在经过多年筹划和数次“发令枪”误响之后，中国监管机构终于即将为本国股市投资者推出一系列新工具。中国股市向来波动较大。
推出股指期货、融资融券交易这三项创新，是中国资本市场中具有里程碑意义的事件。
上海证券交易所(SSE)总经理张育军上周末在北京向记者表示，中国最快将于周三启动融资融券业务。融资融券交易允许交易者使用较高的杠杆比例，并通过市场的上涨和下跌获利。
中国金融期货交易所(China Financial Futures Exchange)上周五宣布，从4月16日开始，投资者还将首次可以进行股指期货交易——这是押注市场下跌的另一种方式。
摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)中国策略师娄刚(Jerry Lou)表示：“通过这些改革，我们向一个真正的市场迈出了一大步。”他认为，随着时间的推移，中国股市将不那么容易出现泡沫，因为投资者将能够做空他们认为估值过高的股票。
上海股市昨日录得7周以来的最大涨幅，因为市场乐观地认为，这些改革措施将惠及作为首批股指期货产品标的的沪深300指数成分股中的大盘股。近几周来，交易费收入增加的前景已令中国券商类股受益。
对监管机构而言，这些改革旨在刺激创新，并使中国股市更符合西方标准——以努力使上海在2020年前成为一个全球金融中心。具有讽刺意味的是，在金融危机期间，卖空交易在西方国家名声不佳，而且监管机构仍在担忧卖空交易的影响。在金融危机期间，英国、美国和欧洲其它国家全都限制卖空交易，因为担忧卖空交易会加剧市场（尤其是金融类股）的暴跌。
这并不是说中国一开始就会大胆冒进。麦格理集团(Macquarie)的中国策略师迈克尔•库尔茨(Michael Kurtz)表示，这些最新举措体现了中国“小规模试水”的典型做法。
中国政府开始时只允许6家券商开展融资融券试点，它们是国泰君安(Guotai Junan Securities)、国信证券(Guosen Securities)、中信证券(Citic Securities)、光大证券(Everbright Securities)、海通证券(Haitong Securities)和广发证券(Guangfa Securities)。
此外，中国大多数投资者将不能参与此类交易。任何使用这些新工具的投资者必须开立一个不低于50万元人民币（合7.3万美元）的账户——这使得构成中国震荡市场骨干的大批散户无缘参与交易。
参与者还需要开立证券交易账户至少18个月，并且必须通过资格测试，以表明他们明白其中的风险。
迄今为止，申请融资融券交易的人数增长缓慢。上海媒体报道称，在上述6家获得许可的券商上周首次可以开户时，每家的开户人数不足10人。
库尔茨表示：“最初的规模这么小，至少在一开始的影响可能会微不足道。问题是（监管机构）多久才有胆量扩大（这一项目）？”
历史经验表明，他们将会极其谨慎地推进。官员们对1995年中国国债期货市场的崩盘（开展交易仅两年后）仍心有余悸。国债期货的崩盘一直被归咎于市场设计存在缺陷、管理不善和市场参与者操纵价格。
实际上，《中国私有化：中国股市内幕》(Privatising China: Inside China's Stock Markets)一书的作者侯伟(Fraser Howie)表示，自首次提出融资融券交易计划，已经过去了5年时间，而股指期货计划的提出则可以追溯到10年前。
侯伟表示：“与中国的许多事情一样，即使实施这些改革，它们也不会总能从一开始就成功，甚至根本就不会成功。”
侯伟举例说，2003年，中国政府推出了允许外资购买中国证券的合格境外机构投资者(QFII)机制。7年过去了，中国政府只批准了不到100家外资机构，授予的投资额度不足200亿美元——不到中国股市总市值的1%。
这些外国投资者不清楚自己是否可以参与卖空和股指期货交易，尽管所有人都希望从中分一杯羹。
对于这些新型交易会对素以波动著称的中国股市产生何种影响，人们也存在激烈的争论。中国股市去年飙升80%，而前年则下跌了65%。
一种观点认为，能够做空估值过高的股票，将抑制市场的投机热情（以及随之而来的崩盘）。但这种观点并未获得广泛认同，而且也不符合西方国家的长期历史表现——它们虽然有成熟的卖空和股指期货机制，但仍然会出现泡沫和崩盘。
更有可能造成的影响是交易量将会上升，因为一旦能够对冲风险，对冲基金和其它机构投资者将会有更大的交易动机。摩根士丹利表示，台湾和日本等其它市场的经验表明，长期而言，交易量会出现高达50%的增长。
但这绝非一个定论，尤其是考虑大中国投资者的交易量已经比西方高得多。娄刚表示：“在中国，即使是机构投资者也表现得像个散户。他们说起话来都像是沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)，做起事却像是乔治•索罗斯(George Soros)。”
译者/君悦
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031976
After years on the drawing board and several false starts, Chinese regulators are finally close to introducing a set of new tools for traders in the country's volatile equity markets.
