译者 莫莳moshi
John Kolesidis/ReutersDemonstrators in Athens. Banks are disclosing more of their exposure to Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.
John Kolesidis/路透社 雅典的示威游行活动。银行逐步披露其所持希腊、意大利、爱尔兰、葡萄牙、西班牙主权债务。
After a hurricane, homeowners check nervously to see if their insurance will cover all of their damages. With the European financial crisis still threatening a trail of defaults, United States banks are betting that their insurance is going to pay out.
飓风过后，业主们会惴惴不安地检查，去看看他们的保险是否足以弥补全部损失。欧洲金融危机依然被一连串的债务违约所威胁，美国的银行家们也了然于心，马上保险就该登台亮相了。
Five large American banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, have more than $80 billion of exposure to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, the most economically stressed nations in the euro currency zone, according to a New York Times analysis of the banks’ financial disclosures.
通过对包括摩根大通和高盛在内的5大美国银行的财务披露分析，纽约时报指出，这些银行持有意大利、西班牙、葡萄牙、爱尔兰和希腊超过800亿的风险资产。
But these banks have made extensive use of a type of financial insurance, called credit-default swaps, to help them offset any losses that might occur if defaults swamped the five troubled nations. Using these swaps, along with other measures, the five banks have cut their theoretical exposure to the troubled countries by $30 billion, to $50 billion. The analysis also shows that Citigroup has the greatest percentage of its exposure potentially protected at 47 percent, while Bank of America has bought the least protection at 12 percent.
不过这些银行都广泛使用了一种被称为-信用违约掉期的金融保险，来帮助他们抵消由于这问题重重的5国违约所招致的或有损失。利用这种掉期合约和其它手段，这5家银行从理论上将风险资产锐减了300到500亿美元。分析表明，花旗集团风险资产获保比例最高，为47%，而美国银行比例最低，为12%。
GRAPHICMargins of Uncertainty
图片：所占比例
Big banks have reduced their sovereign debt exposure, but they still have tens of billions of dollars of it.
各大银行已纷纷减持主权债务，但他们手中仍有高达百亿美元的债权。
On Sunday, the Greek government appeared close to a deal with the majority of its creditors that would lead to big write-down in the value of its debt. But even a deal could spawn a series of events that could lead to payouts on Greek credit-default swaps. While the Greek swaps would probably be paid, they represent only part of the $602 billion of swaps that have been written on the five troubled countries.
在周日，希腊政府似乎就要和主要债权人达成巨额债权减值的协议。不过牵一发而动全身，笔笔交易都可能引发导致履行信用违约掉期的连锁反应。希腊的信用掉期恐怕势在必行，但这仅仅是5国高达6020亿美元掉期合约被减记的一部分。
Credit-default swaps have functioned well for big bankruptcies, but they were also a big source of systemic weakness in 2008, when the American International Groupnearly collapsed because it could not make payments on its side of its swaps contracts. Some market participants now doubt they would work properly during periods of great financial instability.
信用违约掉期在大型公司破产时运作良好，但它也同样是2008年金融系统漏洞的重大来源。彼时美国国际集团便是由于无法支付作为承担违约掉期违约赔偿者一方债务而濒临破产。一些机构对掉期能否在金融危机中平稳运行持疑。
“The likelihood of actually getting paid out from owning a credit-default swap would be troubling to me if this were my hedge against a systemic shock — especially in a political environment unfriendly to more Wall Street bailouts,” Mark Spitznagel, chief investment officer at Universa Investments, a hedge fund, said through a spokesman.
一位发言人转达对冲基金Universa Investments首席投资官马克·斯皮兹纳戈尔（Mark Spitznagel）的话说，“如果使用信用掉期对冲系统性震荡-特别是身处不愿再援救金融机构的不利政治环境之中，我觉得，真正从持有的信用违约掉期中取得赔付恐怕阻力重重。”
Since the A.I.G. debacle, regulators have been working to make sure financial firms will actually be able to make, or collect, payments on their swaps when markets are failing. While regulators have the power to get a detailed look at banks’ swaps positions, investors have struggled to get a solid grasp of their exposures from the banks’ financial filings.
自A.I.G.倒下之后政府已经在着手确保金融公司将最终确保能够自己支付或筹集足够资金偿付市场崩溃时的违约赔付。政府能够细查银行掉期头寸细节，然而作为普通投资者想从银行的财报中窥视出他们具体掉期数额可谓是短绠汲深。
Analyzing banks’ Europe-related swaps can be like a walk through a fun house, where appearances are distorted and you don’t know what’s around the corner. The degree of disclosure among the five banks differs greatly and not all of them give a complete snapshot of their exposures and offsetting bets.
