The past six months have been a hard time for somehigh-profile hedge funds. Crispin Odey’s Swan Fundand Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square have made lossesof sufficient magnitude to wipe out years ofaccrued profits. Other star funds, from Blackstone’sSenfina to Paulson & Co, have also seen thesecond quarter of this year turn into a bloodbath.
一些著名對沖基金在曩昔6個月處境艱苦。克裏斯平•奧迪(Crispin Odey)的天鵝基金(Swan Fund)和比爾•阿克曼(BillAckman)的Pershing Square湧現大幅吃虧，抹掉了多年來積累的利潤。從黑石(Blackstone)的Senfina到Paulson& Co，其他明星基金也在本年第二季度遭受巨額吃虧。
Some of the losses are attributable to the normal things that go wrong in investing — mergerswhich fall apart, commodity prices following their own logic and so on. But some of the worstpain has been caused by trades which looked like they made a lot of sense at the time. PershingSquare’s losses, for example, are largely attributable to one stock — Valeant and one macrotheme: short China.
一些吃虧可歸因於正常的投資失誤——並購告吹、大批商品價錢走勢服從其本身紀律等等。但一些最糟的喪失是其時看起來異常明智的生意業務致使的。比方，Pershing Square的吃虧在很大水平上歸因於一只股票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 Chineseeconomic slowdown not only had a sound economic rationale, it was delivering the goods untilquite recently. It all serves as a grim reminder that it is not always the bad ideas that do thedamage. What you have to look out for is good ideas that have stopped working.
這兩個生意業務當初都不算是愚昧的毛病。直至客歲曩昔，Valeant照樣制藥行業中表示最佳的股票之一。預測中國經濟放緩不但有靠譜的經濟來由，並且直到不久曩昔還很有斬獲。成果咱們支付慘重價值才明確，其實不老是壞主張才會造成損壞。你不能不小心那些再也不見效的好主張。
At a brokerage firm I once worked for, a constant source of irritation for the researchdepartment was the Best Ideas portfolio. This was a model portfolio consisting of theanalysts’ highest conviction “buy” recommendations with the greatest upside, hedged againsta selection of the “sell” recommendations with the biggest downside. Its performance was,generally, terrible.
在我曾事情過的一家掮客公司，研討部分經常覺得不滿的本源是“絕佳設法主意”投資組合。這類組合包括剖析師以最高信心賜與“買入”評級，並深信具備最大上漲潛力的股票，相對於沖的是一些“賣出”評級，被以為具備最大下跌空間的股票。這類組合的表示平日異常糟。
However, the same firm also maintained a Head of Research’s portfolio. This was a similarlong/short selection and its performance was much better. In fact, during the time I workedthere, the Head of Research portfolio outperformed major market indices in bull and bearmarkets.
但是，這家公司同時還堅持了“研討主管”投資組合。這是一個相似的多空組合，但其表示要好很多。現實上，在我在這家公司事情時代，研討主管的投資組合在牛、熊市時代的表示都跑贏了重要股指。
What was particularly impressive was that the head of research did no work at all in selectinghis eponymous portfolio. It was simply constructed by taking the Best Ideas portfolio, andusing a “stop loss” rule which took out any stock that had gone the wrong way by 10 per centsince being included.
特別使人印象深入的是，研討主管基本沒有為這個以他的職位定名的組合遴選股票。它只是采取“絕佳設法主意”組合，然後應用“止損”規矩來剔除自納入組合以來反向顛簸10%的股票。
It seemed to be the case that the Best Ideas portfolio had a lot of potential value in it butthat all the positive returns generated by the good ideas, and more besides, was beingdestroyed by a comparatively small number of ideas that did not work, but which the analystliked too much to downgrade.
“絕佳設法主意”組合仿佛有很多潛伏代價，但好設法主意發生的全部正回報，被相對於數目未幾的未見效設法主意損壞——但相幹剖析師過於愛好本身的設法主意而不肯調降評級。
This seems to be a large part of the problem with the hedge funds this year. Mr Odey and MrAckman are strong-willed characters and both had a record which justified their selfconfidence. But all this goes to show is that it is not just mediocre investors who makemistakes.
這仿佛是上述對沖基金本年面對的重要題目。奧迪和阿克曼都是意誌頑強的人物，並且都有證實他們的自負準確的過往記載。但這統統註解的是，不單單是平淡投資者才會出錯誤。
An old City saying has it that the definition of a “long-term investment” is a short-terminvestment that went wrong. The behavioural tendency it describes is one of the mostdangerous 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 beenmade.
倫敦金融城的一句老話是，“歷久投資”的界說是出了錯的短時間投資。它所描寫的行動偏向是金融範疇最為傷害的工作之一。在推進或人甘冒弗成接收的危害的全部身分中，最多見且最緊張的可以說是謝絕認可出錯。
This is not to say that the market is never wrong or that it is a good idea to be shaken out of aposition by market volatility. Mr Ackman and Mr Odey have made their reputations andfortunes out of betting against the herd.
這不是說市場永久不會出錯，大概說被市場顛簸踢出某一頭寸是個好主張。阿克曼和奧迪都曾因逆向押註博得了名聲和財產。
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 allsigns that contrarianism might have slipped into cognitive dissonance. Investors shouldremember that although Best Ideas portfolios are occasionally referred to as High Conviction,the two terms are definitely not synonymous.
但始終有需要留心基金司理死不認錯的跡象。轉變某一筆生意業務的來由、疏忽壞新聞，責備央行行長——這些都是逆向思惟淪為認知失調的跡象。投資者應當記著，只管“絕佳設法主意”投資組合偶然被稱為“高信心”(HighConviction)組合，但這兩個詞毫不是同義詞。
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