中國期貨的投機狂潮 China futures gripped as speculators rush in

At the beginning of the year western commodity traders knew China, theworld’s biggest consumer of raw materials, would play a decisive role in thedirection of markets. What they did not know was that it would be Chineseinvestors as much as the country’s economic prospects driving prices.

在今年年初，西方大宗商品交易商知道，中國這個全球最大的原材料消費國，將在市場方向上扮演決定性角色。他們當時不知道的是，驅動價格的不僅是中國經濟前景，還有中國投資者。

In the past month a near-mania has gripped the country’s commodityfutures markets, as an army of day traders and yield-hungry wealth managershave poured into the lightly regulated sector, often with astonishing results.

在過去一個月裏，一種近乎瘋狂的氛圍籠罩了中國大宗商品期貨市場。一羣短線交易者和渴求收益的財富管理公司涌入這個監管較輕的市場，常常製造驚人的結果。

Daily trading volumes in some commodity futures contracts such as ironore have been so large that sometimes they have exceeded China’s annualimports. Turnover in Shanghai steel futures one day last week eclipsed allshares traded on China’s equity markets.

鐵礦石等一些大宗商品期貨的日交易額大幅飆升，有時甚至會超過中國年度進口額。上海鋼鐵期貨在上週某一天的交易額超過了中國股市的總成交額。

Alarmed by the surge in trading, which has parallels with the lead-up tolast year’s equity market meltdown, Chinese exchanges have moved quickly toincrease transaction fees and margin requirements on futures contracts to tryto cool some of the speculative fervour.

此番交易飆升與去年股市暴跌前的情形如出一轍，令中國各大期貨交易所警鈴大作，它們迅速採取行動，提高期貨合約的交易手續費和保證金標準，試圖爲投機熱降溫。

While this has removed some of the froth from prices, it is not clearwhether this will deter the new band of investors, who have turned away fromequity markets after draconian rules were imposed last year. At the same timeBeijing wants to place China at the centre of global commodity markets and haveprices determined and settled in renminbi.

儘管這種做法消除了一些價格泡沫，但目前尚不清楚這是否會嚇阻新的投資者羣體進入，後者在去年推行嚴厲法規之後從股市轉戰而來。與此同時，中國政府希望讓中國進入全球大宗商品市場的中心，並用人民幣爲大宗商品定價和結算。

All of this could have far-reaching consequences for the way rawmaterials are priced, and risks driving up the costs of commodities that arethe building blocks of the global economy.

所有這些可能對原材料定價方式產生深遠影響，而且有可能推升作爲全球經濟基石的大宗商品的價格。

“This growth poses multiple dangers to global commodity pricing givenhow less regulated and therefore less protective the Chinese regimes are forinvestors who are perhaps the most speculative in the world,” analysts at Citisay in a report this week.

花旗(Citi)分析師在本週的一篇報告中表示：“鑑於中國期貨市場監管要少得多，從而對可能是全球投機性最強的投資者的保護也要低得多，這種（交易量的）增加對全球大宗商品定價造成了多重風險。”

Western regulators have been wrestling with the problem of thefinancialisation of commodities for years, in some cases introducing positionlimits and curbs. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan saidspeculation was responsible for the rapid move up in oil prices in late2007-early 2008 when they reached $145 a barrel. China is just starting tograpple with these issues.

西方監管機構多年來一直在應對大宗商品的金融化問題，在某些情況下還出臺了倉位限制措施。美聯儲(Fed)前主席艾倫•格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)表示，2007年末至2008年初油價的快速上漲是投機造成的——當時油價達到了每桶145美元。中國只是剛開始應對這些問題。

Western commodity traders were alerted to the power of Chinese investorswhen a group of hedge funds led by Shanghai Chaos launched a bear raid oncopper early last year.

當去年年初以上海混沌投資公司(Shanghai Chaos)爲首的一羣對衝基金做空銅的時候，西方大宗商品交易商對中國投資者的實力感到震驚。

But this time the interest has gone mainstream, with wealth managementand retail investors piling in on domestic bourses such as the Shanghai FuturesExchange.

