The anniversary of a successful financial innovation
一款成功的金融新品迎来纪念日
Jan 26th 2013 |From the print edition
TWENTY years ago this month, State Street, an American financial-services group, launched a listed product called an exchange-traded fund (ETF), which tracked the S&P 500 share index. Because of its ticker code, SPDR, the product soon became known as the Spider. It was not the first quoted fund to track an index (that was launched in Toronto in 1990) but the Spider fund quickly became the template for an industry that now controls around $2 trillion of assets, almost as much as the hedge-fund sector.
20年前的这个月，美国一家金融服务机构 — 美国道富集团推出了一款与标普500股票指数挂钩的上市产品，称之为交易所交易基金（ETF）。因为它的股票代码是SPDR（与英文单词spider很像），这款产品很快被称为蜘蛛基金。虽然这不是第一支与指数挂钩的基金产品（第一支于1990年在多伦多上市），但是很快它就成为金融行业中的标杆，现在掌握着约2万亿美元的财富，几乎与对冲基金不相上下。
The ETF is one of the more successful financial innovations in recent decades. Its success has been driven by two things: cheapness and convenience. The total expense ratio (a fund’s expenses divided by its assets under management) on the Spider is just 0.09% a year, allowing investors to get a return that is close to that of the overall stockmarket. Compare that with actively managed mutual funds, which try to pick stocks and have expense ratios of over 1% a year. On average actively managed funds are unlikely to beat the index; some underperform by a big margin.
ETF是近几十年中比较成功的金融创新之一。它之所以成功原因有两个：够便宜，够方便。首先，它的整体费率（基金的支出除以其管理的资产总量）仅为一年0.09%，这使投资人的回报比例接近整体股市的表现。而主动式管理的共同基金会主动选股，但费率超过1%一年。平均来看主动式管理基金是不太可能跑赢指数的；一些甚至远远落后指数。
Secondly, the industry has expanded so rapidly—there were 4,731 funds at the end of last year—that investors can use ETFs to invest in almost any asset class (see chart). It is possible to create a fully diversified portfolio consisting entirely of ETFs and to switch the allocation of that portfolio within seconds. That has made the funds highly attractive to high-frequency traders and to hedge funds: some 16% of trading volume at the New York Stock Exchange in 2012 was in ETFs.
第二，该行业扩张十分迅速 — 截止去年年底已有4731支基金 — 投资者几乎可以借助ETF向任何资产类别中投资（见图）。投资者可以通过ETF做出完全不同的投资组合，并且可以随时改变组合中的产品配置。这对于高频交易员和对冲基金来说非常有吸引力：纽约证券交易所2012年的交易额中ETF占了约16%。
There seems to be no sign of a slowdown in the industry’s growth. Investors piled a further $265 billion into ETFs in 2012, up from an inflow of $170 billion in 2011. The compound annual growth rate of assets over the past decade has been 29.6%, according to ETFGI, an information provider. Even at $2 trillion, the industry is still a tiddler compared with the $26 trillion invested in mutual funds worldwide.
该行业的增长速度似乎没有减缓的趋势。2011年投资者向ETF中投入了1700亿美元，2012年ETF进一步吸引了2650亿美元。据信息研究机构ETFGI称，过去10年的综合年度资产增长率为29.6%，但是即便达到了2万亿美元，相比全球投入对冲基金的26万亿，ETF还是小巫见大巫。
Index-tracking is one area of fund management where it is possible to achieve economies of scale: it costs little more to manage $10 billion than $1 billion. Fund managers can benefit from a virtuous circle in which bigger funds mean lower fees, attracting more investors and leading to even bigger funds. As a result the industry is highly concentrated. The three top providers, iShares (part of BlackRock), State Street (which uses the Spider brand for all its funds) and Vanguard, control almost 70% of assets. BlackRock this month agreed to buy Credit Suisse’s ETF business, with $17.6 billion of assets in 58 funds.
与指数挂钩，使基金管理发挥规模效应成为可能：管理100亿美元只比管理10亿美元的支出高出一点。更大的基金总量意味着相对更低的手续费，低手续费吸引更多的投资人，进而又扩大了基金总量，这种良性循环使基金经理们可以从中获利。循环的结果就是该行业高度集中在三个顶层供应商手里：iShare（贝莱德集团的一部分），道富集团（通过蜘蛛基金管理旗下所有的基金）和先锋集团（Vanguard），这三家掌握着ETF近70%的资产。贝莱德更在本月与瑞信银行达成收购意向，将收购对方旗下的ETF业务，共包括58支基金，总价值176亿美元。
The industry’s rise has not been without controversy. Early ETFs like the Spider resembled the index-tracking funds that had been created in the 1970s: they mimicked a benchmark by buying all the constituent stocks or bonds. But as the industry branched out into other, less liquid types of assets, it proved far more difficult physically to buy all the index components. Some ETF providers gave exposure to such asset classes in the form of a swap agreement with a counterparty, normally a bank, which agrees to match the return achieved by the benchmark index.