The three innovations, consisting of the introduction of stock index futures, short selling and margin trading, amount to milestones for the country's capital markets.
China will launch margin trading and short selling – tools that allow traders to use greater leverage and to profit from falling as well as rising markets – as soon as Wednesday, Zhang Yujun, president of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, told reporters in Beijing over the weekend.
Investors will also, for the first time, be able to trade stock index futures – another way to bet on market downturns – from April 16, the China Financial Futures Exchange announced on Friday.
“We are making a big step toward a real market with these reforms,” says Jerry Lou, China strategist at Morgan Stanley. Over time, he reckons, the Chinese equity market will become less bubble-prone because investors will be able to short stocks they view as excessively valued.
Shanghai stocks jumped the most in seven weeks yesterday on optimism that the reforms would benefit large capitalisation stocks that are part of the CSI 300 index, on which the first index futures will be based. Shares in Chinese brokerages have benefited in recent weeks from the prospect of increased trading revenues.
For regulators, the reforms are aimed at spurring innovation and bringing the Chinese stock market closer into line with western norms – part of a drive to transform Shanghai into a global financial centre by 2020. There is an irony here because short selling received a bad press in the west during the financial crisis and its effects continue to worry regulators. UK, US and European nations all clamped down on short selling during the crisis over fears it was exacerbating market slumps, particularly in financial stocks.
Not that China is likely to do anything bold at the outset. The latest moves are typical of China's “start small” approach, says Michael Kurtz, China strategist at Macquarie.
For a start, initially, the margin trading and short selling pilot programmes have been limited to just six brokerages: Guotai Junan Securities, Guosen Securities, CITIC Securities, Everbright Securities, Haitong Securities and Guangfa Securities.
What is more, the majority of Chinese investors will not be able to participate. Any investor using the new tools must open an account with at least Rmb500,000 ($73,000) – ruling out the hordes of small retail investors who are the lifeblood of China's volatile markets.
Applicants also need to have held a securities trading account for at least 18 months and must pass an eligibility test to show they understand the risks.
So far, applications for margin trading and short selling accounts have trickled in slowly. Fewer than than 10 people opened accounts at each of the six licensed brokers when they first became available last week, Shanghai newspapers reported.
“This is starting so small that it may have only a negligible impact at least at first,” says Mr Kurtz. “The question is how quickly will [regulators] feel emboldened to expand [the programme]?”
History suggests they will proceed with extreme caution. Officials are still haunted by the collapse of China's government bond futures market in 1995 – just two years after such trading was introduced. Its demise has been attributed to flawed market design, weak governance and price manipulation by market participants.
Indeed, five years have passed since plans for short selling and margin trading were first proposed, says Fraser Howie, author of Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets. Plans for stock index futures go back a decade.
“Like many things in China, even when these reforms are launched they're not always a success from day one, or even at all,” Mr Howie says.
As an example, Mr Howie points to the qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) scheme that Beijing introduced in 2003 to allow foreigners to buy Chinese securities. Seven years later, fewer than 100 foreign institutions have been approved and less than $20bn of investment quotas have been awarded – equivalent to less than 1 per cent of the Chinese stock market.
Those foreign investors do not know whether they will be allowed to participate in short selling and index futures, although all want a piece of the action.
There is also heavy debate over what effect, if any, the new types of trading will have on China's notoriously volatile markets, which surged 80 per cent last year after falling 65 per cent the year before.
One line of thinking is that the ability to short overvalued stocks will temper the market's spectacular booms (and subsequent busts). But this view is not widespread and runs contrary to a long history of bubbles and crashes in the west, where short selling and stock futures are well established.
A more likely effect is that trading volumes will rise because hedge funds and other institutional investors will have a greater incentive to trade once they can hedge their risks. Experiences in other markets, such as Taiwan and Japan, suggest that trading volumes could, in the long term, increase by as much as 50 per cent, according to Morgan Stanley.
But that is by no means a given, especially since trading volumes among Chinese investors are already much higher than those in the west. “In China even institutional investors act like retail investors,” says Mr Lou of Morgan Stanley. “They all talk like Warren Buffett and act like George Soros.”
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