股指期货：中国“最大的赌场”？ Wealthy traders fuel mania for Chinese financial futures

中国投资者热爱新型金融产品。他们的热情有时近乎狂热，这解释了为何在上海市场，新股上市时价格会一飞冲天，也解释了为何本地股票基金在推出当日就能募集到数十亿元人民币的资金。

但即便是老练的市场专业人士，也对投资者拥抱股指期货的热情感到惊讶——这是中国自上世纪90年代中期推出的首个金融期货，于两周前推出。

“成交量超出了所有人的预期，” Newedge上海首席代表迪安•欧文(Dean Owen)表示。Newedge是一家法国期货经纪商，与中国中信集团(Citic)有一家合资公司。

事实上，上周二，也就是交易启动后的第三天，中国金融期货交易所(CFFE)的股指期货成交量已经超过了上海证交所(SSE)的股票成交量。

股指期货合同允许买卖双方在某一指定日期，根据事先商定的价格买进或卖出一个股指。中国首个股指期货产品基于沪深300 (CSI 300)指数。该指数涵盖沪深两市最具代表性的蓝筹股。首批上市合约为2010年5月、6月、9月和12月合约。

每手合约的价值是用股指点数乘以300元人民币（约合44美元）。例如5月合约目前的交易点数在3200左右，这意味着其价值大概为96万元人民币。而周二，有近14万手此类合约易手，总价值达1340亿元人民币。

鉴于中国政府已颁布法规，禁止经验不足的投资者涉足指数期货市场，这种交易量的飙升就显得更为惊人。投资者必须要通过一场考试，并满足一系列苛刻条件，包括教育背景、信贷纪录、月薪和流动性资产等。

尽管存在这些限制性措施，而且经过了三年多的准备，但股指期货市场的开局似乎仍不太符合监管部门的期望。这个市场成为了富有投机者的乐园，而不是机构投资者为股票资产组合对冲风险的场所。

“目前股指期货市场被散户投资者主宰，而这正是监管部门和证交所希望避免出现的情况，”欧文表示。“很明显，散户投资者并没有把股指期货当做针对自身股票资产组合的对冲工具。”他指出，来自浙江的富豪占据了股指期货市场的大半壁江山，而他们中许多都是老练的大宗商品期货交易者。

超过90%的交易都在当天交割完成，表明了该市场的短期和投机性质，这种追求利润的连珠炮交易被称为“超短期交易”(scalping)。

例如，本周二，投资者交易了14万手5月合约。然而，到闭市时，只有不到7400手合约仍处于未交割状态。而在西方期货市场，所谓的“未平仓头寸”(open interest)通常要高于日成交量。

“我们还处于‘新事物'的兴奋期，” 摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)中国策略师娄刚(Jerry Lou)表示。“市场将在中长期内逐渐成熟，但就目前而言，它更多地将是一种以更高杠杆率进行投机的方式，而不是对冲工具。”

或许正因如此，中国证监会(CSRC)上周发布了交易指引，允许本土证券公司和证券投资基金参与股指期货交易，但只限套期保值，不得以投机为目的。

证监会还表示，将很快出台针对合格境外机构投资者(QDII)的相关法规。此举将使外资基金拥有一种对冲中国动荡股市下行风险的工具。今年以来中国股市累计下跌11%。

行业专家表示，麻烦在于，股指期货目前走势独立，对于作为基础的股市走向没有多少前瞻作用。

一名投资者将股指期货市场描述为中国“最大的赌场”。他表示，该市场非但没有成为稳定性的来源，反而只会加剧更广泛金融市场的动荡。

译者/何黎

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032418

Chinese investors love new financial products. Their passion, at times bordering on mania, explains why Shanghai stocks rocket in price on their trading debuts and why local equity funds can raise billions of renminbi on the day they launch.

But even seasoned market professionals have been surprised by the enthusiasm with which investors have embraced stock index futures – China's first financial futures since the mid-1990s – following their launch two weeks ago.

“The volumes have exceeded everyone's expectations,” says Dean Owen, Shanghai-based chief representative for Newedge, the French futures brokerage, which has a joint venture with Citic Group in China.

Indeed, on Tuesday last week, the third day of trading, the value of stock index futures traded on the China Financial Futures Exchange exceeded the value of stocks traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The first index futures, agreements to buy or sell an index at a given value on an agreed date, are based on the CSI 300 index, which tracks the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets. The initial contracts are for May, June, September and December.

