《金融时报》：我为何从不投资银行股

2023 · 文章 · 原文约 902 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。

职业生涯头十年，我在银行工作，之后成为顶尖的银行分析师*。我发现人们常常惊讶于自己从来不投资银行股。

Having spent the first decade of my career working in a bank and then becoming a top-rated bank analyst*, I find that people often express surprise that I never invest in bank shares.

但我认为，恰恰是因为我了解银行，才从不投资它们的股票。近期硅谷银行（SVB）和瑞士信贷的倒闭事件，更加印证了这一立场。为什么？

But I think it is precisely because I understand banks that I never invest in their shares. The recent events surrounding the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) and Credit Suisse reinforce this stance. Why?

首先，我从不投资任何需要借助杠杆才能获得合理回报的东西。银行用来支撑资产负债表的权益资本少得可怜。以下是国民西敏寺集团 2022 年的实际数据，为便于理解，我将其换算成了百分比：

Firstly, I never invest in anything that requires leverage to make an adequate return. Banks have a very small amount of equity to support their balance sheet. Here are the actual numbers for NatWest Group for 2022. To make it easier to understand I have reduced them to percentages:

NatWest Group

GBPm

Loans

373,479

Cash

144,832

Bonds

30,895

Other

170,847

Total Assets

720,053

Equity

36,496

Loan Capital

58,585

Deposits

470,759

Other

154,213

Total Liabilities

720,053

Source: Bloomberg

国民西敏寺集团用 5 英镑的股东权益支撑 100 英镑的资产——杠杆倍数高达 20 倍。如果每 100 英镑资产中 52 英镑的贷款里有 10% 变成坏账，那么全部股东权益将荡然无存，甚至还不够。

NatWest has £5 of shareholder’s equity to fund £100 of assets - it has gearing or leverage of 20 times. If 10 per cent of the £52 of loans in every £100 of assets prove to be bad then the whole of the shareholders’ equity is more than wiped out.

坦白说，远在坏账变成现实之前，储户就可能发现苗头，陷入恐慌，引发挤兑，就像我们在硅谷银行看到的那样。而且这些情况并非不可想象。作家纳西姆·塔勒布在《黑天鹅》一书中指出，1982 年拉美债务危机中，美国大型银行亏掉了此前积累的全部收益。

Frankly, long before that happens, depositors are likely to spot the problem and panic and cause a run on the bank, as we saw with SVB. Nor are these circumstances unimaginable. Author Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swan points out that in the 1982 Latin American debt crisis the large American banks lost all of their cumulative past earnings.

相比之下，标普 500 指数成分股公司（其中包含银行，会拉高数字）平均拥有 260 亿美元资产和 85 亿美元权益——平均杠杆倍数为 2 倍。资产价值下跌不是它们的主要风险，资产价值得跌去三分之一，才会侵蚀掉全部权益。

In contrast, the average company in the S&P 500 Index (which includes banks which distort the numbers) has $26 billion of assets and $8.5 billion of equity - they are on average geared two times. Falls in asset value are not their main risk but their assets would have to fall by one third in value to lose the value of their equity.

其次，尽管背负如此巨大的杠杆和随之而来的风险，银行业的回报却并不理想。过去五年，标普银行板块的平均净资产收益率（ROE）只有 10.9%。同期，标普必需消费品板块的净资产收益率为 17.9%。基本面回报如此之差，股价表现自然也好不到哪里去。过去五年，标普银行板块的年化总回报率为 -15.1%，而必需消费品板块的年化回报率为 +12.1%。所谓承担更大风险就能获得更高回报的理论，在现实面前不攻自破。

Next, despite this massive leverage and the risk which accompanies it, returns from the banking sector are inadequate. The average Return on Equity (“ROE”) in the S&P Banks Sector over the past five years is just 10.9 per cent. This compares with the ROE on the S&P Consumer Staples Sector over the same period of 17.9 per cent. These poor fundamental returns unsurprisingly translate into poor share price performance. The Total Return on the S&P Banks Sector over the past five years was -15.1 percent per year, whereas Consumer Staples returned +12.1 percent annually. So much for the theory that you need to take more risk to get higher returns.

