经济学人下载:中国股市--清理尸骸(1)

China's stockmarket 

中国股市

Bring out your dead 

清理尸骸

China wants to clear the dross from its stock exchanges 

中国想要清除其证券交易所里的糟粕

Like many Chinese companies on the stockmarket, Gangtai Holding, a jewellery-to-property conglomerate, flaunts its listing. It displays its ticker number, 600687, prominently on its website and in its ads. But not for much longer. On January 7th Gangtai began a 30-day period almost certain to end with its ejection from the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is one of a growing number of Chinese companies to face delisting at home. 

和股市里的很多中国公司一样，业务范围从珠宝到地产的企业集团刚泰控股也在炫耀自己上市公司的地位。它将其股票代码600687展示在官网和广告的显著位置。但好景不长。1月7日，刚泰进入了为期30天的退市整理期，几乎可以肯定的是，在这之后它会被踢出上海证券交易所。除了刚泰之外，还有越来越多的中国公司在国内面临退市。

In recent months all the delisting talk has been about the removal—or not—of Chinese companies from American exchanges (see Business section). Within China, though, a potentially more important kind of delisting is on the agenda: regulators have made it easier to strip lousy firms of their listing status. It is the latest in an array of reforms aimed at modernising the stockmarket, long seen more as a casino than an efficient allocator of capital. 

近几个月以来，所有关于退市的言论说的都是中国公司是否会被踢出美国交易所。不过，在中国国内，一种或许更为重要的退市正提上日程：监管机构已经把劣质公司上市身份的撤销变得更加容易。这是一系列股市现代化改革措施中最新出台的一项。长期以来人们更多地将股市视为赌场，而非资本的有效配置渠道

Delistings are a staple of healthy stock exchanges, a mechanism for clearing out the dross. In America a few dozen companies are typically forced off its exchanges every year, often because of low market values. In the early 2000s, after the dotcom bust, annual delistings climbed to nearly 400. China, by contrast, has averaged seven delistings a year over the past decade, despite having more than 4,000 listed companies, nearly as many as America. 

退市是一种清理糟粕的机制，在健康的证券交易所里很常见。美国每年通常都会有几十家公司往往因市值过低而被迫退市。21世纪初，在互联网泡沫破裂后，每年退市的公司攀升至近400家。相比之下，尽管中国的上市公司有超过4000家，几乎和美国一样多，但过去10年平均每年只有七家上市公司退市。

Delistings have been so infrequent in China mainly because, relative to demand, listings themselves were hard to come by. "Even if a company is nearly bankrupt, the shell value of being listed is really high. Just by staying alive it can find a buyer," says Lu Fangzhou of the University of Hong Kong. This has made for perverse incentives. Listed firms in financial trouble in China are classified as "special treatment", abbreviated to ST before their ticker name, to warn off investors. Instead, however, it is often an invitation to bid up their prices, as buyers might emerge. ST stocks are volatile, but their returns have occasionally beaten the overall market. 

退市的情况之所以在中国很少见是因为相对于需求而言上市本身就很难得。“即便一家公司濒临破产，上市的空壳价值也非常高。只要能活下去，就能找到买家。”来自香港大学的卢方舟说。这就产生了反向激励。在中国，陷入财政困境的上市公司会被列为“特殊处理”，并在其股票名称之前冠以缩写ST以警告投资者。不过，因为可能会出现卖家，所以通常情况下这反而会使它们的价格被推高。ST股票波动较大，但其回报有时会超过整体市场。