怎样的美国大选结果对投资者有利?

Which party controls the White House certainly appears to matter. Since 1926, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has gained almost exactly twice as much under Democratic presidents as under Republicans, according to quantitative stock analysts Pankaj Patel and Joseph Handelman of Credit Suisse. Stocks have racked up an average annual return of 15.4% when a Democrat is in the White House, versus 7.8% under Republican presidents.
当然，哪个党控制白宫似乎也很重要。据瑞信(Credit Suisse)股市定量分析师帕特尔(Pankaj Patel)和汉德尔曼(Joseph Handelman)说，自1926年以来，民主党总统执政期间标普500指数涨幅几乎正好是共和党总统当政期间的两倍。民主党执掌白宫时，股市平均年回报率为15.4%，相比之下，共和党总统执政期间为7.8%。

That doesn't mean stocks are bound to boom if Pres. Obama is re-elected. But as Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, points out, a presidential election hasn't resulted in a Democrat in the White House with a Congress divided along those lines in at least 112 years. So the historical averages might not even matter.
这并不是说如果现任总统奥巴马获得连任，股市必定大涨。但正如摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)首席美国股市策略师帕克(Adam Parker)所指出的，在至少112年里，在国会分歧如此之大的情况下，总统选举的结果都不是民主党候选人当选。所以历史平均数据可能根本不重要。

The dominance of stock returns under Democrats might be a subtle kind of statistical illusion. The research by Prof. Johnson and his colleagues suggests the Federal Reserve's monetary policy is far more important.
民主党执政时期的股市高回报或许只是统计上的假象。约翰逊及其同事进行的研究表明，美联储(Federal Reserve)的货币政策要重要的多。

Since 1965, according to the study, large stocks have returned an annual average of nearly 12 percentage points more when the Fed was cutting rates than when it was raising them. (The researchers started their analysis then because 1965 was the dawn of modern Fed policy.) Over the same period, the difference in stock returns under Democratic versus Republican presidents was less than seven percentage points; a statistical analysis shows that the effect of Fed policy dwarfs the impact of presidential party.
据研究显示，自1965年以来，相比美联储加息时期，降息时大型股的平均年回报率要高出近12个百分点。（研究人员选择从那个时候开始分析是因为1965年是现代美联储政策的开端。）同期，民主党总统执政期间和共和党总统执政期间的股市回报率相差不到七个百分点；一项统计分析显示，美联储政策的影响要大于哪个党派控制白宫的影响。

In short, Fed policies matter more than party politics. Democratic presidents happened to benefit disproportionately from periods when the Fed was cutting interest rates-which is rocket fuel for stock returns. That's especially true for small stocks, which have returned 26 percentage points more, on average, in years when the Fed was cutting rates rather than raising them. Says Prof. Johnson: 'There's no systematic relationship between the party of the president and asset returns.'
简而言之，美联储的政策比党派政治更重要。民主党总统只是正好赶上了美联储降息的时候多──降息对股市回报可以起到极大的推动作用。对小型股尤其如此。相比美联储加息时，降息时小型股的平均回报率要高出26个百分点。约翰逊说，总统属于哪个党派与资产回报率没有系统性的关系。

What does all this mean for investors? You should cast your vote based on what you believe will benefit the country, not what pundits think will benefit your portfolio. Don't let anyone scare you into making major investment changes because one party or the other takes the White House. No matter who wins, it's the direction of change in interest rates that will make the biggest difference to the returns of the financial markets.
所有这一切对投资者意味着什么？你投票的依据应该是你认为什么将给美国带来好处，而不是专家认为什么将给你的投资组合带来好处。不要因为一个党派或另一个党派控制白宫而让任何人吓得你做出重大投资调整。无论谁胜，利率调整的方向才是对金融市场回报影响最大的因素。