华尔街日报 | 日本养老金“巨鲸”或将掀动全球市场波澜

Japan’s $1.5 Trillion Pension Whale to Trigger Waves in Stocks, Currencies


分析师称日本政府正准备将其控制的部分美元资产重新转换为日圆资产。由于涉及金额巨大，这个决定可能在全球金融市场产生涟漪效应。


日圆兑美元汇率持续走低。

在日圆创出近38年新低之际，日本渴望提振日圆汇率。而该国坐拥全世界最大的美元外汇储备之一。
Japan would love to strengthen the yen, with the currency’s value at a nearly 38-year low. And it owns one of the world’s biggest dollar stashes.
   
许多分析师表示，日本政府正准备将其控制的部分美元资产重新转换为日圆资产，由于涉及金额巨大，这个决定可能在全球金融市场产生涟漪效应。
Many analysts say Tokyo is getting ready to redirect some of those government-controlled dollars back into yen assets, a decision that could ripple through global financial markets, given the sums involved.  
   
截至今年3月31日，日本政府退休金投资基金(Government Pension Investment Fund, 简称GPIF)持有246万亿日圆（合1.53万亿美元）资产，堪称投资巨鳄。其中一半资产是外国股票和债券，大部分以美元计价。该基金即将启动五年一次的策略评估。
The Government Pension Investment Fund is an investing whale, with ¥246 trillion, equivalent to $1.53 trillion, in assets as of March 31. Half of the total is held in foreign stocks and bonds, mostly in dollars, and the fund is about to start a once-every-five-years review of its strategy.
   
在一个老龄化的世界里，像美国社会安全福利(Social Security)这样的退休金计划往往会面临长期挑战。但日本却另辟蹊径，从在职者工资中扣除的资金额度超出当前的退休金支出，并将其中一部分日圆兑换成美元，购买美国股票和债券等资产。
In an aging world where pension programs such as Social Security in the U.S. often face long-term challenges, Japan has adopted an unusual route. It takes a chunk of money from working people’s paychecks beyond the amount spent on current pension costs, then converts some of those yen into dollars to buy assets such as American stocks and bonds.
   
2014年，GPIF将外国资产的投资比例从23%提高到40%，四年前进一步提高到50%。这些投资促使其他日本大型机构做出类似的资产配置调整，推动美国和日本股票走高。
The fund in 2014 raised the ratio of foreign assets to 40% from 23%, and bumped it up further to 50% four years ago. The investments, which invited similar shifts by other large Japanese institutions, helped push up U.S. and Japanese stock prices.



虽然GPIF账面收益很高，最近一个财年的涨幅接近23%，但把预留给未来退休人员的资金拿来投资，是一种风险很大的做法，相当于日本政府对本国货币投出了不信任票，这与只持有美国政府债券的美国社会安全信托基金(Social Security Trust Funds)形成鲜明对比。
Though the pension fund has enjoyed big paper gains and was up nearly 23% in its most recent fiscal year, it is a risky way to invest funds earmarked for future retirees. It amounts to a vote of no confidence by the Japanese government in its own currency and contrasts with the U.S. Social Security Trust Funds, which exclusively own the U.S. government’s own bonds.
   
美国政府也曾考虑让股票投资在社会保障中发挥更大的作用，将近二十年前，时任美国总统小布什(George W. Bush)曾试图让劳动者将部分社保工资税转入个人退休账户，结果未能如愿。
The U.S. too has weighed a bigger role for stock investments in Social Security, but an effort nearly two decades ago by then President George W. Bush to let workers divert some Social Security payroll taxes to personal retirement accounts fell apart. 
   
野村综合研究所(Nomura Research Institute)经济学家木内登英(Takahide Kiuchi)说，随着日本长期利率近期上升，“提高国内债券比重是GPIF实现正常化的一个自然方向”。
With Japan’s long-term interest rates rising recently, “raising the weight of domestic bonds is a natural direction for normalizing the situation” at the pension fund, said Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at Nomura Research Institute.
   
木内登英10年前曾担任日本央行政策委员会委员，当时GPIF开始向国外资产投入数以千亿计美元。当时，日本政府和日本央行试图通过此举鼓励日本人将资金投入风险更高的投资，以摆脱20世纪90年代初以来一直笼罩日本的萎靡状态。
Kiuchi was a policy board member at the Bank of Japan a decade ago, when the fund started pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign assets. It was part of an effort by the government and central bank to encourage Japanese people to take bigger risks with their money and get out of the funk that had gripped the nation since the early 1990s.
   
“我认为当时也有希望日圆贬值的因素，”木内登英说。“现在绝没有人想这么做了。”
“I think there was also an element then of wanting a cheaper yen,” Kiuchi said. “Now absolutely no one is looking for that.”
    