研读这些银行欧洲相关的掉期合约，就好比步入了一个表象被扭曲的游乐园，你不知道究竟是什么藏在角落。这5家银行的披露情况大相径庭，而且也非所有都给出了对冲交易完整的简要综述。
But that could change in February, when the banks release 2011 annual reports. The Securities and Exchange Commission this month requested that banks now provide fuller and more consistent presentations of their European positions, saying disclosures have lacked transparency, and might therefore be inadequate for investors. Bank representatives last week said they would comply with the guidance.
但到了二月份，当这些银行公布2011年年报时，这一现状可能会被扭转。证券交易委员会在本月要求银行现在提交有关欧洲国家投资，更加完整更加一直的报告书。委员会指出银行的信息披露缺乏透明性，并可能因此使投资者处于不利地位。银行代表上周称他们会遵守这一指导。
One upshot of the new disclosure might be that certain banks’ European numbers suddenly look substantially bigger, since the S.E.C. is effectively asking banks to unbundle key exposures in their financial statements so outsiders can see how big they are before offsetting items. “If you do see a jump in gross exposures, there will be new questions for management,” said Mike Mayo, a bank analyst with brokerage CLSA.
这次披露的一个可能结果，大概会是某些特定银行的欧洲资产突然看上大了许多。这是因为S.E.C.明确要求银行在财报中捆绑主要风险敞口，从而让外界整整明白对冲前的风险到底有多么巨大。“如果你果然发觉了风险的飙升，那这将会是管理上的新问题，”法国里昂证券的的一位银行分析师麦克·梅约说到。
Citigroup said it had $20.2 billion of exposure to the five stressed peripheral countries at the end of last year. The bank said it had $9.6 billion of “credit protection” on those countries, and had set aside $4.2 billion of collateral that would also offset its total exposure.
花旗称，去年年底他们持有欧洲债务危机5国资产202亿美元。并称，期中96亿有“信用保护”，42亿是作为对冲总体风险的抵押品持有。
Collecting on the credit-protection swaps would mean Citigroup’s counterparties having the money in stressed times to make a full payment. John Gerspach, Citigroup’s chief financial officer, said this month that the bank was highly confident that it could collect, adding that the entities it bought protection from were “very high quality.”
大量持有掉期意味着花旗的对家执行全部交付时将时间紧迫。花旗的首席财务官约翰·戈斯帕奇（John Gerspach）说，本月银行对钱款交付充满信心。他还说保护都源于那些“水准上成”的机构。
Citigroup’s disclosed gross exposure to the five countries, including $7.4 billion in loans that have not actually been drawn, was $28.9 billion at the end of last year. Its net number, after credit-default swaps and collateral, was $15.1 billion. Put another way, Citigroup has “hedged” 47 percent of its disclosed exposure to the five countries.
花旗集团公布了欧债危机中的风险总额，包括还未被提走的74亿美元贷款。这笔贷款在去年年底还是289亿美元。在信用违约掉期和抵押之后，净数字是151亿美元。换句话说，花旗集团已经“对冲”了47%它所公布的欧洲风险资产。
Bank of America appears to have hedged the least, with only 12 percent of its stated $14.4 billion exposure offset with credit-default protection, according to the analysis. “We carefully manage our risk while still supporting our clients in Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain,” said Bank of America spokesman, Jerome F. Dubrowski.
美国银行似乎是最乏于对冲的银行。分析表明，在公开的144亿风险资产中仅有12%进行了信用违约掉期。美国银行发言人杰罗姆·杜布罗斯基（Jerome F. Dubrowski）说，“我们在谨慎管理风险的同时给予我们在希腊、意大利、爱尔兰、葡萄牙和西班牙的客户鼎力支持。”
Like other firms, Bank of America has cut its Europe exposure by aggressively selling assets and cutting back on lending since 2009, when the region’s debt began to look like a serious problem. The bank’s exposure to the five countries is down by 44 percent since 2009, said Mr. Dubrowski. Also important, the new S.E.C. disclosure request could reveal the extent to which a bank has bought credit protection from banks based in the stressed European countries.
