【精译求精系列】华尔街太傅：积极的投资者——挖掘难以寻找的优势

编者按

本文的作者是纽约大学金融系教授Aswath Damodaran，号称“华尔街太傅”，目前在NYU的商学院教授估值课程，是华尔街最热门的教授之一，为华尔街培训了大量的精英。本文作者主要讨论了积极投资者要如何寻找自己的竞争优势：Active Investing: Seeking the Elusive Edge!（积极的投资者：挖掘难以寻找的优势）。

In my last post, I pointed to the shift towards passive investing that has accelerated over the last decade and argued that much of that shift can be explained by the sub-par performance of active investors. I ended the post on a contradictory note by explaining why I remained an active investor, though the reasons I gave were more personal than professional. 

在上一篇文章中，我提到在过去十年里向被动投资阵营转变的速度在加快，主要的原因是积极投资者表现欠佳。在文末我给出了自相矛盾的结尾，我解释了自己为何仍旧是一名积极投资者，给出的原因主观性多过专业性。

I was taken to task on two fronts. The first was that I should have spent less time describing the problem (poor performance of active investors) and more time diagnosing the problem (the reasons for that poor performance). The second was that my rationale for being an active investor, i.e., that I enjoyed investing enough that I would be okay not earning excess returns, could never be used if I sought to manage other people's money and that a defense of active investing would have to be based on something more substantial. 

今天我主要解决两点问题。首先，要少去描述问题（积极投资者的欠佳表现），而是更多的去诊断问题（表现不佳的原因）。第二，阐明作为一名积极投资者的依据，比如有评论说我喜欢投资，所以对是否有超额回报都能接受，但是当你管理着很多人的钱时绝对不能这样；为积极投资者辩护的内容也要更实质性一些。

Both are fair critiques and I hope to address them in this post.

这两个评论都中肯，我想在本篇文章中探讨这两个问题。

The Roots of the Active Investing Malaise

积极投资综合症的根源

There is no denying the facts. Active investing has a problem not only because it collectively under performs passive investing (which is a mathematical given) but also because the drag on returns (from transactions costs and management fees) seems to be getting worse over time.  

毫无疑问，积极投资是有问题的，不仅仅是因为积极投资者的表现逊于被动投资者（从收益率上来说），还在于收益的拖油瓶（交易费用，管理费用）也变得越来越大。

Even those few strands of active investing that historically have outperformed the market have come under siege in the last decade. While there are many reasons that you can point to for this phenomenon, here are some that I would highlight:

即使是那些历史上已经超越市场的积极投资，也在过去十年里被蚕食得差不多了。解释这种现象的理由有很多，其中有一些是我想强调的。

1，A "Flatter" Investment Word: The investment world is getting flatter, as the differences across active investors rapidly dissipate.

1，“谄媚”的投资界：随着积极投资者之间的区别迅速消失，投资界已经变得越来越阿谀奉承了。

 From information to processing models to trading platforms, professionals at the active investing game (including mutual funds and hedge funds) and individual investors are on a much more even playing field than ever before.

从信息获取，到交易模式，再到交易平台，积极投资游戏里的专业人士（包括共同基金和对冲基金）和个人投资者所处的平台比以往任何时候都更加公平。

 As an individual investor, I have access to much of the information that an analyst working at Merrill Lynch or Fidelity has, whether it be financial statements or market rumors. I am not naive enough to believe that, SEC rules against selective information disclosure notwithstanding, there are no channels for analysts to get "inside" information but much of that information is either too biased or too noisy to be useful. I have almost as much processing power on my personal computer as these analysts do on theirs and can perhaps even put it to better use. 