Each contract is worth Rmb300 ($44) times the value of the index. That means the May contract, which has been trading around the 3,200 level, costs about Rmb960,000. Nearly 140,000 of these contracts were exchanged on Tuesday, worth a combined Rmb134bn.

The surge in trading volumes is all the more remarkable because Beijing has imposed rules to keep inexperienced investors out of the market. Investors must pass an examination and meet tough criteria for educational background, credit history, monthly salary and liquid assets.

Despite these controls and more than three years of preparations, the market has not started in quite the way regulators had hoped. Rather than being a place where institutional investors hedge stock portfolios, the market is a playground for wealthy speculators.

“The market is dominated by retail investors at the moment, which is something regulators and the exchange want to avoid,” says Mr Owen. “It is clear retail investors are not using the futures as a hedging tool against their stock portfolios.” Wealthy people from Zhejiang province, many of them seasoned commodity futures traders, comprise more than half of the stock index futures market, he says.

The short-term, speculative nature of the market is illustrated by the fact that more than 90 per cent of trades are opened and closed on the same day, a kind of rapid-fire trading for profit known as scalping.

On Tuesday this week, for example, investors traded 140,000 May-dated contracts. However, fewer than 7,400 contracts were left open at the end of the day. In western futures markets, so-called “open interest” is typically higher than daily trading volumes.

“We're still in the ‘new thing' excitement period,” says Jerry Lou, China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley. “The market will mature in the mid to long term, but for now it will be more of a greater-leverage way to play the market than a hedging tool.”

This may be why the China Securities Regulatory Commission released guidelines on Friday that allowed domestic securities companies and mutual funds to trade the stock index futures, but only for hedging rather than speculative purposes.

The CSRC also said it would soon unveil regulations for qualified foreign institutional investors to trade index futures. Such a move would give foreign funds a tool for hedging against downturns in China's volatile stock market, which has fallen 11 per cent this year.

The trouble, industry experts say, is that the stock index futures currently have a life of their own and reveal little about the direction of the underlying stock market.

One investor describes the futures market as the “biggest casino” in China. Rather than being a source of stability, he says, it will only increase volatility in the wider market.

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032418/en

惠普12亿美元收购Palm Hewlett Packard to buy Palm for $1.2bn

惠普(Hewlett-Packard)周四宣布，将以12亿美元购买身陷困境的智能手机生产商Palm。投资者对Palm这个个人科技品牌能否继续生存的日渐加深的疑虑得以终结。

这项并购使得惠普立刻跻身迅速增长的智能手机行业，得以与包括苹果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)和微软(Microsoft)在内的五六家科技巨头同场竞技。以收入计算，惠普是全球最大的科技公司。

惠普表示，它将为每股Palm股票支付5.7美元现金，这个价格比Palm周四收市价高出23%。

Palm股价六个月前达到峰值，但此后已经下跌四分之三。这家位于硅谷的公司一直苦于无法提振销售，因此无法令华尔街相信它能继续作为一个独立公司存在。

惠普首席战略技术官谢恩•罗比森(Shane Robison)表示，惠普此笔交易主要是意在获得Palm的Web OS操作系统。这个操作系统自去年早期发布以来，在科技界颇受好评。惠普高管还暗示，在未来可能会将该软件应用于制造体积更大的平板电脑，挑战苹果的iPad。

全球最大的科技企业目前都试图在蓬勃发展的智能手机和平板电脑中寻找机遇，而最新的这项交易将改变目前的竞争格局。作为全球最大的个人电脑生产商，惠普一直是微软的亲密盟友，但现在，二者将会在软件领域展开直接竞争。

“这可能会惹恼微软，”Gartner公司分析师肯•杜兰利(Ken Dulaney)说。他对惠普将尝试多种不同操作系统的决定也表示了质疑。他说：“在两条战线上他们都有很多事要做。”