日圆兑美元汇率最近跌至里根(Ronald Reagan)担任美国总统以来的最低水平。虽然日圆走软有助于提高丰田(Toyota)等出口商的竞争力，但也推高了日本汽油和食品等进口商品的价格。今年得多次民意调查显示，日本首相岸田文雄(Fumio Kishida)内阁的支持率已降至25%左右。
The yen recently hit its weakest level against the dollar since Ronald Reagan was president. While that helps make exporters such as Toyota more competitive, the weak currency has driven up prices in Japan for imported goods such as gasoline and food. Support for the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has fallen to around 25% in polls this year.
   
日圆贬值如此严重，以至于日本政府一直在抛售美元以支撑日圆。但同样在日本政府治下，GPIF仍在依据2014年的一项政策继续大举增持美元资产。
The yen has weakened so much that the Japanese government has been selling dollars to prop it up. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same government, the pension investment fund continues to press the dollar accelerator based on a policy dating to 2014.
    
“考虑到10年前他们是如何朝一个方向转变的，我认为他们现在也会（朝相反的方向）做同样的事，”穆迪分析( Moody’s Analytics)经济学家Stefan Angrick说。他指出，巨额美元储备可以被视为一种保险，“如果想用这笔钱渡过难关，现在就是时候，对吧？”
“Seeing how they shifted in one direction 10 years ago, I think it makes sense that they would be able to do the same thing now” in the opposite direction, said Stefan Angrick, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. The huge dollar stash could be viewed as a form of insurance, he said, “and if you want to use that money at a point in time when things get tough, then that moment is now, right?”



如果GPIF将10%的外币资产转换为日圆，就意味着约1,500亿美元的资产流动。Angrick和Kiuchi警告说，鉴于外汇市场体量庞大且变幻莫测，即使这样的转换也不一定能阻止日圆贬值。
If the pension fund moves 10% of its assets from foreign currencies into yen, that would mean a movement of some $150 billion. Angrick and Kiuchi cautioned that even such a shift wouldn’t necessarily stem the yen’s depreciation, given the large size and capriciousness of foreign-exchange markets.
   
在上周五的新闻发布会上，GPIF理事长宫园雅敬(Masataka Miyazono)拒绝讨论GPIF投资组合明年可能发生的变化，但表示该基金将分析每类资产的预期长期回报。
At a news conference on Friday, the fund’s president, Masataka Miyazono, declined to discuss how the portfolio might change next year but said the fund would analyze the expected long-term returns of each asset class. 
    
宫园雅敬说：“上一财年，日圆兑美元和欧元贬值，对我们的投资业绩产生了积极影响。”他还表示，该基金没有试图利用日圆疲软来增加回报。
“The yen depreciated against the dollar and euro in the previous fiscal year, which had positive effects on our investment performance,” Miyazono said, adding that the fund wasn’t trying to exploit the weak yen to increase returns. 
   
新策略将于明年4月正式生效，但分析师们注意到，GPIF通常会提前实施计划中的资产比重调整，以便更顺利地过渡。
The new strategy will officially take effect next April, but analysts observed that the fund often front-runs the planned weighting changes to make the transition smoother.
   
摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)分析师预测，日本政府将提高GPIF的国内股票比重。日经指数在2月份创下历史新高，为34年首次，目前接近历史最高水平。
Analysts at Morgan Stanley predicted that the Japanese government would raise the pension fund’s weighting of domestic stocks. The Nikkei Stock Average is trading near its record level after reaching an all-time high in February for the first time in 34 years.


GPIF理事长宫园雅敬表示，该基金没有试图利用日圆疲软来增加回报。

日本企业一直在提高股息并增加股票回购，并对外国股东提出的要求表现出更加开放的态度。这使得GPIF有理由辩称，将更多资金转回本土有利于提高利润。
Japanese companies have been raising dividends and share buybacks, and have shown more openness to foreign shareholders’ demands. That allows the government fund to argue that bringing more money home would benefit the bottom line.
   
GPIF也需要这样的理由，因为其投资目的纯粹是为了代表未来的退休金领取者实现资产最大化，而不是为了推进政府的政策目标。
It will need that kind of justification, because the fund is supposed to invest purely to maximize its assets on behalf of future pensioners, not to advance government policy goals.
   
前厚生劳动省年金局长、现供职于日本综合研究所(Japan Research Institute)的高桥俊之(Toshiyuki Takahashi)说：“既然GPIF是以非常长远的眼光来投资的，那么从非常长远的角度来分散投资就显得非常重要，而不应该对短期事件兴冲冲或悲戚戚。”
“Since GPIF makes investments with a very long-term view, it is important to diversify its investments from a very long-term perspective rather than getting excited or upset about short-term events,” said Toshiyuki Takahashi, a former government pension chief now at Japan Research Institute.