作为个人投资者，我可以获得美林证券或富达的分析师所拥有的许多信息，无论是财务报表还是市场传言。虽然SEC设定了反对选择性信息披露的规则，但我不会天真到相信分析师没有渠道获得“内部”信息，只不过他们获取的大部分信息太偏太杂，没什么用。我用自己电脑做分析的能力几乎与这些分析师的一样，甚至可以更好。

In fact, the only area where institutions (or at least some of them) may have an advantage over me is in being able to access information on trading data in real time and investing instantaneously and in large quantities on that information, leading to breast beating about the unfairness of it all. If history is any guide, the returns to these strategies fade quickly, as other large players with just as much trading power are drawn into the game. 

事实上，机构（至少其中的某些机构）比我唯一有优势的地方可能在于能够实时获取交易数据的信息，并且可以根据信息立即、大手笔地进行投资，这种不公平性确实让人捶胸顿足。如果历史可以给人指引，那么这些策略的回报会迅速消失，因为其他具有同样交易能力的大型玩家也被吸引到游戏中。

In fact, while much ink was spilt on flash trading and how it has put those who cannot partake at a disadvantage, it is worth noting that the returns to flash trading, while lucrative at first, have faded, while attracting smaller players into the game. 

事实上，闪存交易存在很多污点，而且它使得那些不能承担风险的人处于不利地位。但是值得注意的是，闪存交易虽然有利可图，当更多的小玩家进来时，这个收益就已经消失了。

In summary, if the edge that institutional active investors have had over individual active investors was rooted in information and processing power, it has almost disappeared in the United States and has eroded in much of the rest of the world.

总而言之，如果机构活跃的投资者相较于个人积极投资者而言的优势在于信息和处理能力，这个优势在美国几乎已经消失了，在世界上其他地方也大大削弱了。

2，No Core Philosophy: There is an old saying that if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything, and it applies to much of active investing. Successful investing starts with an investment philosophy, a set of core beliefs about market behavior that give birth to investment strategies.

2，没有核心的理念：有句老话说，如果没有任何信念，你最终会一事无成。这句话适用于大多数积极的投资。成功的投资从投资理念开始，针对市场行为的产生一套核心信念才能进一步生成投资策略。

Too many active investors, when asked to characterize their investment philosophies, will describe themselves as "value investors" (the most mushy of all investment descriptions, since it can mean almost anything you want it to mean), "just like Warren Buffett" (a give away of lack of authenticity) or "investors in low PE stocks" (confusing an investment strategy with a philosophy).

有太多的积极投资者被问道自己的投资理念时，他们会将自己描述为“价值投资者”（所有投资描述中最模糊不清的，你想说它是什么就是什么），就像沃伦·巴菲特一样（缺乏真实性）或“低PE股票投资者”（将投资策略与投资理念混淆）。

The absence of a core philosophy has two predictable consequences: (a) a lack of consistency, where active investors veer from one strategy to another, often drawn to whatever strategy worked best during the last time period and (b) me-tooism, as they chase momentum stocks to keep up with the rest. The evidence for both can be seen in the graph below, which looks at the percentages of funds in each style group who remain in that group three and five years later and finds that about half of all US funds change styles within the next five years.

缺乏核心理念有两种可能的后果：（a）缺乏一致性，活跃的投资者从一种策略转向另一种策略，只要是上一时间段投资收益最好的策略，他们就会被吸引过去（b）效仿主义，追逐大势股以跟上其他人的步伐。可以在下面的表中看到上述两个现象的证据，查看三年和五年后仍然留在某一投资风格中的基金百分比，大约一半的美国基金在五年后改变了投资风格。

3，Bloated Cost Structures: If there is a core lesson that comes from looking at the performance of active investors, it is that the larger the drag on returns from the costs of being active, the more difficult it is to beat passive counterparts. One component of these costs is trading costs, and the absence of a core investment philosophy, referenced above, leads to more trading/turnover.

