美国垃圾债券红火的背后

在美国企业债券市场上,垃圾债券获得了投资人的持续热捧,甚至正在酝酿新一轮的牛市行情。据《华尔街日报》的最新报道,今年前9个月,企业总共发行垃圾债券1720亿美元,创出了年度历史纪录;不仅如此,垃圾债券的价格也涨至2007年以来最高水平,接近金融危机中最低点的两倍。不过,面对着垃圾债券市场流入资金的不断膨胀,其凸显的泡沫特征也开始引发人们的担忧。     

THE EFFECT OF U.S. TRADE DEFICIT ANNOUNCEMENTS ON THE STOCK PRICES OF U.S. AND JAPANESE AUTOMAKERS

The existing literature on the trade news effect on asset prices generally looks at exchange rates and stock market indexes. We focus on individual stocks: the U.S. and Japanese “Big Three” automobile stocks. We examine Japanese automobile American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), not the stocks per se, to avoid the time lag problem. First, we find deficit news shocks, especially the positive shocks, have a negative effect on the Japanese automobile ADRs. Second, we find only weak evidence that the news effect is different under different economic conditions. Third, trade news is found to be a competitive shock to the automakers in the sense of Karolyi and Stulz (1996) . Last, statistically generated U.S.–Japan bilateral trade deficit news and bilateral auto trade deficit news have no effect on the automobile stock in general.     

多元化经营,跟着战略走--当代美国银行业考察报告

编者按:2002年9月～2003年9月,中国工商银行湖北省分行副行长郑子术先生作为访问学者被中国工商银行总行派往美国著名学府--宾夕法尼亚大学学习一年.其间,作者除学习了有关经济、金融专业课程,听取了有关经济、金融的专题讲座,还访问了一些主要银行,特别是到纽约银行等银行进行了为期四个月的实习.本文记载了作者在美国的所见所闻及对当代美国银行业的认识.     

THE ECONOMIC EXPOSURE OF U.S. MULTINATIONAL FIRMS

In this paper we find that the exchange rate exposure of individual firms increases with the return horizon. Also, the cross-sectional differences in the magnitude of exposure of individual firms are significantly related to firm size but not to the relative portion of foreign sales to total sales. The empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that hedging activities exhibit economies of scale, and, consequently, the magnitude of economic exposure is less for larger firms than for smaller firms.     

美国经济的未来走势及其影响

20世纪的最后10年,世界经济形势纷繁复杂,南北差距继续加大;东南亚诸国在遭受了金融危机的打击后,其政治经济制度受到极大震动,经济倒退10几年;在发达国家中,经济发展的不平衡也在逐渐加剧,日本自80年代末泡沫经济破灭后遂一蹶不振,欧盟则长期受到高失业率的困扰,似乎只有美国一枝独秀,始于1991年3月的经济增长已持续了90多个月.美国经济的异常繁荣不断引起人们的广泛关注,那么美国经济是否已经超越了传统意义上经济周期的束缚,实现了经济在理想状态的完美发展呢?本文拟对美国经济发展的不确定性因素进行分析,并结合美元汇率走势,阐述其对国际经济及我国经济的影响.     

COMPETITION AND MERGER ACTIVITY IN THE U.S. TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

In this article we examine the U.S. telecommunications industry during a period of rapid deregulation to determine the effects of a deregulatory shock on industry competition and merger activity. We show that merger activity exhibits a clear wave‐like pattern, regardless of the listing status of the participants. Increased competition and IPO activity following deregulation increased cash‐flow volatility and probability of exit while the introduction of new technology increased dispersion of economic efficiency across the industry. These changes resulted in a significant increase in merger activity. Competition also played an important role in shaping “who buys whom?”     

Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries and U.S. Treasury yields

Foreign official holdings of U.S. Treasuries increased from $400 billion in January 1994 to about $3 trillion in June 2010. Most of this growth is accounted for by a handful of emerging market economies that have been running large current account surpluses. These countries are channeling their savings through the official sector, which is then acquiring foreign exchange reserves. Any shift in policy to reduce their current account surpluses or dampen the rate of reserves accumulation would likely slow the pace of foreign official purchases of U.S. Treasuries. Would such a slowing of foreign official purchases of Treasury notes and bonds affect long-term Treasury yields? Most likely yes, and the effects appear to be large. By our estimates, if foreign official inflows into U.S. Treasuries were to decrease in a given month by $100 billion, 5-year Treasury rates would rise by about 40–60 basis points in the short run. But once we allow foreign private investors to react to the yield change induced by the shock to foreign official inflows, the long-run effect is about 20 basis points.     

RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED WITHIN THE U.S. CREDIT UNION INDUSTRY

This paper reports the findings of a national survey regarding the financial management practices of United States credit unions. The US credit union industry is clearly in a period of transition. The study indicates that the way in which credit unions approach financial management may have a decided impact on how successful the industry adjusts to deregulated marketplaces. The research highlights the importance of managed growth through selective product diversification, identification of profitable market niches, and the use of modern risk management techniques.     

THE INTRADAY INTERDEPENDENCE STRUCTURE BETWEEN U.S. AND JAPANESE EQUITY MARKETS

Contrary to the efficient market hypothesis, previous research documents a significant correlation between lagged U.S. close-to-close stock market returns and current open-to-close Japanese equity market returns. We find that the significant correlation is limited to the first hour of Japanese trading, with subsequent hourly returns independent of lagged U.S. returns. This evidence suggests that the documented significant correlation is attributable to a sticky Japanese opening value associated with the use of nonsynchronous index data.