经济学人下载:金融衍生品 数据轰炸

Finance and economics
财经商业

Derivatives
金融衍生品

Data dump
数据轰炸

New reporting rules for derivatives have produced a confusing mass of data.
新出台的衍生品交易报告法规已经产生了大量的数据，令人晕头转向。

DURING the financial crisis regulators discovered the hard way how little they knew about the risky derivatives portfolios built up by large financial institutions.
在金融危机期间，监管部门才痛苦地发现自己对于大型金融机构们建立的暗藏风险的衍生产品投资组合了解极少。

Lehman Brothers, for example, was thought to have been a counterparty to about $5 trillion of credit default swaps.
比方说，雷曼兄弟经手的信用违约交换被认为达到了5万亿美元之巨。

When they turned sour in 2008, it brought the financial system to its knees.
当这些信用违约交换在2008年时变成无法兑现时，金融系统因此一败涂地。

In response leaders of the world's main economies demanded in 2009 that derivatives deals should all be reported to trade repositories—vast central databases—to make it easier to identify and then reduce systemic risks.
因而世界各大主要经济体的领导人在2009年时采取了行动，要求衍生品交易必须全部上报交易数据存管机构以便于管理同时减少系统风险。

On February 12th European rules came into force requiring the reporting of all derivatives to one of six approved repositories.
欧洲方面的相关法规于2月12日开始生效，要求所有金融衍生品交易都要向六个被批准的存管机构之一进行报告。

Similar rules have already been in place in America for about a year.
而类似的法规已经在美国实行了约一年。

But the effort, although concerted, is not consistent:
虽然双方有过协商，两个地区的法规却并不一致：

the American and European reforms differ, making awkward transactions spanning the two jurisdictions.
两者间的差异将使跨地区交易面临尴尬。

Moreover, even if these data can be reconciled, it is not clear what regulators will do with it.
即便这些数据能够相互协调，监管部门将如何处理这些数据还不得而知。

The American regulations allow the reporting to be taken care of by one party to the trade.
美国的监管部门允许交易中的单方负责报告，

Yet Europe requires both parties to report.
然而欧洲方面则要求双方都进行汇报。

That means every fund manager or corporate treasurer trading derivatives has had to follow cumbersome rules, not just the banks that peddle most deals.
这就意味着除了兜售衍生品的银行方面，所有参与金融衍生品交易的基金经理人以及公司财务主管都必须遵循复杂的规定。

Getting both sides to report was originally seen as a means to ensure that every entity's exposure could be rigorously monitored.
要求交易双方都进行报告的规定最初是为了保证交易双方的信息披露都能够受到严格的监管。

But the complexities of obliging both parties to report trades, which then have to be reconciled with one another, have led many to question whether the additional burden is really worthwhile.
但是要求双方都报告交易会使过程更复杂，两份报告还必须相互一致，这令人不禁怀疑这些额外的麻烦是否值得。

Dual reporting was required to avoid omissions in the data, says Stewart Macbeth of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, one of the approved repositories.
要求两方上报是为了减少数据中的纰漏，被任命的数据库之一存管信托及结算公司的Stewart Macbeth这样说道。

But it captures a lot of companies in the real economy that probably do not pose a systemic risk.
但是这样也卷入了不少实体经济中并不会导致系统风险的公司。

The European rules differ from the American ones in other ways too.
欧洲地区和美国的法规中存在的差异还不仅于此。

America staggered implementation of its rules over the course of several months as different sorts of contracts and counterparties were gradually brought within their scope.
由于不同类型的合同和交易方们是分批纳入监管范围的，美国花了几个月的时间才完全实行了这些法规。

European regulators chose instead to have everyone start reporting everything on a single day.
而欧洲的执法机构在一天之内就要求所有人都着手进行报告。

That created a bottleneck as participants rushed to put the necessary procedures and agreements in place.
这造成了参与者们匆忙落实必要的步骤和协议，造成了瓶颈期。

Now that the deadline has passed, responsibility shifts to regulators, whose duty it will be to make sense of the torrents of data that are now flooding in.
现在报告已经过了截止日期，责任又转换到了监管机构一方，对泛滥成灾的数据洪流进行处理可是它们的工作了。

In America the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has openly acknowledged the problems it has already encountered coping with the deluge, with one commissioner blaming inconsistencies and errors in the rules.
美国商品期货交易委员会公开承认了海量数据处理时的诸多问题，一位委员抱怨说这些法规中存在着矛盾和错误。

In Europe the problems are likely to be even worse as so many more counterparties are reporting data to multiple repositories.
欧洲方面，由于为数众多的交易方需要向多个数据库进行报告，问题看来会更加严重。

That will create an unfortunate opportunity for both omissions and duplications of data.
这将使得数据遗漏和数据重叠发生的概率大大增加。

In time the new reporting rules should reduce risks, but much work still needs to be done.
这些报告法规不久就能降低衍生品交易的风险，但是在此之前，还有许多工作要做。

A paper published on February 4th by the Financial Stability Board offers a solution.
金融稳定委员会于2月4日出版的一篇论文提供了一个解决方案。

It proposes aggregating data from multiple repositories into one central one.
它提议将各个数据库的数据集中到一个中央数据库中。

That may iron out inconsistencies in the data—but it will not necessarily make it any more digestible.
这或许能够消除数据中的不一致性—但是即便如此，数据量依旧很大，处理起来也仍然费时费力。