惠普罗比森表示，这项收购能给惠普带来Palm的技术和开发人员，能让惠普可以立刻在智能手机领域大展拳脚。

尽管惠普曾是智能手机前身——掌上电脑领域的领跑者，但此后，在苹果和谷歌先后给这个产业带来深刻变革、制造出新一代的基于触摸屏的产品之时，惠普却落在了后面。

罗比森表示，对于惠普而言，Palm的价值还体现在该公司1千多项专利上，它们将帮助惠普分得一块市场。

Palm周三称，该公司智能手机销量和现金储备都急剧下降，使得寻找买家变得更为紧迫。该公司预计本季度收入将只能达到9000万至1亿美元，大大低于华尔街上月还在预测的3亿美元。Palm还表示，到5月底，现金储备将从三个月前的5.92亿美元降至3.5亿至4亿美元之间。一些分析师曾就此预测，该公司可能到年底之前就会出现现金断流。

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032419

Hewlett-Packard has stepped in to buy the troubled smartphone maker Palm, announcing a $1.2bn deal on Thursday that brings to an end the growing doubts over the future of the personal technology brand.

The deal will catapult HP, the world’s largest tech company in terms of revenue, into the middle of the rapidly growing smartphone business in direct competition with a handful of other tech giants, including Apple, Google and Microsoft.

HP said it would pay $5.70 a share in cash for the company, representing a 23 per cent premium over its closing stock price on Thursday.

Palm’s shares have fallen by three-quarters from their peak six months ago as the Silicon Valley-based company has failed to drum-up the sales it needed to convince Wall Street that it could remain an independent company.

Shane Robison, chief strategy and technology officer at HP, said the company was making the purchase mainly to get its hands on Palm’s Web OS operating system, which has won plaudits in the tech world since its launch early last year. HP executives also hinted that they would use the software in future for larger “tablet” computers to rival Apple’s iPad.

The purchase brings a new twist in the shifting rivalries between some of the world’s biggest tech companies as they jostle for position in the booming market for smartphones and tablets. As the world’s biggest PC maker HP has been a close ally of Microsoft, but will now find itself a direct competitor in software.

“This will probably anger Microsoft,” said Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner. He also questioned HP’s decision to spread its efforts across different operating systems, adding: “They’ve got a lot of work to do on both fronts.”

The purchase is intended to jump-start HP’s smartphone business by bringing both technology and developers from Palm, Mr Robison said.

Although an early leader in the hand-held PCs that preceded smartphones, HP has stood by until now while first Apple and then Google revolutionised the business with a new generation of touch-screen devices.

Palm’s value to HP also lay in its portfolio of more than 1,000 patents, which will make it easier for the company to carve out a place in the market, Mr Robison said.

Palm also revealed on Wednesday that it had suffered a further sharp deterioration in its smartphone sales and cash reserves, adding to its urgency in finding an acquirer. The company said revenues this quarter were likely to reach only $90-100m, compared to the $300m Wall Street had been expecting as recently as last month. It also said its cash would fall to $350-400m by the end of May from $592m three months before, prompting analysts to predict that it could run out of cash before the end of the year.

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032419/en

什么决定品牌命运？All about emerging markets, trust and price

新兴市场品牌重要性的日益提升，是2010年Brandz全球品牌百强排行榜(BrandZ Top 100 ranking)编纂者挑选出的几大主题之一。

上榜的13个新兴市场品牌中，有7个来自中国，俄罗斯和巴西各有2个，印度和墨西哥则各占一席。新上榜的品牌包括中国搜索引擎百度(Baidu)、印度工业信贷投资银行(ICICI)和墨西哥的Telcel。

印度大型金融服务集团ICICI初次亮相就排到了第45位，令人印象深刻，其品牌价值总额高达145亿美元。

明略行(Millward Brown Optimor)首席执行官乔安娜•塞登(Joanna Seddon)称赞ICICI董事长卡马斯(KV Kamath)在印度各地推广ATM的行为，是打破该国传统等级壁垒的有益之举——无论是清洁工还是银行高管，每个人都必须派队等候。ICICI因为其在印度及其它地区的发展潜力，在品牌发展势头榜单上高居第9位。该行已在18个国家开展业务。

印度大型IT集团——印孚瑟斯技术公司(Infosys Technologies)刚好排在百强之外，但首次进入了科技20强品牌排行榜(Technology Top 20)。塞登表示，这个品牌很有趣，因为它的创始人之一是南丹•尼勒卡尼(Nandan Nilekani)，而且尼勒卡尼非常推崇“世界是平的”这个概念——即通过在全球范围内进行外包，服务于客户（托马斯•弗里德曼(Thomas Friedman)的畅销书《世界是平的：21世纪简史》(The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century)就宣扬了这种观点）。