3，膨胀的成本结构：如果从积极投资者的表现可以得出一个核心的教训，那必然是：积极投资所获收益的成本越大，就越难胜过被动投资者。这些成本的组成之一是交易成本，上面提到的缺乏核心投资理念会导致更高的交易费用/收益比率。

As fund managers undo entire portfolios and redo them to match their latest active investing avatars. Another is the overhead cost of maintaining an active investing infrastructure that was built for a different market in a different era. The third cost is that of active management fees, set at levels that are not justified by either the services provided or by the returns delivered by that management team. Active money managers are feeling the pressure to cut costs, as can be seen in expense ratios declining over time, and the fund flows away from active money managers has been greatest at highest cost funds.

因为基金经理会撤消整个投资组合，然后重新建立组合，以更新其积极投资者的形象。另一个是为维持另一时代、市场的积极投资结构所付出的间接成本。第三个成本是积极管理费用，该费用设置在跟管理曾提供的服务或收益不想关的水平。积极的资金管理者有削减成本的压力，正如从不断下降的成本比率中看出，从积极的资金管理者手中流出的基金都是成本最高的。

I can only speak for myself but there is not one active investor (nope, not even him, and not even if he was forty years younger) in the world that I have enough reverence for that I would pay 2% (or even .5%) of my portfolio and 20% (or 5%) of my excess returns every year, no matter what his or her track record may be. To those who would counter that this is the price you have to pay for smart money, my response is that the smart money does not stay smart for very long, as evidenced by how quickly hedge fund returns have come back to earth. 

我只想说，不论过往的投资记录有多好，在这个世界上绝对没有任何一个积极投资者能让我愿意支付投资组合的2％（甚至.5 ％），或是支付每年超额回报的20％（或5％）。对于那些反对说这是你必须为赚得聪明钱付出的代价，我的回应是聪明一时不代表聪明一世，已有证据表明对冲基金的收益率已经急速跌到了尘埃里。

4，Career Protection: Active money managers are human and it should come as no surprise  that they act in ways that increase their compensation and reduce their chances of losing their jobs. First, to the extent that their income is a function of assets under management (AUM), it is very difficult, if not impossible, to fight the urge to scale up a strategy to accommodate new inflows, even if it is not scaleable. 

4，职业保护：积极的基金经理也是人，毫无疑问，他们会为了增加报酬、减少失去工作的机会采取行动。首先，如果基金经理的收入跟管理资产（AUM）相关，只要有可能，他就很难抑制住扩张投资则略以适应新战略的冲动，即便是这个投资策略根本无法被扩展。

Second, if you are a money manager running an established fund, it is far less risky (from a career perspective) to adopt a strategy of sustained, low-level mediocrity than one that tries to beat the market by substantial amounts, with the always present chance that you could end up failing badly. In institutional investing, this has led some of the largest funds to quasi-index, where their holdings deviate only mildly from the index, with predictable results: these funds deliver returns that match the index, prior to transactions costs, and systematically under perform true index funds, after transactions costs, but not by enough for managers to be fired.

其次，如果你管理着已成立的基金，（从职业生涯来看）采取一个持续的、低水平的平庸战略的风险远低于想要大幅度战胜市场的策略，机会看似总在眼前，但是你最终可能惨败。在机构投资中，这会使那些最大型的基金变为准指数，持有量跟指数偏离不大，交易成绩也可预测：这些基金的收益率跟指数收益率相当，但在付出交易成本之后，总体而言其收益比真实的指数基金收益还低，不过这还不足以让基金经理被解雇。

Third, at the other end of the spectrum, if you are a small, active money manager trying to make a name for yourself, you will naturally be drawn to high-risk, high-payoff strategies, even if they are bad bets on an expected value basis. In effect, you are treating investing as a lottery, where if you win, more money will flow into your funds and if you do not, it is other people's money anyway.

