In a topsy-turvy economy Wall Street banks book giant trading profits and giant bad-debt charges
在混乱的经济下，华尔街银行账面的巨额盈利和巨额坏账费用。
If you want a sense of what is happening to America’s economy during one of the most unusual periods in its modern history, a decent place to start is its banks. Several of the very largest firms, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, have just updated investors. Together they have trillions of dollars of assets and dealings with many of the households and firms hit by the pandemic. The message is that Wall Street is booming even as Main Street is suffering.
如果你想了解这在美国近代史上都不同寻常的时期中，美国经济正在发生什么，银行是个不错的起点。包括几家大型银行在内的银行都向投资者发布了财报，比如摩根大通、花旗银行、富国银行、高盛。他们总共拥有数万亿美元的资产，并且与许多受疫情影响的公司、家庭有交易来往。信息表露出来的是，华尔街正在蓬勃发展，而普通民众正在遭受苦难。
When the pandemic struck, markets collapsed but the Federal Reserve started buying up government debt and promised to purchase all sorts of private assets, including corporate debt. Shares and bond prices soared and many companies, facing a shortfall in revenue because of the lockdowns,rushed to raise capital, mainly by issuing new bonds to investors but also by selling shares. In total some $5.4trn has been raised worldwide so far this year
当疫情来袭的时候，市场崩塌，但美联储开始购买政府债券，并且承诺购买各种私人财产，包括企业债务在内。股票和债券的价格开始飙升，许多公司因为封锁面临着营收不足，争相通过发售新债和出售股票的方式融资。今年到目前位置，全球市场已经筹集了 5.4万亿美元。
This has created a windfall on Wall Street (see Finance section). In the second quarter markets revenues at Citibank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan were higher than at any time since the global financial crisis, almost doubling over the same period in 2019. Goldman Sachs, one of the two remaining big stand-alone investment banks, saw revenues jump by 41%. True to form, it wasted no time in handing over more to its staff. Their 35% pay increase meant that its indulgent and long-suffering shareholders saw profits rise by only 2%
这给华尔街带来了意外之财。今年第二季度，花旗银行、高盛、摩根大通的市场收益比金融危机以来的任何一个时期都高。几乎是 2019 年同时期的 2 倍。高盛，目前最大的两大独立投资银行之一，收益跳增了 41% 。像往常一样，他们毫不迟疑的派发给了他的职工。35%的薪水增长意味着公司员工的潇洒，长期受苦的股东们只看到了 2%的增长。
The real world is less reassuring. Under accounting and supervisory rules, bankers have to prepare for expected losses on loans that go sour, by making provisions now. The sums involved are staggering. The four big banks that have reported set aside $30bn, on top of the $20bn they earmarked in the first quarter. In total the bad-debt reserves they hold are equivalent to 2-4% of their consumer and corporate loan books. Provisions for bad loans now exceed those set aside at the height of the financial crisis. This dragged overall profits down by 50-70% year on year at the big banking conglomerates. Wells Fargo, which does not have a large Wall Street operation to offset charges for dud loans, recorded its first loss since 2008
真实的世界令人不安。根据资产和监管规定，银行必须现在就准备“口粮”，为可能出现的损失和坏账做准备。所涉及的总额是惊人的。据报道，四大行已经准备在第一季度拨备200亿美元的基础上，再拨备300亿美元。总的来说，他们持有的坏账储备，相当于其消费者和合作贷款账目的 2%-4%。坏账储备现在已经超过了金融危机时的最高峰。这使得大型综合性银行的总利润同比下降了 50-70%。富国银行在华尔街没有大规模的业务去抵消坏账，自08年以来首次出现了亏损。
What about the outlook? Few investment-bank bosses expect Wall Street to see such stellar results in the second half of the year. Trading volumes have already fallen back and, now that big businesses have their war chest, they will not need to raise so much new money. But the most striking signal from the banks is just how much depends on whether the virus can be controlled— and what the government does. Asset prices have been lifted because of the extraordinary, and necessary, interventions made by the Fed to restart activity. Main Street is staying afloat thanks to generous government handouts. It is unprecedented that unemployment has jumped
to post-war highs while income and savings are rising. Half of the consumers who requested deferrals for credit-card and mortgage payments from JPMorgan have kept paying their bills. Whether they will
still do so when the government stimulus tapers is another matter. Ominously, Michael Corbat, the boss of Citigroup, admitted that “We are in a completely unpredictable environment.”
接下来情况会如何？很少有投资银行的老板期待在下半年再看到华尔街如此耀眼的业绩。交易量已经回落，而且现在大公司也已经准备好了“粮仓”，他们将不再需要筹集很多的钱。但是 ，银行发出的最显著的信号是，这很大程度上取决于疫情是否能够被控制住，以及政府的行为。资产价格之所以提升，是因为美联储采取了必要且特殊的干预措施，以重启经济。多亏了政府的慷慨施舍，Main Street 才能够维持下去。这是前所未有的，失业率飙升至战后最高水平，但储蓄率和收入却在上升。要求摩根大通延期支付信用卡和抵押贷款的消费者中，有一半一直再支付他们的账单。当政府刺激减少时，他们是否还会这样做是另外一回事儿。不妙的是，花旗银行的老板 *** 承认 ：“我们处在一个完全不可预测的环境中”。