It is not clear, however, that government bonds are still as useful for hedging equity risk today. During the last prolonged bear market, in 2022, both asset classes suffered as inflation rose sharply and interest rates followed (see chart 2). Ask investors today what might end stock-markets' bull run, and resurgent inflation-and the hawkish response it would require from central bankers-will top plenty of lists. That would mean share and bond prices falling in tandem once more.然而，目前尚不清楚政府债券是否仍像过去那样能有效对冲股票风险。在最近一次2022年的长期熊市中，随着通胀大幅上升和利率随之走高，这两类资产都遭受了损失（见图2）。若问当今的投资者什么可能终结股市的牛市，通胀再度抬头——以及它将引发的央行鹰派反应——会在许多人的清单上位居前列。那将意味着股票和债券价格再次同步下跌。

生词

Suffered /ˈsʌfəd/ v. 遭受；受苦；经历（痛苦、损害等）

Resurgent /rɪˈsɜːrdʒənt/ adj. 复苏的；再度崛起的

Bull /bʊl/ n. 多头；看涨的人；公牛

Hawkish /ˈhɔːkɪʃ/ adj. 鹰派的；主张强硬政策的

Tandem /ˈtændəm/ n. 串联；协同；双人自行车

Feeling liberated

Others will recall the short-lived panic that followed the unveiling of President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs last April. Then, for a brief spell, Treasuries and stocks also dropped together as investors worried that the White House's erratic policy making would endanger the bonds' status as a haven asset for international investors. It is easy to imagine the next leg down in share prices being triggered by similar concerns, or by questions over the sustainability of rich-world governments' vast borrowing. In either case, stocks and bonds would both be in the firing line.

另一些人则会回想起去年四月特朗普总统的“解放日”关税政策公布后引发的短暂恐慌。当时，由于投资者担心白宫反复无常的政策制定会危及美国国债作为国际投资者避险资产的地位，美国国债和股票曾一度同步下跌。不难想象，下一轮股价下跌同样可能由类似的担忧引发，或者源于对富裕国家政府巨额借贷可持续性的质疑。无论哪种情况，股票和债券都将同时面临冲击。

生词

Unveiling /ʌnˈveɪlɪŋ/ n. 揭幕；发布；正式公开（unveil的现在分词/动名词形式）

Erratic /ɪˈrætɪk/ adj. 古怪的；反复无常的；不稳定的

A second category of hedging strategies involves derivative contracts called options. These have long been used by hedge-fund managers and other professional investors, but are increasingly sold by retail brokers, too. "Overlaying" a stock portfolio with options allows an investor to harvest most of the profits when share prices are rising, then to restrict their losses once the cycle turns.第二类对冲策略涉及被称为期权的衍生品合约。这些工具长期以来一直为对冲基金经理和其他专业投资者所使用，但现在也越来越多地通过零售经纪商销售给普通投资者。通过用期权“叠加”股票投资组合，投资者可以在股价上涨时获取大部分利润，并在市场周期逆转时限制损失。

A "put" option on a stock, for example, confers the right but not the obligation to sell the stock at a pre-agreed "strike" price on some specified future date. If you also own the underlying stock, the effect is to cut off your potential losses beyond a certain point. Set the strike at 90% of the current price, say, and the option to sell at that strike means you cannot lose more than 10% of your initial holding. A put option on the S&P 500 share index that limits losses to 10% over the coming year currently costs 3.6% of the underlying amount to be protected. In other words, an investor who agrees to give up 3.6 percentage points of their returns can be protected from a crash.

以股票的“看跌”期权为例，它赋予持有者在未来某个指定日期以预先约定的“行权价”卖出该股票的权利，而非义务。如果你同时也持有该标的股票，其效果就是将你的潜在损失限制在某一水平以下。比如，将行权价设定为当前价格的90%，那么以此价格卖出股票的期权就意味着你的初始持仓损失不会超过10%。目前，一份将未来一年损失限制在10%以内的标普500股指看跌期权，其成本相当于所保护标的金额的3.6%。换句话说，愿意牺牲3.6个百分点收益的投资者，便可获得免受崩盘冲击的保护。

生词

Confers /kənˈfɜːrz/ v. 授予；给予（权利、荣誉等）；商谈

Obligation /ˌɒblɪˈɡeɪʃn/ n. 义务；责任；契约

The trouble is that the performance of such hedges depends heavily on the choice of strike price and expiration date. Analysts at Goldman Sachs, a bank, compared how two strategies using put options on the S&P 500 would have performed from 1996 to 2002. One involved buying a series of one-year options, each limiting losses to 10%; the other, a series of one-month options limiting losses to 4%. Though both would have offered protection as the dotcom bubble burst, the costs of repeated option purchases would have snowballed. Overlaying a stock portfolio with the one-year options would have resulted in roughly the same annualised return as unhedged stocks (albeit with less volatility). Overlaying it with one-month options would have generated a substantially worse return, despite the crash.

问题在于，此类对冲策略的效果高度依赖于行权价和到期日的选择。高盛银行分析师对比了1996年至2002年间两种标普500指数看跌期权策略的表现：第一种策略是逐年买入一年期期权，将年度损失上限设定为10%；第二种策略则是逐月买入一月期期权，将月度损失上限设定为4%。虽然这两种策略都能在互联网泡沫破裂时提供保护，但反复购买期权的成本会如滚雪球般持续累积。若将一年期期权叠加于股票组合，其年化收益率与未对冲股票基本持平（尽管波动性较低），而采用一月期期权策略的投资组合即使经历市场崩盘，其收益率仍显著逊色。

Some of the most effective strategies the Goldman analysts found fell into the third category: combinations of stocks and non-bond diversifiers. In fact, the best diversifiers were mostly filtered baskets of stocks, such as the S&P 500 "low volatility" subindex, which includes the 100 least volatile stocks in the main index. A 50/50 split between this and the S&P 500 would, from 1996 to 2002, have generated nearly twice the annualised excess returns (overcash) of the S&P 500 index alone. So would a similar split with the S&P 500 "dividend aristocrats" index, which includes only companies that have increased their dividends every year for the past 25. Diversifying into "quality" stocks (with high returns on equity, stable earnings and low net debt) would have brought similar returns.

高盛分析师发现，部分最有效的策略属于第三类：股票与非债券型分散工具的复合配置。事实上，最佳分散工具多为经过筛选的股票篮子，例如标普500"低波动率"子指数——该指数由主指数中波动率最低的100只成分股构成。若将此类资产与标普500指数进行五五开配置，1996年至2002年间产生的年化超额收益（相对于现金）近乎纯标普500指数的两倍。采用相同比例配置标普500"股息贵族"指数（仅纳入连续25年提高股息的企业）也能获得类似回报。而将"优质股"（净资产收益率高、盈利稳定、净负债率低）纳入投资组合，同样能带来相近的收益表现。

生词

Subindex /ˈsʌbɪndeks/ n. 分指数；子指数；下标

Split /splɪt/ v./n. 分裂；拆分；（股票）拆股