专家人物

2003 · oped · 原文约 1103 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, 9:39 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » Specialist Man The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20160808040816/http://johncbogle.com:80/wordpress/200… SPECIALIST MAN JCB - 2006 年 3 月 15 日《华尔街日报》 – 2003 年 9 月 19 日最近离职的纽约证券交易所主席理查德·格拉索获得了 1.4 亿美元的薪酬包，这事理所当然地受到了关注。毫无疑问，纽交所董事会现在将进行重大变革。但真正的问题是，为什么这个由华尔街最老练的公司代表组成的董事会，会同意向其主席支付如此丰厚的薪酬包。只有一个结论：他值那个钱。

8/10/22, 9:39 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » Specialist Man The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20160808040816/http://johncbogle.com:80/wordpress/200… SPECIALIST MAN JCB - Mar 15, 2006 The Wall Street Journal – September 19, 2003 Well-deserved attention has been focused on the $140 million compensation package received by Richard Grasso, the recently departed chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Undoubtedly there will now be significant changes at the NYSE Board. But the real question is why that Board, with representatives from the most sophisticated firms on Wall Street, agreed to pay its chairman such a rich compensation package. There is only one conclusion: He was worth the money.

虽然纽交所自称“一家肩负公共使命的私营公司”，但毋庸置疑，其主席最重要的职责是维护会员的利益。而没有任何利益比保护纽交所场内专家（specialists）的交易利润更为重要。在很大程度上要归功于格拉索先生的努力，纽交所在最近之前一直享有极高的声望，这为其本质上不公平、效率低下的交易系统提供了必要的掩护。

While the NYSE bills itself as “a private company with a public purpose,” there is no doubt that its chairman’s most important role is to protect the interests of its members. And no interest is more important than the protection of the trading profits derived by the NYSE’s floor-based specialists. Thanks in large part to Mr. Grasso’s efforts, the NYSE has, until recently, enjoyed a remarkable level of prestige, providing the cover necessary to protect its inherently unfair and inefficient trading system.

在纽约证券交易所上市的每只证券都独家分配给一家专业公司。这家专业公司最终能看到所有提交给交易所的订单——无论是通过电子渠道还是场内经纪商提交的、针对其负责股票的订单。然而，尽管纽约证券交易所赋予专业公司特权地位，目的是维持一个“公平有序的市场”（奇怪的是，这个术语在任何地方都没有明确定义），但专业公司也被允许同时为自己的账户进行交易——这显然存在利益冲突。

Every security traded on the NYSE is assigned exclusively to a specialist firm. The specialist ultimately sees every order in its assigned stocks submitted to the exchange either electronically or through brokers on the floor. But while the NYSE grants specialists a privileged position in order to maintain a “fair and orderly market” (which, curiously, is nowhere defined), the specialist is also permitted to simultaneously trade for his own account — an obvious conflict of interest.

纽约证券交易所的规则试图限制专业会员不当利用内幕信息的能力，规定其仅在供需出现暂时失衡时才能进行交易——在没有其他买家时买入，在没有其他卖家时卖出。然而，如果专业会员真的只在没有买家或卖家时才交易，人们或许会认为他们理应亏损。

NYSE rules attempt to limit the specialist’s ability to improperly use inside information by limiting specialists to trading only when there is a temporary disparity between supply and demand, buying when there are no other buyers and selling when there are no other sellers. Yet if specialists really traded only when there is an absence of buyers or sellers, one would think they would lose money.

事实上，专业做市商的盈利水平用塞缪尔·约翰逊的话来说就是“贪婪到做梦也想不到”。Precision Economics 即将发布的一项研究显示，设有专业做市部门的上市公司去年税前利润率在 35% 至 60% 之间。纽约证券交易所最大的专业做市商 Labranche 创造了超过 2.5 亿美元的收入，几乎全部来自交易大厅的自营交易。只有在别人都不想要的时候才进行交易，这利润可真够丰厚的！

The fact is that specialists are profitable, in Samuel Johnson’s words, “beyond the dreams of avarice.” A forthcoming study by Precision Economics will reveal that publicly traded firms with specialist units last year enjoyed pre-tax profit margins ranging from 35% to 60%. Labranche, the largest NYSE specialist, generated more than a quarter of a billion dollars in revenues, almost entirely from trading for its own account on the floor. Pretty profitable for trading only when nobody else wants to!

由于交易是零和游戏，这些利润直接取自那些大型机构等投资者。这些机构迫切希望有能跟纽交所竞争的替代选择，但又不愿公开抱怨纽交所模式根本上的不公正。毕竟，机构不得不跟纽交所打交道，因为压根没有真正的竞争替代者。

Since trading is a zero-sum game, these profits come at the direct expense of investors such as large institutions, which desperately want competitive alternatives to the NYSE but are reluctant to publicly complain about the fundamental unfairness of the NYSE model. After all, institutions have to do business with the NYSE because there are no real competitive alternatives.

纽约证券交易所一直散布谎言，误导监管机构和投资公众，让他们以为专家经纪人是在为公众服务。例如，纽交所声称，投资者需要专家经纪人，因为如果没有他们，“当没有人愿意买卖时，谁来承担买卖的角色？”纽交所宣称，专家经纪人通过充当最后的买家或卖家来降低市场波动性。

The NYSE has perpetuated myths that mislead regulators and the investing public into believing that specialists serve the public. For instance, the NYSE asserts that investors need specialists because without them, “who is going to be there to buy or sell when nobody else wants to?” The NYSE claims that the specialist reduces market volatility by acting as the buyer or seller of last resort.