但這次的投機興趣來自主流領域，財富管理公司和散戶投資者紛紛涌入上海期貨交易所(Shanghai Futures Exchange)等國內交易所。

The trigger for greater speculative interest in commodities can betraced back to the credit surge engineered by Chinese policymakers this year toprop up the economy and its currency.

大宗商品投機興趣上升的誘因，可以追溯至中國政策制定者今年爲提振經濟和人民幣匯率而主導的信貸激增。

This led to a pick-up in construction activity and stoked investorappetite for ways to bet on the Chinese economy.

這導致建築活動增長，並激發投資者設法押注中國經濟的興趣。

“In our view, it’s simply commodity futures’ turn given upside elsewhereappears fairly limited while prices of many raw materials, before the latestrebound, had dropped by more than 70 per cent from their peak levels in 2011,”according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

美銀美林(Bank ofAmerica Merrill Lynch)的分析師表示：“就我們看來，這只是輪到大宗商品期貨了，因爲其他市場的上升空間看起來相當有限，同時與2011年的峯值水平相比，許多原材料的價格在最近這波反彈之前下跌了逾70%。”

There certainly appears to have been a marked rise in new participantsin commodities and the scale and the magnitude of that surge suggests they aredeploying capital in markets they’re unfamiliar with, says Scott Hobart,portfolio manager at HFZ, which trades commodities both in China and globally. “There is aclear thirst for short-term trading and short-term risk.”

HFZ的投資組合經理斯科特•霍巴特(Scott Hobart)表示，顯然大宗商品的新參與者顯著增加了，而交易量飆升的規模和範圍表明，他們正在不熟悉的市場配置資本。“他們明顯對短期交易和短期風險有急切的胃口”。HFZ在中國和全球開展大宗商品交易。

Some of the capital is probably from groups of high-yielding wealthmanagement products sold by Chinese banks, according to Logan Wright, directorof China markets research at Rhodium Group in Hong Kong.

榮鼎諮詢(RhodiumGroup)駐香港的中國市場研究總監洛根•萊特(Logan Wright)表示，其中一些資本可能來自中國各銀行銷售的高收益理財產品。

Third-party financial institutions that invest the money have beenforced into speculative strategies to deliver targeted rates of return for thebank investors, he adds.

他補充稱，負責資金投資的第三方金融機構被迫採取投機策略，爲這些銀行渠道的投資者實現目標回報率。

China’s domestic bond market has been hit by defaults by state-owned orpartially state-owned companies in the past year —in a market whereinvestors assumed for years that the government would never allow a default.

在過去一年裏，中國國內債券市場遭受國有企業或者國有參股企業違約的衝擊——在中國債市，投資者多年來一直以爲，中國政府將永遠不會允許出現違約。

That has dimmed the appeal of investing in bonds. Equally Chineseequities have also fallen more than 30 per cent in the past year.

這削弱了債券投資的吸引力。同樣中國股市也在過去一年下跌逾30%。

The impact of this speculative frenzy has not just been felt infinancial markets. The rise in steel prices, up more than 50 per cent this yearafter six years of losses, has led mills in China to restart or increaseproduction just as the world struggles with a glut of the metal.

此次投機狂熱的影響不僅僅體現在金融市場。經歷了6年的下跌以後，鋼價今年上漲了50%。鋼價上漲促使中國的鋼廠重啓生產或者增加產量，而全球還在艱難應對鋼鐵過剩問題。

The world may have to get used to pricing power shifting east and theincreased volatility it will bring. China’s commodity exchanges are seeking toopen up to foreign traders and an international oil futures contract isexpected to be launched this year in Shanghai.

世界可能不得不適應定價權轉向東方，以及由此導致的波動性加大。中國的大宗商品交易所正尋求向外國交易商開放，預計上海將在今年推出國際原油期貨合約。