An Unintended Consequence Is Welcome

所谓意想不到的结果法则一般在危机之际都是对市场不利的。但这一次，这一法则却可能帮市场的忙。政府对银行债券提供担保的举动非但没有将其他发债人挤出市场，反而可能对非金融企业有利，并有助于推动企业债发行猛增，减少企业对银行贷款的依赖。原因何在？享受政府担保的债券不再符合许多基金经理的投资标准，其中一个特别原因是，在债市指数中它们已不属于企业债，而是被视为“准主权债券”。由于大多数新发金融企业债券都有担保，因此，投资者会将更多资金分配给非金融类债券。基金经理们喜欢用作基准的Markit iBoxx等指数正越来越多地向非金融类债券倾斜。法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)指出，3月份的发债潮之后，会有总额358亿欧元（合474亿美元）的非金融类债券进入iBoxx欧元企业债指数的覆盖范围，而金融类债券只有60亿欧元。非金融类债券在该指数的权重将上升1.5个百分点，至55.5%。这一趋势应该还会继续，至少，银行在降低负债比例的潮流下会减少发债。这对非金融类企业来说是个好消息，因为他们可以吸引到更多投资债市的新资金。的确，对银行业去杠杆化的担心正是推动发债量升至创纪录水平的一个原因；企业认为，未来银行贷款将不会那么容易得到。如果欧洲企业因此而进一步减少对银行的依赖，那应该不是坏事。Richard Barley 本文涉及股票或公司document.write (truthmeter('2009年04月03日13:31', 'FNM'));Fannie Mae总部地点：美国上市地点：纽约证交所股票代码：FNMdocument.write (truthmeter('2009年04月03日13:31', 'FRE'));Freddie Mac总部地点：美国上市地点：纽约证交所股票代码：FRE


The law of unintended consequences has generally worked against the markets during the crisis. For once, it may be working in their favor.Government guarantees on bank debt, far from crowding out other borrowers from the bond market, may be working to the advantage of nonfinancial companies, helping to fuel a surge in corporate-bond issuance and reducing companies' reliance on bank lending.The reason？ Bonds backed by government guarantees no longer fit the investment criteria for many fund managers, in particular because they aren't classified by indexes as corporate debt. Rather, they are 'sub-sovereign debt.' Since most new financial debt is guaranteed, investors are allocating more to nonfinancial issues.Indexes such as the Markit iBoxx that are popularly used as benchmarks by fund managers are becoming increasingly skewed to nonfinancial issuance. After March's issuance, 35.8 billion euros ($47.4 billion) of nonfinancial debt is set to enter the iBoxx euro corporate index, versus 6 billion euros of financial debt, BNP Paribas notes. The market size of nonfinancials within the index will rise 1.5 percentage points to 55.5%.This trend should continue, not least because banks are borrowing less as they deleverage. That's good news for nonfinancial companies, because they should capture more of the new money flowing into the asset class. Indeed, fear of bank deleveraging is one factor driving record levels of bond issuance; companies don't believe bank funding will be so freely available in the future. If the result is that European companies further reduce their dependency on the banks, that's no bad thing.Richard Barley