最后，总该有一些经营出色、优于平均水平的银行可以投资吧？这又引出了另一个问题：系统性风险。即使你投资的银行经营稳健，也可能被整个行业的恐慌情绪拖累甚至摧毁。

Finally, surely there must be some good banks to invest in which are better than the average? That brings me onto another problem: systemic risk. Even if the bank you are invested in is well run it can still be damaged or destroyed by a general panic in the sector.

有个小故事能说明这一点。1980 年代初，香港即将回归中国，前途未卜，地产行业很快爆发危机，而地产正是银行大量贷款的抵押品。

There is an anecdote which illustrates this. In the early 1980s doubts first set in about the future of Hong Kong with the looming handover of control to China and a crisis soon developed in the property sector which provided the collateral for much bank lending.

就在这个时候，当地一家银行在临街的窗前撑起遮阳棚，挡住阳光。遮阳棚正好挨着公交车站，一场大雨袭来，等车的人纷纷躲到棚下避雨。在人人自危的气氛中，路人以为这是挤兑的开端，于是一场挤兑真的发生了。

In the midst of this, there was a local bank which had an awning open over its front window to keep the sun out. It was by a bus stop and as heavy rain shower developed, the bus queue moved to take shelter under the awning. In the febrile atmosphere passers-by thought this was the beginning of a bank run and as a result one soon developed.

银行业就是这么回事。银行可能因为同行的行为而倒下。看看硅谷银行出事之后，美国一些地区性银行的遭遇就知道了。前英格兰银行行长默文·金勋爵对此一语中的：挤兑一家银行毫无道理，可一旦挤兑开始，你就得加入其中。

That’s banking for you. Banks can be brought down by the actions of their peers. Look at what happened to some US regional banks in the wake of the SVB disaster. Lord Mervyn King, the former Bank of England Governor, encapsulated this when he observed that it made no sense to start a run on bank but once one has started you should join in.

以上是我长期以来回避银行股的原因，但近年来又多了一条——金融科技。银行的核心功能是什么？吸收存款、发放贷款、办理支付。如今，这些核心功能都在被所谓的金融科技公司蚕食。银行贷款正被点对点借贷平台和信贷基金取代。支付和存款也不一定需要银行。你可以让工资直接打进万事达或维萨账户，这些机构在支付处理方面远胜银行，用苹果或安卓手机也能完成同样的操作。

That encompasses my long-standing reasons for avoiding bank shares but another has emerged in recent years - Fintech. What are the essential functions of a bank? To take deposits, make loans and effect payments. All of these essential roles are now being supplanted by so-called fintechs. Bank loans are being replaced by peer-to-peer lending platforms and credit funds. You don’t need a bank for payments or deposits. You can get your salary paid straight into your Mastercard or Visa account and they are far better at payment processing for which you can also use your Apple or Android phone.

技术正在取代传统银行业。不知你注意到没有，你家附近的银行网点已经变成了披萨快递店——顺带说一句，开披萨店反而更赚钱。不仅如此，银行还常常被遗留系统拖累，而新进入者没有这种负担。至少直到最近，金融科技初创公司还能获得源源不断的资金支持，几乎不需要证明自己能够盈利。

Technology is supplanting traditional banking. Have you noticed that your local bank branch has become a Pizza Express, in which role, by the way, it makes more money. Not only that but the banks are often handicapped by legacy systems which do not trouble new entrants and at least until recently fintech start-ups enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of funding with little or no requirement to show a profit.

正如昔日美联储主席保罗·沃尔克所言，在全球金融危机之前的二十年里，银行业唯一有分量的创新就是自动取款机（ATM），而如今连 ATM 我们都不太用得着了。

As Paul Volcker, the infamous former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, said the only innovation of any consequence by the banking sector in the 20 years running up to the Global Financial Crisis was the ATM, and we don’t even need those any more.

特里·史密斯是 Fundsmith 有限责任合伙公司的首席执行官。*1984 年至 1989 年间，他在路透社和《机构投资者》杂志的调查中被评为排名第一的银行分析师。

Terry Smith is chief executive of Fundsmith LLP. *He was the number 1-rated banking analyst in the Reuters and Institutional Investor surveys 1984-89

本文发表于《金融时报》。

This article featured in the Financial Times: https://www.fundsmith.co.uk/media/fqifjmal/ft-why-i-never-invest-in-bank-shares.pdf