第三，如果你是一个小型的积极投资者，旨在为自己赚取名声，即使大家觉得这不是个好赌注，你也自然而然会被高风险，高收益的策略吸引。实际上，你把投资当成了彩票，赢了就会有更多的钱流入你的基金，即便输了，输的也是别人的钱。

There are macroeconomic factors that may also explain why active investing has had more trouble  in the last decade, but it is not low interest rates or central banks that are the culprits. It is that the global economy is going through a structural shift, where the old order (with a clear line of demarcation between developed & emerging markets) is being replaced with a new one (with new power centers and shifting risks), upending historical relationships and patterns. 

某些宏观经济因素也可以解释为何在过去十年中积极投资遇到更多麻烦，但低利率或中央银行不是罪魁祸首。主要是因为全球经济正在经历结构性转变，旧秩序（发达市场和新兴市场之间有明确的分界线）被一个新的（新的权利中心和转移风险）颠覆历史关系和模式的秩序所取代。

Given how much of active money management is built on mean reversion and lessons learned by poring over US market data from the last century, it should come as no surprise that the payoff to screening stocks (for low PE ratios or high dividend yield) or following rigid investing rules (whether they be centered on CAPE or interest rates) has declined.  In all of this discussion, I have focused on the faults of active institutional investors, be they hedge funds or mutual funds, but I believe that their clients bear just as much responsibility for the state of affairs. 

活跃的资金管理建立在均值回归，以及从上世纪美国市场数据中吸取的经验教训之上，毫无疑问，筛选股票（寻找低市盈率或高股息率）或遵循一成不变的投资规则（无论是以CAPE还是利率为中心）的收益率已经下降。在上述讨论中，我主要例举了积极的机构投资者的缺陷，包括对冲基金和共同基金，但我认为他们的客户对这种现状也负有同样的责任。

They (clients) let greed override good sense (knowing that those past returns are too good to be true, but not asking questions), claim to be long term (while demanding to see positive performance every three months), complain about quasi indexing (while using tracking error to make sure that deviations from the index get punished) and refuse to take responsibility for their own financial affairs (blaming their financial advisors for all that goes bad). In effect, clients get the active money managers they deserve.

客户让贪婪重战胜了理智判断（他们知道过去的收益率高得近乎不真实，但从不感到疑惑），说自己是长期投资者（却要求每三个月就看到积极的表现），抱怨准指数（同时使用错误跟踪确保偏离指数会受到惩罚），拒绝自己承担财务责任（把一切坏结果都赖在自己的财务顾问身上）。实际上，客户遇到这样的积极基金经理都是他们应得的。

A Pathway to Active Investing Success

通往成功的积极投资之路

If you accept even some of my explanation of why active investing is failing, there is a kernel of good news in that description. Specifically, the pathway to being a successful active investor lies in exploiting the weakness of the active investment community, especially large institutional investors. Here are my ingredients for active investing success, though I will add the necessary caveat that having all these ingredients will not guarantee an investment payoff.

如果你赞成上述关于积极投资为什么失败的解释，那么在这个上述解释中还有个好消息。 具体来说，成为一名成功的积极投资者的途径在于利用积极投资群体的弱点，特别是大型机构投资者的弱点。 以下是我认为的成为成功的积极投资的因素，但我觉得有必要提醒一下，具备以下所有因素也并不能保证投资回报。

1.Have a core investment philosophy: In my book on investment philosophies, I argued that there is no best investment philosophy that fits all investors. The best investment philosophy for you is the one that best fits you as an investor, in sync not only with your views about markets but with your personal makeup (in terms of patience, liquidity needs and skill sets). 

1，培养一个核心的投资理念：在我关于投资理念的书中，我说过没有一个适合所有投资者的最佳投资理念。 对你来说，最好的投资理念是最适合自己的，它不仅与您对市场的看法同步，还要与您的个人特征复合（譬如：耐心，流动性需求和技能组合方面）。

Thus, if you have a long time horizon, believe that value is grounded in fundamentals and that markets under estimate the value of assets in place, old-time value investing may very well be your best choice. In contrast, if your time horizon is short, believe that momentum, not value, drives stock prices, your investment philosophy may be built around technical analysis, centered on gauging price momentum and shifts in it.

