回馈给基金股东。美国投资公司协会报告显示，即便是费率最低的十个基组，自 1980 年以来也已提价 27%。

Given the staggering rise in fund assets, the surprising fact about the expense ratio is that it failed to decline. There are huge economies of scale in mutual-fund operations, but they aren’t adequately shared with fund shareholders. The Investment Company Institute reports that even the lowest cost decile of funds has raised prices by 27% since 1980.

的确，正如投资公司协会（Investment Company Institute）所报告的，按基金资产加权计算，购买股票型基金的年成本“仅为”1.32%。但据其数据显示，共同基金股东目前每年支付的预估费用、开支和销售手续费合计 750 亿美元。若再加上约 450 亿美元的预估投资组合换手成本，共同基金每年为其管理人、营销人员和券商创造出约 1200 亿美元的收益——这些钱都是从基金股东回报中转移出去的。

It is true, as the Investment Company Institute reports, that the annual cost of purchasing equity funds (including expenses and sales charges) is “only” 1.32% when weighted by fund assets. But according to its data, mutual-fund shareholders now pay estimated annual fees, expenses, and sales charges of $75 billion. Adding in estimated portfolio turnover costs of about $45 billion, mutual funds are generating returns of some $120 billion annually to their managers, marketers, and brokers — dollars that are diverted from the returns of fund shareholders.

这些成本，加上沉重的税负，是基金为投资者带来的回报率低下的原因——这些回报远远落后于大牛市的表现。过去 15 年间，股票型基金——至少是那些存活下来的——在扣除成本和税收后，为投资者提供的净回报率仅为 11.7%。作为对比，一只持有整个美国股市（以威尔夏 5000 指数为代表）的指数基金，在同样扣除成本和税收后，回报率为 16.1%。每年 4.4% 的优势看起来不大，实际影响远超表相。按复利计算，在这段时期内，普通股票基金上涨 426%，而指数基金上涨 839%。基金持有人拿到的回报，还不到本可以预期的一半。

These costs, along with heavy taxes, are responsible for the inadequate returns funds have provided their investors, returns that have fallen far behind those of the great bull market. During the past 15 years, equity funds — at least those that survived the period — provided a net return (after costs and taxes) of just 11.7%. By way of comparison, an index fund that owned the entire U.S. stock market — represented by the Wilshire 5000 index — would have earned a return, also adjusted for costs and taxes, of 16.1%. This advantage of 4.4% a year is larger than it seems. Compounded over the period, the average equity fund rose 426%, compared to 839% for the index fund. The fund shareholder received barely one-half of what might have been expected.

投资期限过短和成本过高，是共同基金行业面临的两大核心问题。这些弊病的根源在于行业未能将基金股东的利益置于首位。这被称为“受托责任”。《1940 年投资公司法》明确警告，不得以投资顾问而非股东的利益为出发点来组织、运营和管理基金——然而如今这一警告并未得到足够重视。现在正是时候，基金管理者、独立董事、以及公职人员和媒体，都该给予这些问题应有的重视。

Investment horizons that are too short and costs that are too high are the principal problems facing the mutual-fund industry. The root cause of these failings is the industry’s failure to focus on the primacy of the fund shareholder. It’s called stewardship. The Investment Company Act of 1940 warns against organizing, operating, and managing funds in the interest of investment advisers rather than the interest of shareholders, but that warning isn’t adequately heeded today. It is high time that fund managers and independent directors, as well as public officials and the media, give these issues the attention they deserve.

尽管我的声音一直孤单，但并非没有重要支持者。亨利·考夫曼在其富有洞见的新书《论货币与市场》中指出：“在近几十年涌现的高压、高流速的金融环境中，基本的受托责任常常被遗忘……金融托管的概念常在纷乱中迷失。”

While my voice has been a lonely one, I am not without some important support. Henry Kaufman’s insightful new book, “On Money and Markets,” notes: “Basic fiduciary duty too often has been forgotten in the high-voltage, high- 8/10/22, 9:43 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » How Mutual Funds Lost Their Way velocity financial environment that has emerged in recent decades . . . the notion of financial trusteeship is frequently lost in the shuffle.”

我希望共同基金行业能够找到它，并且再一次找到自己的方向。

I hope that the mutual fund industry will find it, and will once again find its way.