Wall Street's banks
华尔街的银行
Topsy turvy
七颠八倒
Have banks now got too much cash?
银行现在有很多钱？
The fates of the economy and banks are normally closely entwined; when customers endure misfortune, loans go unpaid. The summer was marked by a lull in covid-19 cases and recovering economic activity. Winter has brought with it more infections and shutdowns. Yet banks' profits were slender in the summer and, as fourth-quarter earnings released between January 15th and 20th revealed, fattened at the end of the year. What is going on?
经济和银行的命运通常是紧密相连的，当客户遭受不幸时，贷款就无法偿还。今年夏天，新冠病例增长处于平静期，经济活动有所恢复。到了冬天，病例再次增加，商店再次关上了门。然而，今年夏天银行的利润却很微薄，而且，正如1月15日至20日公布的第四季度收益所揭示的那样，银行的利润在今年年底却还在增长。这是怎么一回事？
One explanation is that the trading desks and investment banks housed in most big banks have fared well, thanks to a rush of initial public offerings and booming markets. Profits were sky-high at banks that earn most of their revenues from investment banking and trading. Goldman Sachs made $4.5bn in the fourth quarter, half its annual profits in 2020. JPMorgan Chase's investment-banking profits in the same quarter almost doubled on the year. The firm's total earnings were a record $12.1bn in the fourth quarter.
一种解释是，由于首次公开发行的热潮和市场的繁荣，大多数大银行的交易部门和投资银行都表现良好。大部分收入来自投资银行业务和交易业务的银行利润极高。高盛去年第四季度盈利45亿美元，是其2020年全年利润的一半。摩根大通投资银行在同一季度的利润几乎比去年翻了一番，该公司第四季度的总收入达到了121亿美元，创下纪录。
The bread-and-butter business of commercial and consumer banking also did well. This is, in part, an accounting quirk. When expectations of repayment tumble, banks must write down the value of their assets, which they book as a loss. As a result, many reported slim profits (and in some cases, losses) in the second and third quarters, even though borrowers mostly repaid their loans. Though delinquencies inched up in the fourth quarter, it also contained hope—in the form of a vaccine.
商业银行和消费者银行的基本业务也表现良好。这在一定程度上是一种会计怪癖。当还款预期大幅下降时，银行必须减记资产价值，将其记为损失。结果，尽管大多数借款人偿还了贷款，许多银行在第二和第三季度仍报告利润微薄(某些情况下是亏损)。尽管违约率在第四季度小幅上升，但也包含了希望——以疫苗的形式。
Recovery equals repayment. So America's biggest lenders—Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo—have favourably re-evaluated their loan books. In September JPMorgan expected as much as $33.6bn of its $1trn loan book to eventually go unpaid. By the end of December a little under $1.1bn was written off for good. But the bank also now thinks that around $1.8bn that it had previously expected to be lost will be repaid. These averted hypothetical losses add to profits.
复苏等于还款。因此，美国最大的贷款机构——美国银行、花旗集团、摩根大通和富国银行——已经对它们的贷款账目进行了有利的重新评估。9月份，摩根大通预计其1万亿美元贷款中有336亿美元最终将无法偿还。截至去年12月底，有略低于11亿美元的资产被永久冲销。但该银行现在仍认为，此前预计将损失的约18亿美元将得到偿还。这些避免的假设损失增加了利润。
This bonanza is a victory for those who spent the past decade attempting to make banks safer. In the past investment-bank earnings were more tied to the economy, thanks to fat portfolios of assets like mortgage-backed securities. Now banks must hold so much capital against volatile assets that they do not bother. When markets whipsawed last year they earned the upside (bumper trading revenues) without the downside (losses on volatile assets).
对于那些在过去10年里试图让银行变得更安全的人来说，这一大笔财富是一个胜利。过去，由于抵押贷款支持证券等资产组合丰厚，投资银行的收益更多地与经济挂钩。现在，银行必须为不稳定资产持有如此之多的资本，以至于他们都懒得费心了。去年，当市场剧烈震荡时，他们获得了上行(丰厚的交易收入)而没有下跌(波动性资产的损失)。
But this earnings season has also revealed how sensible rules can go awry in bizarre times. Banks are usually keen to amass customer deposits. They are cheap sources of funding; the more deposits a bank holds, the more it can lend. Over the past year, monetary easing by the Federal Reserve has injected vast amounts of cash into the banking system and led deposits to balloon. In 2020 an additional $580bn or so piled up at JPMorgan, and $360bn at Bank of America. On one earnings call an analyst called these deposit mountains an "embarrassment of money for the industry".
但这个财报季也揭示出，合理的规则在奇怪的时候可能会出差错。银行通常热衷于积累客户存款。它们是廉价的资金来源，银行持有的存款越多，它能放的贷也就越多。过去一年，美国联邦储备委员会放松货币政策，向银行体系注入了大量现金，导致存款激增。到2020年，摩根大通和美国银行分别又累积了约5800亿美元和3600亿美元。在一次收益电话会议上，一位分析师称这些巨额存款“令整个行业感到尴尬”。
Yet post-financial-crisis rules make this cash pile a problem, not a victory. Big banks face high capital requirements if they grow too large. The penalties would be worthwhile if there were enough profitable opportunities. But loan demand has been low. System-wide loan-to-deposit ratios have plummeted, from 94% in 2008 to 64% last year. The result is that some banks are attempting to shoo away deposits. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's boss, told investors that the bank had asked some of its big corporate customers to move their cash, reducing the deposit base by $200bn. The firm may "shy away from taking new deposits", said Jennifer Piepszak, its chief financial officer. The covid-19 crisis has shown the resilience of the financial system. But it has also revealed its oddities.
然而，金融危机后的规则让这些现金成为了一个问题，而不是胜利。如果大银行发展得太大，它们将面临很高的资本要求。如果有足够多的盈利机会，这些惩罚是值得的。但贷款需求一直很低。整个系统的贷存比大幅下降，从2008年的94%降至去年的64%。其结果是，一些银行正试图赶走存款。摩根大通老板杰米·戴蒙告诉投资者，该行已要求一些大企业客户转移现金，使存款基础减少2000亿美元。该公司的首席财务官詹尼弗·彼得扎克说，该公司可能“回避接受新的存款”。新冠危机显示了金融体系的韧性，但也暴露了它的奇怪之处。
来源：经济学人
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