新的股票宇宙即将形成?
股市投资的基础构件已不再是普通股，而是指数。目前指数的数量似乎比普通股更多，而构成投资决策基础的也是指数。
基金经理致力于这样一种假设，即回报可分为两类：“beta”——市场回报；和“alpha”——与市场无关的回报。这意味着需要更加关注到底哪些回报属于beta回报。由于作出判断几乎无一例外地要参照基准指数，因此基金经理需要一个与之相关的指数。例如，基金经理也许需要一个关于其特殊投资风格的基准指数。这意味着指数变得更重要，其数量也在激增。而且，尽管他们将尽量避免，但指数已不再是跟踪市场——它们影响着市场动向。
许多基金经理不能投资其基准指数成分股以外的股票。跟踪指数的交易型开放式指数基金(ETF)，使指数提供商变得更为强大。例如，美国小型股的波动，受到跟踪罗素2000 (Russell 2000)指数的ETF的主导，它通常是交投第三活跃的ETF。对冲基金利用它作为参与整个板块的投资工具。走势本来就很强劲的谷歌(Google)，在被纳入标准普尔500(S&P 500)指数的当天就上涨了7%。标准普尔500指数所绑定的资金比其它任何指数都多。
我们即将目睹对指数强大力量的又一次验证。到本月底，国际投资者和新兴市场的主要指数提供商——摩根士丹利资本国际(MSCI)将对其指数进行全面调整，以便着眼全球，将小型股纳入指数之中。此举将使纳入MSCI指数的股票数量达到8000只，而令人难以置信的是，它还将带来按照风格、板块、地域、市值和币种等分类的逾2万个新指数的诞生。此举将为目前无法购买小型新兴市场股票的许多投资者打开投资这些股票的渠道。
MSCI将尽其全力不去影响市场，在以前将国家纳入和剔除出其指数时，确实也做到了这一点。但这次，它可能成为一个重大事件。不妨看看美林(Merrill Lynch)是怎么预测的吧：“新的股票宇宙即将形成”。
译者/刘彦
The basic building block of stock market investment is no longer the common stock. It is the index. There now appear to be more indices than common stocks, and it is indices that form the basis of investment decisions.
Fund managers work on the assumption that returns can be divided into two: “beta” – the returns of the market; and “alpha” – returns uncorrelated to the market. That means more focus on exactly what goes into beta. And as they are judged almost exclusively by reference to a benchmark, they need an index relevant to them. They might need a benchmark for their particular investment style, for example. That means that indices become more important, and they proliferate. And, try though they will to avoid it, indices no longer track markets – they move them.
Many fund managers cannot invest beyond the stocks in their benchmark. Exchange-traded funds, which track indices, make index providers even more powerful. Moves in US small-cap stocks, for example, are dominated by the ETF tracking the Russell 2000 index, which is usually the third most heavily traded ETF. Hedge funds use it as a vehicle to play the entire sector. Google – strong as it was – leapt 7 per cent on the day it joined the S&P 500, which has more money tied to it than any other.
We are about to see another test of the power of indices. By the end of this month, Morgan Stanley Capital International, the dominant index provider for international investors and emerging markets, will unveil an overhaul of its indices to include small-cap stocks on a global basis. This will bring the total number of stocks used in MSCI's indices to 8,000 – and create, incredibly, more than 20,000 new indices, sliced by style, sector, geography, market cap, currency and so on. This will open small emerging market stocks to a range of investors currently barred from buying them.
MSCI will do its best not to move the market, and has avoided doing so when it has moved countries in and out of indices in the past. But it is likely to be an event. Just look at how Merrill Lynch is previewing it: “Coming soon: a new stock universe.”
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