The first act of the impact of the coronavirus on America's financial markets and banking system was characterised by panic.
冠状病毒对美国金融市场和银行体系影响的第一幕是恐慌。
As firms scrambled to amass the cash they needed to survive shutdowns,
各公司争先恐后地积累度过倒闭危机所需的现金，
they rushed to sell their holdings of securities and draw down their revolving credit lines.
他们匆忙抛售他们所持有的证券，并削减他们的周转信用额度。
Traders attempting to make markets from their sofas were overwhelmed with record volumes.
试图坐在沙发上做市场的交易员被交易量所淹没。
Banks' loan books and deposit accounts swelled. Risk managers frantically tried to compute potential loan losses.
银行贷款和储蓄存款增加。风险经理疯狂地试图计算潜在的贷款损失。
All this was reflected in the big banks' first-quarter earnings, reported in the middle of April.
所有这些都在大型银行四月中旬报告的第一季度收入中得到了反映。
Trading profits were sky high, lifting investment-banking revenues.
营业利润极高，这也抬高了投资银行的收入。
But bottom lines suffered as commercial banks set aside reserves to prepare for likely credit losses.
但随着商业银行为可能的信贷损失做拨款准备，盈亏底线受到了影响。
The second act was less turbulent, as government support quelled the panic.
第二幕没有那么混乱，因为政府的支持平息了恐慌。
Legislation passed in March bolstered unemployment benefits,
三月通过的立法巩固了失业津贴，
set up a lending scheme for small businesses and provided a backstop for the Federal Reserve to buy up corporate debt.
为小企业设立贷款计划，并为美联储购买公司债券提供了支撑。
This seems to have insulated firms and households from much of the damage, and has restored order to financial markets.
这似乎使公司和家庭免受了大部分损失，还重新恢复了金融市场的秩序。
But unease about the future remains. These dynamics were evident in the second-quarter earnings put out by Citigroup,
但对未来的不安依然存在。7月14日和15日，美国四大银行：花旗银行、
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, four of America's largest banks, on July 14th and 15th.

高盛集团、摩根大通以及富国银行公布了第二季度收入，这些动态在其中非常明显。
(Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, America's other big lenders, were due to report on July 16th, as The Economist went to press.)
（美国银行和摩根士丹利，美国另外两大银行，将于本刊付印之际，即7月16日发布报告。）
As bond markets began to function again, firms rushed to sell securities.
随着债券市场重新开始运转，企业纷纷抛售证券。
In America companies have issued more than $2trn in equity and debt,
在美国，各公司已经发行了超过2万亿美元的股票和债券，
equivalent to 5% of the entire value of outstanding corporate bonds and public equity, and an increase of almost 50% on the year.
相当于未清偿企业债券和公共股权全部价值的5%，较上年同期增长近50%。
Accordingly, primary-issuance revenues at the four big banks rose by 56%, year over year, to $7.8bn.
因此，四大银行原始发行收入同比增长56%，达到78亿美元。
Traders stayed busy: trading revenues rose by 70% on the year to an all-time high of $26.9bn.
交易员依旧忙碌：交易收入比去年增长了70%，达到269亿美元的历史新高。
That reflected stronger client activity, as well as wider trading spreads, said Stephen Scherr, the chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs.
这反映出客户活动增强以及交易价差扩大，高盛集团的首席财务官Stephen Scherr说到。
More company bosses are now telling investors that they hold enough cash to cover two or three years' worth of outgoings.
现在，越来越多的公司老板告诉投资者，他们持有的现金足够覆盖两三年的支出。
Newly recapitalised companies are paying back revolving loans. Of the $55bn drawn down from JPMorgan in March $39bn has since been repaid.
新的资本重组公司正在偿还周转性贷款。在摩根大通今年三月削减的550亿美元资金中，已有390亿美元已偿还。
Commercial banks are bracing for the impact of the crisis, but it has yet to come.
商业银行正在为危机的影响做准备，但危机尚未到来。
Although 17.8m Americans were unemployed at the end of June, few have defaulted so far,
尽管6月底，有1780万美国人失业，但到目前为止几乎没有人违约，
thanks to stimulus cheques and meaty unemployment benefits, and banks' willingness to defer mortgage and credit-card payments.
这多亏了刺激计划支票和大量的失业救济，以及银行推迟抵押贷款和信用卡支付的意愿。
The four banks' charge-offs—ie, their write-offs for loans in default—
这四家银行的贷款冲销——即对违约贷款的勾销——
rose by just 22% to $4.9bn in the second quarter, up from $3.9bn during the same period in 2019.
从2019年同期的39亿美元上升到49亿美元，仅上升了22%。
By contrast, $29.5bn was set aside for provisions for expected losses, compared with just $3.9bn in the same quarter in 2019.
相比之下，银行为预期亏损拨备了295亿美元，而2019年同期仅为39亿美元。

This stockpile comes on top of the $20bn the lenders set aside in the first quarter.