 因此，如果你有很长的投资时间范围，相信价值是基于基本面的，而市场低估了资产的价值，旧式的价值投资可能是你最好的选择。 相反，如果你的时间范围很短，相信是势头而非价值驱动着股票价格，你的投资理念可能围绕技术分析建立起来，集中在测量价格动量和变化。

2，Balance faith with feedback: In a post on Valeant, I argued that investing requires balancing faith with feedback, faith in your core market beliefs with enough of an acceptance that you can be wrong on the details, to allow for feedback that can modify your investing decisions. 

2，平衡自信与反馈：在写Valeant的一篇文章中，我说到投资需要平衡自信与反馈，要对自己核心的市场信念有自信，要能接受自己在细节上可能犯下的错误，要接受可能修正您的投资决定的反馈。

In practice, walking this tightrope is exceedingly difficult to do, as many investors sacrifice one at the expense of the other. At one extreme, you have investors whose faith is so absolute that there is no room for feedback and positions once taken can never be reversed. At the other extreme, you have investors who  have no faith and whose decisions change constantly, as they observe market prices.  

 在实践中，走这条钢索是非常困难的，因为许多投资者会以一个为代价牺牲掉另一个。 一个极端是，你有一个有绝对信仰的投资者，不给反馈留下余地，一旦他采取立场就永远不会转变。 另一个极端是投资者毫无信心，他们的决定随着对市场价格的观察而不断变化。

3，Find your investing edge: It has always been my contention that you have to bring something uncommon to the investment table to be able to take something away. Drawing on the language of competitive advantages and moats, what sets you apart does not have to be unique but it does have to be scarce and not easily replicable. That is why I am unmoved by talk of big data in investing and the coming onslaught of successful quant strategies, unless that big data comes with exclusivity (you and only you can exploit it). 

3，寻找自己的投资优势：一直以来我的观点都是，你必须为投资带来一些不同寻常的东西，才能够获得一些东西。用竞争优势和护城河的话来说，让你与众不同的不一定是唯一的，但它必须是稀缺的，不容易复制。这就是为什么我对大数据投资和成功的量化战略不感兴趣的原因，除非大数据带有独特性（只有你可以接触到它）。

Here are four potential edges (and I am sure that there others that I might be missing): (a) In sync with client(s): I was not being facetious when I argued that one of my big advantages as an investor is that I invest my own money and hence have a freedom that most active institutional investors cannot have. If you are managing other peoples money, this suggests that your most consequential decision will be the screening your clients, turning money away from those who are not suited to your investment philosophy.

这里有四个潜在的优势（我相信还有别的优势）：（a）与客户步调一致：我觉得自己作为投资者的一个巨大优势是，我投资的是自己的钱，这并不是在开玩笑，我因此有了自由权，而最活跃的机构投资者都没有这种自由权。如果你管理其他人的钱，这表明你最重要的决定将是对自己的客户进行筛选，拒收那些跟你的投资理念不相符的人的资金。

 (b) Sell Liquidity: To be able to sell liquidity to investors seeking it, especially in the midst of a crisis, is perhaps one of investing's few remaining solid bets. That is possible, though, only if you, as an investor, value liquidity less than the rest of the market.  

（b）卖流动性：向寻求流动性的投资者售卖流动性，特别是在危机中，这可能是投资里剩下的几个固定的投注之一。只有当作为投资者的你认为的流动性的价值比市场上其他人认为的要低，这才是有可能的。

(c) Tax Play: Investor price assets to generate after-tax returns and that effectively implies that assets that generate high-tax income (dividends, for instance) will be priced lower than assets that generate low-tax or no-tax income. If you are an investor with a different tax profile, paying either no or low taxes, you will be able to capture some of the return differential. Before you dismiss this as impossible or illegal, recognize that there is a portion of each of our portfolios, perhaps in IRAs or pension funds, where we are taxed differently and may be able to use it to our advantage. 