卡马斯与尼勒卡尼在明略行进行的另一个主题排行——品牌领袖首席执行官——中也占有一席之位。

在百强品牌中，许多品牌都是由拥有品牌愿景的领袖所缔造、或赋予它们第二次生命。这些领袖包括Telcel的卡洛斯•斯利姆(Carlos Slim)、苹果(Apple)的史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)、IBM的郭士纳(Lou Gerstner)，以及星巴克(Starbucks)的霍华德•舒尔茨(Howard Schultz)。

舒尔茨两年前重新接过首席执行官的日常管理角色，以重振星巴克——这家他一手从初创阶段培育成全球性品牌的公司。

塞登表示，舒尔茨对于星巴克的愿景，归根结底是建立人与人之间的联系。

“他退出了日常管理，而其他人做了什么？他们开始寻求急速增长。而如今，如果你运营一个旨在建立人际联系的品牌，或许急速增长的战略并不适合。他们扩张得非常快，某种程度上丧失了品牌的神髓，然后，舒尔茨回来了，这个品牌做得更好了（在最新的百强排行榜中，它的品牌价值增长了17%）。”

明略行BrandZ全球总监彼得•沃尔什(Peter Walshe)表示，一些有着品牌愿景的人已不再担任首席执行官，但其继任者遵循了他们的愿景，将其作为公司独特的一面，并获得了巨大成功。

此类继任者的例子包括IBM的萨姆•帕米萨诺(Sam Palmisano)、汇丰(HSBC)的纪勤(Michael Geoghegan)。汇丰董事长斯蒂芬•葛霖(Stephen Green)现在是英国圣公会(Church of England)的受命教长，并撰写了《天国与财利：葛霖论金融市场》(Serving God, Serving Mammon)一书。

合法的癖好——不管是由来已久的传统喜好（香烟），还是更现代的喜好（玩手机或黑莓(BlackBerry)）——是排行榜编纂者选择的另一主题。万宝路(Marlboro)向来位列前十，在过去五年内，它的品牌价值平均以10%的复合年率增长。

塞登表示，总的来说，最新百强排行榜“告诉你，在压力下生活的人们想做一些事情来释放压力，用手捣鼓点什么东西。他们要么吸烟，要么玩黑莓。举例来说：如果你的工作压力极大，比如担任美国总统，或许你会觉得这两个你都需要。”

塞登表示，在手机领域，全球前十大运营商均进入了BrandZ百强排行榜，另外还有苹果、黑莓与三星(Samsung)。这很大程度上归因于移动应用程序惊人的增长——“从数独游戏，到‘寻找一名技工'(Find a Mechanic)，再到BrandZ，”塞登表示。

沃尔什补充表示，推动品牌增长有两个关键因素：一是信赖，即该品牌累计的历史价值，二是现有用户的推荐。“该类别比较有趣的一点是……推动品牌的主要是用户推荐，而非信赖，”他表示。

一些最具价值品牌同时获得了信赖与推荐——这是此次排行的另一个重大发现。

尽管IBM受到了消费者的极大信赖，苹果得到了很高的推荐，但明略行的研究显示，两大消费者/家庭品牌——帮宝适(Pampers)和汰渍(Tide)——位于信赖与推荐品牌排行榜之首（由于石油公司的大量涌入，汰渍被挤出了品牌价值百强榜）。

沃尔什表示，在上述两个标准方面排名均靠前的品牌，要么富有远见，要么受益于历史表现中累积的价值。“而且，他们如今仍在传递这种优质服务，同时还加入了创新，并维持自己价值……尤其是在最近时期，随着政客与银行失去信誉，受信任的品牌变得越来越有价值。”

价格的影响，以及最强大、最具价值品牌的价格更为抗跌的事实，是我们从明略行研究中得出的又一个重要发现。

由于它们引起了消费者的拥有欲望，它们往往会获得一个较好的价格溢价，即使是在衰退时期，前百强品牌也会定价与品牌力之间取得恰当的平衡。

BrandZ的数据显示，只有7%的消费者完全根据价格购物；不到三分之一的人，会在价格与品牌之间进行综合考虑；对于近90%的人而言，品牌是一个重要影响因素，而有逾半数的人几乎不怎么注意价格。

译者/何黎

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032417

The growing importance of brands from emerging markets is one of several themes picked out by compilers of the 2010 BrandZ Top 100 ranking.