ETF的崛起并非一帆风顺。早期的ETF，比如成立于70年代，类似蜘蛛基金的各种指数挂钩基金：起初通过购买成分股和成分债券来模拟基准指数，但是随着ETF向其他方向扩张，如流动性较差的资产，他们发现很难购买到所有的指数成分股。于是一些ETF供应商通过与另一方（通常是银行）签订互换协议，由对方按照基准指数的收益率给予ETF方回报。
The appearance of these types of products, usually described as synthetic ETFs, caused some alarm among regulators. In March 2010 the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended the approval of new synthetic ETFs (existing products were allowed to continue). A trio of international watchdogs—the Financial Stability Board, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund—all worried aloud.
这类通常被称为合成ETF产品的面世引起了监管方的警觉。2010年3月，（美国）证券交易委员会暂停对了合成ETF新产品上市的审批工作（已有产品可以继续运营）。另外三家国际监管巨头 — 金融稳定委员会，国际清算银行和国际货币基金组织 — 对合成ETF也充满了担忧。
In particular, the authorities fretted about the links between investment banks and synthetic ETFs. What if the bank counterparty to a swap went bust, a natural concern in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers? The issue was most pertinent in Europe, where synthetic ETFs were more widespread than in America.
值得一提的是，监管方对投资银行与合成ETF的关系十分不安。万一签订互换协议的银行像雷曼兄弟一样倒掉了怎么办？欧洲在这个问题上首当其冲，因为相比美国，合成ETF产品在欧洲更为泛滥。
Although there has been no regulatory restriction on synthetic ETFs in the EU, investors seem to have voted with their wallets, favouring the providers of physically backed funds. In 2012 iShares (which mainly offers physically backed funds) increased its European market share to 38%; the db X-trackers and Lyxor brands, which both rely on synthetic funds, lost ground. But there are some asset classes—notably commodities—where it makes more sense to use derivatives or swaps than to buy the assets outright; fund managers cannot store corn or pork bellies. So synthetic ETFs will not disappear altogether.
尽管目前欧洲监管方没有对合成ETF产品做出任何限制，但是投资者们已经用自己的钱包投了票，他们更倾向购买有实物支持的基金。2012年iShare（主要产品就是实物支持基金）在欧洲的市场份额提高至38%；德意志银行交易所买卖基金（db X-trackers）和领先资产管理公司(Lyxor brands)，两家依赖于合成ETF产品的公司，则失去了市场份额。其他一些类别的资产 — 如大宗商品 — 使用衍生金融工具或者互换协议购买比直接购买商品更合理；基金经理显然没地方存放玉米和猪肉，所以合成ETF不会完全消失。
Another regulatory worry concerns the existence of leveraged ETFs, which aim to give investors a geared exposure to an asset class. Because of the way they are constructed, the returns from leveraged ETFs do not, over the long term, tend to deliver returns that closely track the chosen benchmark, creating the potential for small investors to be misled.
监管方的另一个担忧是杠杆ETF。杠杆ETF为投资者提供了对某一资产类别的杠杆风险敞口。因为本身的结构问题，杠杆ETF的长期回报与其关注的单一基准指数联系并不紧密，对于散户来说有被误导的可能。
So far, however, the industry has not seen the kind of scandal that might tarnish its image. And innovation continues apace. In December iShares launched a range of minimum-volatility ETFs in London, which are designed to give investors exposure to the equity market with less risk, by choosing stocks that have been more stable than the overall market. If you can dream up an investment style, the industry will create an ETF to match.
目前为止，ETF还未爆出过行业丑闻，产品也不断推陈出新。去年12月iShare在伦敦发布了一系列了小波动型ETF产品，该产品通过选择购买比整体市场表现更稳定的个股，使投资者参与股票市场的风险减小。在投资风格方面，只有你想不到的，没有ETF做不到的。
一些特殊名词： Exchange-traded fund：交易型开放式指数基金，通常又被称为交易所交易基金，简称ETF基金。
S&P 500 share index：标准普尔500股票指数。
hedge-fund：对冲基金。
mutual fund：共同基金，也叫互惠基金。
leveraged fund：杠杆基金。
actively managed fund：主动式管理基金。
high-frequency traders：高频交易员。和上面类似。
ETFGI：没查到中文名。
to achieve economies of scale：发挥规模优势（规模效应）。
virtuous circle：良性循环。
BlackRock：美国贝莱德集团，又称为黑岩集团，美国规模最大的上市投资管理公司。
State Street：道富集团。旗下有道富银行。
Vanguard：先锋集团。世界上最大的不收费基金家族、世界上第二大基金管理公司。
swap agreement：互换协议；通货互换协定；互换货币协议；掉期协议。翻法很多。不确定哪个最官方。
the Securities and Exchange Commission：（美国）证券交易委员会。
the Financial Stability Board：金融稳定委员会。
the Bank for International Settlements：国际清算银行。
the International Monetary Fund：国际货币基金组织。
Lehman Brothers：雷曼兄弟，已倒闭。这个大家应该很熟了。
the db X-trackers：德意志银行交易所买卖基金，也是ETF。
Lyxor brands：领先资产管理公司。
