双语新闻：放下包袱 热爱熊市
Stop Worrying, And Learn To Love The BearWhen you bought into the gospel of "stocks for the long run," did you have any idea how long the long run can turn out to be? Exactly 10 years ago, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock Index was at 1164; it closed Friday at 1239. That's an annualized average return of 0.63%. At that rate, it will take you 111 more years to double your money in the stock market.
Meanwhile, this newspaper, and most of Wall Street, has declared that stocks have officially entered a bear market now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 20% below its record high of last October. I think that's poppycock. We've been in a bear market for years; the Dow was almost 600 points higher in early 2000 than it is today. What about that 10% yearly return that U.S. stocks supposedly provide with near-certainty? To earn a 10% long-term return, according to Morningstar, you need to have bought at least 19 years ago and held on ever since.
Could things possibly get worse? I don't know, but I am an optimist -- so I certainly hope things do get worse. Nothing else should satisfy an intelligent investor.
This May, at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Warren Buffett boiled down what it means to be an intelligent investor into two startling sentences: "If a stock [I own] goes down 50%, I'd look forward to it. In fact, I would offer you a significant sum of money if you could give me the opportunity for all of my stocks to go down 50% over the next month." Knowing he owns good businesses, Mr. Buffett wants prices to go down, not up, so he can buy even more shares more cheaply before the bounce back.
In the last long bear market, 1969 to 1982, stocks returned just 5.6% annually; after inflation, investors lost more than 2% a year. That mauling by the bear made stocks so inexpensive that over the ensuing 18 years they went up 18.5% a year, enough to turn $10,000 into more than $200,000.
The people who so far this year have yanked $39 billion out of U.S. stock funds, and $6 billion out of exchange-traded stock funds, do not understand this. But if you are still in your saving and investing years, a bear market is a gift from the financial gods -- and the longer it lasts, the better off you will be. Instead of running from the bear, you should embrace him.
This new column takes its name from the classic book by Benjamin Graham, who wrote that "the investor's chief problem -- and even his worst enemy -- is likely to be himself." I hope to help you understand the chaotic markets around you, and the even more treacherous enemy within. For, as Mr. Buffett has also pointed out, investing is much like dieting: It is simple, but not easy. Everyone knows what it takes to lose weight. (Eat less, exercise more.) Nothing could be simpler, but few things are harder in a world full of chocolate cake and Cheetos.
Likewise, investing is simple: Diversify, buy and hold, keep costs low. But simple isn't easy in a market seething with "free" online trades, funds that promise to transform losses into gains, and TV pundits who shriek out trading advice as if their underpants were on fire. The real secret to being, or becoming, an intelligent investor is bolstering your self-control.
So, in these columns, I will seek to combine the wisdom we can glean from Graham with the latest insights from psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics. The result, I hope, will be practical advice that can increase your odds of reaching your financial goals.
For now, bear this in mind: That which does not kill investors makes them stronger. Physiologists have shown that minuscule doses of poison may actually make organisms (including humans) healthier, a phenomenon called hormesis. I do not recommend seasoning your food with cyanide.
But the findings on hormesis do remind us that painstaking investors -- literally, those who can take the pain of a bear market that seems to drop another 1% every day -- will ultimately triumph, by patiently amassing greater and greater equity positions at better and better prices. The ancient King Mithridates of Pontus is said to have made himself immune to poison in constant gradual doses, a tale retold by the poet A.E. Housman:
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up . . . .
I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
放下包袱 热爱熊市
--当你按照“长期持有股票”的金科玉律买进股票时，有没有想过“长期”应该是多长？就在10年前，标准普尔500指数位于1164点，上周五该指数收于1239点，折合成年率的平均回报率为0.63%。按照这个速度，你在股市上的本金还需要111年才能翻一番。
与此同时，鉴于工业股票平均价格指数已比去年10月的历史高点下跌了20%，本报和华尔街大多数金融机构都宣布美国股市正式进入了熊市。我认为这是胡说八道。我们已经经历了几年的熊市了；2000年初时的指数比如今高了近600点。那么人们认为几乎不在话下的美国股市10%的年回报率呢？根据晨星公司(Morningstar)的数据，为了赚取10%的长期回报率，你至少需要在19年前买进股票，并一直持有至今。
事情还可能会变得比这更糟吗？我不清楚，但我是个乐观主义者，因此我当然希望情况的确变得更糟了。没有其它什么事情能够让明智的投资者更满意了。
今年5月，在伯克希尔?哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)的年会上，沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)一语惊人地对明智投资者的定义做了概括，他说：“如果我持有的某只股票下跌了50%，我会对它充满期待；实际上，如果你能给我一个机会让我所有的股票在今后几个月中都下跌50%，那我会给你一大笔钱。”由于清楚他持有的都是好公司，因此巴菲特希望价格能够下跌，而非上涨，这样他就能在回升前以更低的价格买进更多股票。
在1969年至1982年的上一次大熊市中，股票的年回报率仅为5.6%；剔除通胀因素后，相当于投资者每年损失2%以上。熊市的下跌让股票价格变得很低，结果在此后18年中的年涨幅达到了18.5%，足以让1万美元变成20多万美元。
今年以来已从美国的股票基金和交易所买卖股票基金中分别撤出了390亿和60亿美元的人们不明白这点。但如果你仍在进行储蓄和投资，熊市可谓是上天赐给你的礼物──它持续的时间越长，你的收获就越大。你不应该躲避它，而应该拥抱它。
投资大师本杰明?格雷厄姆(Benjamin Graham)曾经说过：投资者的主要问题可能就是他自己，这甚至是他最大的敌人。我希望能帮助你了解身边这个纷扰动荡的市场，甚至其中更为奸诈狡猾的敌人。不过，正如巴菲特也曾指出的那样，投资就像是控制饮食一样：看起来简单，做起来不易。每个人都知道减肥的诀窍是少吃多动。这看起来再简单不过了，但在充满巧克力蛋糕和奇多(Cheeto)食品的世界里，又很少有什么事情比这个更难了。
同样，投资也很简单：分散、买进并持有、降低成本。但在这个充斥著“免费”网上交易、承诺将扭亏为盈的基金以及大肆宣扬投资建议的电视嘉宾的市场中，“简单”也实在并非易事。成为明智投资者的真正秘诀在于加强你的自我控制能力。
因此，我争取能在我的文章中把格雷厄姆的智慧同来自心理学、神经科学和行为经济学的最新观点结合起来。我希望能提供一些切实可行的建议，从而增加你实现财务目标的机会。
现在，应该牢记的是：如果投资者没有被打垮，他们就会变得更加强大。生理学家曾指出，微量的毒物实际上可能会让生物体（包括人类）更加健康，这种现象叫做毒物兴奋效应。不过，我可不建议你在食物中加入氰化物。
但毒物兴奋效应的发现的确提醒我们，那些经受了痛苦的投资者最终将迎来胜利，他们耐心地以越来越合理的价格积聚越来越多的头寸。据说古代彭透斯国王密斯里达(Mithridates)通过不断服用适量毒药，让自己拥有了抵御毒药侵袭的本领。诗人霍斯曼(A.E. Housman)为我们再现了这个故事：
人们在他的肉里放砒霜
然后惊骇地看著他吃了下去；
人们在他的杯中倒毒药
然后颤抖地看著他把酒饮尽. . . .
这是我多年前所听所闻
这是密斯里达王，晚年寿终正寝。
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