Seven of the 13 emerging-market brands on the list come from China, two each from Russia and Brazil, and one apiece from India and Mexico. New entrants include Baidu, the Chinese search engine, along with ICICI and Telcel from India and Mexico respectively.

ICICI, the big Indian financial services group, makes its debut in an impressive 45th place, with a brand value of $14.5bn.

Joanna Seddon, chief executive of Millward Brown Optimor, praises ICICI's chairman, KV Kamath, for championing ATMs throughout India as a way of breaking down the country's traditional hierarchical barriers – everyone has to wait in line, whether they are a cleaner or a bank executive. ICICI scores a high nine for brand momentum because of its potential in India and elsewhere – it already operates in 18 countries.

Just outside the Top 100, but included for the first time in the Technology Top 20, is Infosys Technologies, the big Indian IT group. Ms Seddon says it is an interesting brand because of its co-founder Nandan Nilekani and his espousal of the “flat world” concept – that is, servicing customers through outsourcing anywhere in the world (as popularised in the bestseller by Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century).

Both Mr Kamath and Mr Nilekani feature in another theme identified by MBO – the chief executive as brand leader.

Many of the top 100 have been built – or revived – by leaders with brand vision. They include Carlos Slim of Telcel, Apple's Steve Jobs, Lou Gerstner of IBM and Starbucks' Howard Schultz, who returned to a day-to-day role as chief executive two years ago to revive the fortunes of the company he nurtured from infancy into a global brand.

Mr Schultz's vision for Starbucks was all about making human connections, says Ms Seddon.

“He abdicated from running it and what did they do? They went into drive-throughs. Now, if you've got a brand that's about human connections, maybe a drive-through doesn't quite fit. They expanded very fast, and kind of lost the brand essence, and he's come back again and the brand is doing better [its brand value rose 17 per cent in the latest Top 100].”

Peter Walshe, MBO's global BrandZ director, says some of the visionaries are no longer chief executives but their successors are following the same vision as a unique aspect of those companies, with great success.

Examples of the successors include Sam Palmisano at IBM and Michael Geoghegan at HSBC, whose chairman, Stephen Green, is an ordained minister in the Church of England and author of Serving God, Serving Mammon.

Legal addiction – whether of the long-established variety (cigarettes) or modern (playing with mobile phones or BlackBerry) – is another theme picked out by the ranking's compilers. Marlboro, ever present in the top 10, has seen its brand value grow at an average compound annual rate of 10 per cent over the past five years.

Overall, the latest Top 100 list “tells you that people in their stressful lives want to do something to relieve the stress, fiddling with their hands”, she says. “They are either smoking, or they're twiddling on their BlackBerries, and we have an example: if you have a really stressful job, like president of the United States, you may feel the need to do both.”

In mobile phones, the world's top 10 operators are all in the top 100 of the BrandZ rankings, says Ms Seddon, along with Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung, and a lot of this is down to the phenomenal growth of mobile applications or apps – “everything from Sudoku to Find a Mechanic to BrandZ”, she says.

Mr Walshe adds that two key things drive brands – trust, which is the historic brand value that has been built up, and current user recommendation. “What's interesting about this category ... is that the brands are particularly high in user recommendation. They're not particularly driven by trust,” he says.

Some of the most valuable brands are underpinned by both trust and recommendation – another key finding from the rankings.

While IBM is driven hugely by trust and Apple by recommendation, research by MBO has shown that Pampers and Tide, two consumer/household products, are the top trusted and recommended brands (Tide has slipped out of the Top 100 because of the influx of oil companies).

Brands that are high on both criteria are either visionary or benefit from having built up a heritage, based on historic performance, says Mr Walshe. “And they are delivering it today, together with innovation, and keeping themselves relevant…particularly in recent times, as politicians and banks lose credibility, trusted brands become more and more valuable.”

The role of price, and the fact that the strongest and most valuable brands are more price-resistance, is a further important finding from research by MBO.

Because of the desire they create from consumers, they tend to command a healthy price premium, even in recessionary times, and the Top 100 brands get the balance right between pricing and the power of the brand.

Data from BrandZ show that only 7 per cent of consumers buy on price alone; under a third make a compromise between price and brand; and brand is an important influence for nearly nine out of 10, while more than half take little notice of price.

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