自2009年当地区债务问题锐化时，美国银行和其他公司一道，通过大笔出售和削减借贷来减少欧债风险。银行的欧洲5国资产从2009年下降了44%，杜布罗斯基（Dubrowski）再度发言。同样重要的是，新的S.E.C.披露要求可以让我们看看，这家个从欧洲银行买信用保护的银行之风险度。
The fear is that a bank, say, in Italy, would be unable to pay out on its swaps if the country’s government went into default. Morgan Stanley implicitly recognizes that in its European disclosures. Alone among the five banks, it broke out the amount of default protection it had bought from banks in the five peripheral countries, about $1.43 billion.
而担忧是对于一家银行，就拿意大利来说，如果意大利政府违约，那么意大利的银行将无法履行掉期合约。摩根斯坦利在其欧洲披露中也间接承认了这一点。5家银行中，只有它公布了已购欧洲5国资产违约保护的数额，大约是14.3亿美元。
Credit-default swaps can be dangerous because they have the ability to hit one side of the trade with a demand for a overwhelmingly large payout if a default occurs. Right now, it costs a bank $401,000 a year to insure $10 million of Italian government debt for five years, according to Markit, a data provider. If Italy took a serious turn for the worse, and its government debt seemed in real danger of default, that swap price would rapidly spike higher, as happened with Greece.
信用违约掉期也是有风险的，因为一旦违约发生，压倒性大额赔付足以击垮交易履行赔付的一方。此时此刻，银行要支付4.01万美元来保障未来5年1千万意大利国债的安全，据数据提供机构麦盖提（Markit）称。如果意大利的现状急转直下，国债也真的终将违约，那么掉期的价格将迅速暴涨，就像希腊所经历的一样。
If that occurred, the bank that sold the protection might then have to post a lot of cash to ensure it would make good on the swap. Large cash calls like that might drain some banks of liquid assets, causing systemic stress.
若果真如此，承担违约支付一方将不得不准备大量现金以确保足以应对掉期。大量现金调用有可能使银行流动资产流失，进而导致系统性风险。
If an important part of the financial system overhaul were in place by now, there may be fewer questions about whether banks will be able to meet cash calls in stressed times. The change involves directing most swaps trades to clearinghouses, whose job is to ensure that the money flows underlying a trade are made. Clearinghouses would standardize collateral payments across the default swap market, and they might demand higher amounts of collateral than banks currently demand from each other.
如果现在对金融系统的关键部分进行及时改革，事关是否银行能满足在危机时刻的资金要求的担忧，便会减少几分。调整方向涉及，让清算所作为大多数掉期交易的乙方，从而确保交易现金流安全。清算所将使违约掉期市场的抵押标准化，有可能会要求银行将较现行同行抵押数额加大。
Recognizing this weakness in the derivatives market, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 leading industrialized nations said in 2009 that they wanted to have clearing in place for all standardized derivatives by the end of 2012.
来自20国集团主要发达国家的财政部长和央行行长们，意识到衍生市场所存在的这些弱点后，在2009年说，他们希望在2012年底令所有衍生合约标准化。
Yet, as of June last year, only 9.4 percent of the $29.6 trillion credit-default swap market is centrally cleared, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Notably, the credit-default swaps that pay out if a European government defaults appear to have been held back from central clearing by the British regulator, the Financial Services Authority. The F.S.A. declined to comment on why it has not yet approved these swaps.
然而国际清算银行指出，截止到6月份，29.6万亿美元的信用违约掉期市场中只有区区9.4%的合约是在交易所中进行的。值得注意的是，如果欧洲政府违约，似乎现在恰是英国制规者麾下的中央清算所，金融服务局，阻止信用违约掉期的支付。而他们对为何还未准许这些掉期，不予置评。
As things stand, banks still may be able to avoid using their default swaps, except, perhaps, those on Greece. That’s because the European Central Bank has taken stronger actions to prevent the crisis worsening, like making $620 billion of cheap loans to European banks in December. But the bank’s moves do little to actually reduce European government debt levels.
除非是遭遇了希腊国债信用掉期，就目前情况来看，银行可能还是可以避免使用手中违约掉期的。这是因为欧洲中央银行已经采取有力措施，像是在12月低息贷与欧洲银行6200亿美元，来防止危机的进一步恶化。但央行此举对解救水深火热的欧洲主权债务，实在是杯水车薪。
Until those come down, the banks are betting on their hedges, imperfect as they may be.
不到金融改革法案修改确立那一刻，各个银行都将在风口浪尖进行风险对冲交易，一如既往地风险缠身。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/241771/248463