这些银行在第一季度拨备了200亿美元。
The way to think about these provisions, said Jennifer Piepszak, JPMorgan's chief financial officer, is that "it is all in the outlook, because we are not seeing it today".
摩根大通的首席财务官Jennifer Piepszak说到，考虑这些拨备的方式是，“因为我们今天没有看到，所以一切都在展望中”。
Will the third act of the crisis see banks making big losses?
危机的第三幕会看到银行遭遇巨大损失吗？
A simple way of thinking about what will happen next is to split the institutions into three parts: the investment bank,
思考接下来会发生什么的一种简单方式是，将这些制度分成三个部分：投资银行，
which has performed exceptionally well so far; loan provisions, which have been exceptionally costly;
迄今表现异常出色；贷款损失准备金，其成本一直异常高昂；
and "everything else", which includes wealth and asset management. The residual bit of large banks' business has, overall, been remarkably steady.
以及“一切别的东西”，包括财富和资产管理。大银行的剩余业务整体而言非常稳定。
If provisions for loan losses and revenues from investment banking had both been flat on the year,
如果贷款损失准备金和投资银行业务收入均与去年持平，
net income would have fallen by an average of just 1% across Citi, JPMorgan and Wells.
那么花旗银行、摩根大通和富国银行的净收益平均仅下降1%。
The fate of banks' profitability seems likely therefore to depend on the fate of the investment-banking business, and of provisions for loan losses.
因此，银行利润率的命运要依赖于投资银行业务以及贷款损失准备金的命运了。
Investment-banking revenues seem set to slow, if they have not already done so.
投资银行的收入似乎要放缓了，如果他们还没有这样做的话。
Trading volumes have eased in June and early July from their highs in March and April.
与3月和4月的高点相比，6月和7月初的交易量有所减少。
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's chief executive, reckoned that trading revenues would "normalise" or even drop below normal later in the year.
摩根大通的CEO，杰米·戴蒙认为今年年末，交易收入将“正常化”，甚至低于正常水平。
Whether provisions prove sufficient or not is far from clear. They are based on a number of assumptions that are layered on top of each other.
贷款损失准备金是否准备充足尚不清楚。它们是建立在许多相互叠加的假设之上的。
One is about the path the virus takes. Another is how that evolution affects unemployment and economic growth.
一个是关于病毒的传播途径。另一个是这种进化对失业率和经济增长的影响。
Yet another concerns the size of any further fiscal stimulus, and how consumers and firms respond to it.
而另一个问题是任何进一步财政刺激的规模，以及消费者和企业对此的反应。
Banks' base case seems to be broadly in line with that of the Federal Reserve.
银行的基本预期似乎与美联储的大体一致。
The economy is expected to be smaller by the end of 2021 than it was at the end of 2019.
预计到2021年底，经济规模将小于2019年底。
The unemployment rate is expected to remain in double digits until the end of this year, before falling gradually.
预计失业率将在今年年底前保持两位数，然后才会逐渐下降。
But bank bosses emphasised the fog of uncertainty shrouding it all. "We are in a completely unpredictable environment," said Michael Corbat, Citi's chief executive.
但银行老板们强调的是笼罩着一切的不确定性。“我们都处在一切完全不可预测的环境中，”花旗银行的CEO Michael Corbat说到。
"In a normal recession unemployment goes up, delinquencies go up, charge-offs go up,
“在正常的经济衰退中，失业率走高、违约率增加、贷款冲销上升、
home prices go down, incomes go down, savings go down," said Mr Dimon. This time the usual relationships do not hold.
房价下跌、收入下降、存款减少，”Dimon说到。这一次，往常的关联不成立了。
Even as unemployment has jumped, for instance, incomes have risen.
例如，失业率上升了，收入也增加了。
If investment-banking revenues subside and banks keep having to add to provisions, losses may be on the cards in the third quarter.
如果投资银行收入减少，银行继续不得不增加贷款损失准备金，那么第三季度可能出现亏损。
Wells Fargo was the only bank to make a loss in the second. That reflects its relatively small investment bank, as well as its special situation—
富国银行是唯一一家在第二季度出现亏损的银行。这反映出它的投资银行相对较小，以及其环境特殊——
it still operates under an asset cap imposed by regulators that has constrained its growth, even as other lenders have ballooned.
它仍在在监管机构设定的资产上限下运营，这限制了它的增长，即使其他银行已经膨胀。
But another, rosier scenario is possible: that government stimulus continues to keep delinquencies down, and banks end up with mountains of spare capital.
但另一种更乐观的情况是有可能的：政府的刺激措施继续让拖欠率保持低水平，并且银行最终拥有了堆积如山的闲置资金。
That would be welcome news for shareholders. Even as the S&P 500 benchmark index has recovered, bank shares are a third lower than at the start of the year.
这对股东来说是个好消息。即便标准普尔500指数已经回升，银行股份仍比年初低三分之一。
But the happy scenario also relies on the third act being the final one. With covid-19 cases rising, that is looking increasingly unlikely.
但这个乐观的情况也依赖于第三幕是最后一幕。随着新冠病例的增加，这种可能性似乎越来越小。

来源：经济学人