想想看：想象一下“专家侠”在一片恐慌中现身，胸口一个大大的字母“S”，迎着猛烈下挫的股票挺身而出。他迅速安抚众人，大声喊道：“我会从你们每个人手里买入，因为这是我的职责，哪怕我会亏钱。”大家纷纷把股票卖给了专家侠，嘴里还称赞他愿意不计利润、无私地提供流动性。

Think about that: Envision SpecialistMan, emerging amongst the bedlam of a fast falling stock with a giant “S” on his chest. Quickly calming the crowd, he exclaims “I will buy from every one of you because it is my duty, even though I will lose money.” They sell their shares to SpecialistMan, praising him for his willingness to selflessly provide liquidity, regardless of the impact on his profits.

尽管这种说法表面上看荒谬至极，但为了替纽交所的特种经纪商辩护，这种论调仍然被抛了出来——而几乎所有其他主要交易工具都已完全实现电子化交易，且未赋予任何人信息优势。事实是，当类似安然这样的股票开始下跌时，特种经纪人和所有人一样，也会躲得远远的。

While this notion is ridiculous on its face, it is still put forward to defend the NYSE specialist when nearly every other major instrument is traded completely electronically without anyone being given an informational advantage. The truth is that when a stock like Enron starts falling, just like everyone else, SpecialistMan gets out of the way.

我们应该问自己一个问题：为什么我们竟然需要专家来管理一只股票的下跌？在一个有效市场中，这恰恰是我们最不想要的事情。市场应该被允许尽快出清——移动到它的均衡点——而不是让某个人试图去管理这个过程。缓慢下跌的股票只会以卖家为代价伤害买家，反之亦然。

We ought to ask ourselves why we even want a specialist to manage the decline of a stock. In an efficient market, that is the last thing we should want. The market should be permitted to clear — move to its equilibrium point — as quickly as possible, without somebody trying to manage the process. A slowly declining stock only hurts buyers at the expense of sellers, and vice versa.

我们不必担心专家滥用其特权地位，因为纽交所的核心原则是投资者的利益始终优先。但这个原则很容易绕开。即使供需之间没有失衡，专家也能直接高于投资者订单的价格成交。如果专家手上持有投资者以 10.00 美元买入 IBM 的订单，他不能在 10.00 美元价位买入，除非所有 10.00 美元价位的投资者订单都已执行。但他可以在 10.01 美元买入。凭借其相对于其他人对股价可能走势的信息优势，专家只会在最有利的时机出价高于投资者。

We need not worry about the specialist abusing his privileged position, we are assured, because the NYSE’s cardinal principle is that the investor’s interest is always served first. But it’s easy to get around this tenet. Even though there is no imbalance between supply and demand, the specialist simply trumps the price of investor 8/10/22, 9:39 PM The Bogle eBlog » Blog Archive » Specialist Man orders. If a specialist is holding investor orders to buy IBM for $10.00, he cannot buy at $10 until all investor orders at $10.00 are executed. But he can buy at $10.01. With his informational advantage over everybody else concerning the likely direction of a stock’s price, the specialist will outbid investors only at the most advantageous moments.

讽刺的是，做市商凭借这种排他性特权获得了回报。纽交所称之为“价格改善”，因为与做市商交易的投资者获得了更优的报价。纽交所甚至大肆宣扬价格改善的发生频率，而这实际反映的是做市商利用其信息优势（我们大多数人会称之为内幕信息）获取交易利润、损害投资者利益的频率。

Ironically, the specialist is rewarded for this exclusive opportunity. The NYSE calls this “price improvement” because the investor trading with the specialist receives a better price. The NYSE actually brags about the frequency of price improvement, which really represents how often the specialist uses his informational advantage (what most of us would otherwise call insider information) to make a trading profit and disadvantage investors.

这些观点不应令人意外。纽约证券交易所的会员们若非能获得某种优势，又何必每天支付大约 200 万美元的费用，只为享有站在那个陈旧拥挤的交易大厅里的特权？会员身份自有其特权。但如今，既然技术已为我们提供了更高效的证券交易方式，公众是否仍从一个赋予少数人特权的结构中受益？

These points should not be a revelation. Why would NYSE members pay approximately $2 million for the privilege of standing on an old, crowded floor all day unless they gained some sort of advantage? Membership has its privileges. But does the public benefit from a structure that grants privileges to a select few even though, thanks to technology, we now have more efficient ways to trade securities?

美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的规定禁止场内经纪商为自己账户进行交易。然而，专业证券商（Specialists）却得以豁免这一禁令，因为人们认定他们是在履行公共服务——这一假设完全与事实相悖。那么，我们不妨把话说清楚：虽然纽交所的董事会结构需要改革，而且必须立即改革，但我们投资者应将大部分注意力集中在纽交所的利润中心上，即其专业证券商制度。

SEC rules ban floor brokers from trading for their own accounts. Specialists, however, are exempted from this prohibition because they are assumed to be performing a public service, an assumption belied by the facts. So let’s be clear. While the NYSE Board structure needs to be fixed, and fixed promptly, we investors ought to focus most of our attention on the profit center of the NYSE, its specialist system.

1 条评论评论者 dlmrgnk - 2006 年 7 月 1 日连纽交所都裸奔了？下一个问题会是什么？（我感觉自己像是在一座完美投资的圣母大教堂里！！！）

1 COMMENT COMMENTS dlmrgnk - Jul 01, 2006 Even the NYSE has no clothes? What could the next problem be? (I feel as tho I’m in a Cathedral of the Immaculate Investment!!!)