 （c）税务：投资者为资产定价，以产生税后收益，这实际上暗示着产生高税收收入的资产（例如股利）的定价将低于产生低税收或无税收入的资产。如果您是具有不同税务简档的投资者，支付无税或低税率，您将能够捕捉一些回报差异。在您视之为不可能或非法行为之前，请认识到我们的投资组合中有一部分（可能是IRA或养老基金）可以让我们进行不同的纳税，还能将其用作我们的优势。

(d) Big Picture Perspective: As we become a world of specialists, each engrossed in his or her corner of the investment universe, there is an opening for "big picture" investors, those who can see the forest for the trees and retain perspective by looking across markets and across time. 

（d）广角视角：当有很多专家时，每个人都埋头在他或她自己的投资角落，有一个开放的“广角”投资者，他们可以看到树木所在的森林，可以透视市场和时间。

If you are considering actively investing your money, you should be clear about what your own investment philosophy is, and why you hold on to it, and identify the scarce resource that you are bringing to the investment table.

如果你正在考虑积极投资，那么你应该清楚自己的投资理念是什么，为什么坚信它，并且认清自己能够拿到投资桌上的为数不多的筹码。

 If you are considering paying someone else to actively manage your money, my suggestion is that while you should consider that person's track record, it is even more critical that you examine whether that track record is grounded in a consistent investment philosophy and backed up by a sustainable edge. 

 如果你正在考虑付钱让他人用积极的策略管理你的资金，我的建议是，虽然考虑他的历史投资记录是应该的，但更重要的是检查他的投资记录是否基于一致的投资理念，并有持续性的优势支撑。

Conclusion

结论

There is much that I still do not know about investing but here are the lessons that I learn, unlearn and relearn every day. 

关于投资还有很多地方需要探索，以下是我学到的或者每天都会反复学习的道理。

First, an investment cannot be a sure-bet and risky at the same time, and you can count me among the skeptical when presented with the next easy way of beating the market. 

第一，投资不可能确定性与风险性同在，接下来当你遇到一个能轻易胜过市场的方法时，在众多怀疑声中你可以相信这点。

Second, when I believe that I own the high ground in any investment debate, it is a sure sign that I have let hubris get the better of me and that my arguments are far weaker than I think they are. 

 第二，当我认为在任何投资辩论中自己都拥有制高点时，我就可以确定傲慢已经冲昏了我的头脑，我的论点远比我想象的要弱。

Third, much as I hate to be wrong on my investment choices, I learn more when I concede that "I am wrong" than when I contend that "I am right". 

 第三，我也很讨厌自己的投资选择错了，但承认“我错了”比假装自己“是对的”能学到更多。 

 For now, I will continue to invest actively, holding true to my investment philosophy centered on intrinsic value, while nurturing the small edges that I have over institutional investors. 

目前为止，我仍会继续积极地投资，坚持以内在价值为中心的投资理念，同时拓展自己相对于机构投资者而言的细小优势。

相关阅读：

峰会报名

由格隆汇打造的“决战港股”海外投资嘉年华系列峰会将自2016年10月19日（周三）至2017年1月12日，在全国8大核心城市隆重召开（深圳、杭州、上海、南京、北京、成都、厦门、广州）！

首次将中国境内的海外投资这个特殊群体（海外上市公司，拟在海外上市的公司，海外投资者、机构、监管层）聚拢在一起，结朋交友，共商全球资产配置大计。

格隆汇真心诚邀所有对海外投资感兴趣的朋友参加这次巡回峰会——这将是一次港股的“长征+北伐”盛会。期待您的参加！

第八站将于2017年1月12日（周四）在广州召开。

了解活动详细内容以及报名方式请点击阅读原文，到场参会者均会获得由“格隆汇”
精心准备的精美礼品！