一直想寫一些對別人有幫助的文章，可不知道從何處著手。剛在坐享的時候，突然想到（又分神了），我是不是可以試著翻譯一些英文文章呢？說干就干，先從最近看到的一篇Ray Dalio（Bridgewater基金管理公司主席）2017年8月10日在Linkedin上發布的文章開始。因為我的會計和金融知識是在加拿大學的英文版，有時候翻譯成中文沒那么準確，有什么不恰當的地方，請大家指正。
Risks Are Rising While Low Risks Are Discounted
當低風險還被低估時，真正的風險正在上升
There are returns, and there are risks. We think of them individually, and then we combine them into a portfolio. We think of returns and opportunities as coming from those things we’d bet on, and we think of risks as the adverse market consequences of us being wrong due to our being out of balance. We start with our balanced beta portfolio—i.e., that portfolio that would most certainly fund our intended uses of the money. Everyone should have their own based on their own projected uses of money, though more generally, it’s our All Weather portfolio. We then create a balanced portfolio of opportunity/alpha bets based on what we think is likely to happen. We then combine them.
世界上有回報，也有風險。我們單獨考慮它們，再合并入一個投資組合中。我們認為投資給我們帶來回報和機遇，而風險是由于我們投資組合失衡而導致的錯誤且有害的市場后果（注：這句話很難翻譯，誰有好的建議，請賜教）。我們先來創建一個系統風險平衡型的投資組合（注：Beta是一種評估系統風險的標準），比如，把錢用到打算要用的地方。盡管這看起來更像是一種適合于所有人的投資組合，每個人還是應該根據自己的預期來創建一個屬于自己的投資組合。接著，基于可能發生事情的判斷，我們再創建一個把機遇和回報有效結合的投資組合（注：Alpha是衡量相對于指數的投資回報）。最后我們把兩種投資組合合并起來（注：一種考慮風險，另一種考慮回報）。
We bet on the events/outcomes that we think we have an edge in understanding. For events/outcomes where we don’t think we have a particular edge—e.g., political events—we aim to construct our portfolio to be relatively neutral or balanced to those risks.
我們對于我們理解的事情和結果下注。而對于我們不熟悉的事情和結果，比如政治事件，我們力求創建一個中性或者能平衡風險的投資組合。
Risk and Volatility 風險和波動
As a rule, periods of lower risk/volatility tend to lead to periods of greater risk/volatility. That is reflected in our aggregate market volatility gauge (see below), and markets are pricing in volatility to remain low next year too.
一般來說，越低的風險和低波期容易引發越大的風險和波動期。這可以從在下面的市場總波動圖中反映出來，市場的波動率明年還會保持低位。
As a related rule, people adapt to the circumstances they have experienced and are then surprised when the future is different than the past. In other words, most people are inclined to assume that the circumstances they have recently encountered will persist, which leads them to change what they are doing to be consistent with that recently experienced environment. For example, low-volatility periods in which credit is readily available tend to lead people to assume that it’s safe to borrow more, which leads them to lever up their positions, which contributes to greater volatility and hurts them when things change.
作為一個相關準則，人們容易適應經歷過的情況，而當未來和過往不同時，總是大吃一驚。換而言之，大多數人傾向于假設他們最近遇到的情況會一直保持下去，這會導致他們改變正在做的事情，為了和他們經歷過的情況保持一致。比如，低波動時期，信用比較寬松，這使人們認為借更多的錢是很安全的，所以他們就借錢投資，最后導致更大的波動而傷害到他們。
That appears to be the case now—i.e., prospective risks are now rising and do not appear appropriately priced in because of a) a backward looking at risk and b) corporate leveraging up has been high because interest rates are low relative to many companies’ projected ROEs and because past risks have been low. The emerging risks appear more political than economic, which makes them especially challenging to price in. Most immediately, during the calm of the August vacation season, we are seeing 1) two confrontational, nationalistic, and militaristic leaders playing chicken with each other, while the world is watching to see which one will be caught bluffing, or if there will be a hellacious war, and 2) the odds of Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling (leading to a technical default, a temporary government shutdown, and increased loss of faith in the effectiveness of our political system) rising. It’s hard to bet on such things, one way or another, so the best that one can do is be neutral to such possibilities.
目前的情況就是這樣，比如，可預見的風險正在上升，但貌似沒人正確的考慮它們，原因是，一，根據以前的風險來判斷現在的風險，二，因為利率相對于企業預期的資產回報率更低和過往的風險已經很低，企業借了很多的錢。正在出現的風險更多的是政治風險，而不是經濟風險，這就使得要把風險考慮進來的難度就比較大。就在最近，在安靜的8月休假季（注：在北美，很多人會在夏天休帶薪假），我們看到，一，兩個挑釁的、民族主義的，好斗的領導人（注：美國和朝鮮）互相試膽，而全世界就看著誰只是嚇嚇對方，或者是否真能引起一場大戰；二，國會無法提高債務上限的可能性正在上升（如果真這樣，會導致債務違約，政府部門暫時關門，和進一步喪失對我們政治系統有效性的信心）。對于這種事情，我們很難判斷，所以最好的方法就是，對于各種可能性保持中立。
When it comes to assessing political matters (especially global geopolitics like the North Korea matter), we are very humble. We know that we don’t have a unique insight that we’d choose to bet on. Most importantly, we aim to stay liquid, stay diversified, and not be overly exposed to any particular economic outcomes. We like to hedge our bets, though we are never completely hedged. We can also say that if the above things go badly, it would seem that gold (more than other safe haven assets like the dollar, yen, and treasuries) would benefit, so if you don’t have 5-10% of your assets in gold as a hedge, we’d suggest that you relook at this. Don’t let traditional biases, rather than an excellent analysis, stand in the way of you doing this (and if you do have an excellent analysis of why you shouldn’t have such an allocation to gold, we’d appreciate you sharing it with us).
當評估政治事件時（特別是類似于朝鮮事件的全球地緣政治），我們非常謙虛。我們知道自己沒有獨特的洞察力讓我們可以選擇下注。更重要的是，我們還要保持資產的可變現能力，資產的多樣化，和不要讓任何特殊的經濟結果影響資產。盡管不能完全規避風險，但我們還是喜歡這么做。所以我們說，如果上面提到的事情真的往不好的方向發展，投資黃金（作為一種比美金，日元和國債更安全的資產）可能收益更高。如果你的資產里面還沒有5-10%的、作為避險工具的黃金，我們建議你需要重新考慮了。除非你有很好的分析，那就不要讓傳統的偏見妨礙你這么做（如果你有關于不買黃金很好的分析，請與我們分享）。
結語：翻譯完，才發現之前讀過一遍的理解是不準確的，雖然繼續讀，可能會有更多的理解。逐字逐句翻譯倒逼我把文章的每一個細節都要準確理解，還要結合上下文，把意思很好的表達出來。以后我會經常翻譯一些投資理財類的文章，幫助自己學習的同時，希望對其他人也有幫助。
