Finance and economics | Tokyo drift
财经 | 东京的头文字D
英文部分选自经济学人20240720期财经板块
Finance and economics | Tokyo drift
Japan’s strength produces a weak yen
Currency meddling will prove futile
It does notrequire a financial detective to work out what is going on. Three sudden surges in the value of the yen, on July 11th, 12th and 17th, have raised suspicions that the Bank of Japan (boj) is again intervening in currency markets (see chart). The bursts have left the currency, at ¥156 to the dollar, up by 4% against the greenback and marginally above the 37-year lows it reached earlier this month.哪怕不是金融侦探，你也能咂摸出些味道了。7月11日、12日和17日，日元三次猛冲，人们不由得怀疑日本央行再次出手干预了货币市场（见下图）。此番行情使得日元兑美元汇率攀升了4%，达到156比1，略高于本月早些时候录得的37年以来新低。Preliminary data suggest that the central bank sold over $35bn of foreign-exchange reserves on July 11th and 12th (the scale of the most recent apparent intervention remains unclear). These sales would add to over $120bn of intervention in the past two years, more than half of which occurred between late April and late May. Such moves burn the fingers of currency traders. They are unlikely to have a long-term impact on the exchange rate, however, which will disappoint officials and delight the tourists now flooding Japan.初步数据显示，日本央行在7月11日和12日动用了超过350亿美元的外汇储备（最近一次显而易见的干预操作的规模尚不可知）。算上7月的大手笔，过去两年里，日本央行投入了超过1200亿美元来干预汇率，当中过半又集中在4月下旬到5月下旬这段时间里。这些都使得汇率交易员难受不已。然而，以上干预措施不大可能对汇率有长期影响。这对蜂拥来到日本的游客来说是个好消息，但官员们难免感到失望。
The yen’s astonishing weakness is most commonly explained by the divergence between American and Japanese monetary policy. Although theboj has lifted interest rates a fraction, the rise has hardly matched the Federal Reserve’s, meaning that investors have preferred dollars over the past few years. Yet things have recently moved in a different direction: the gap between America’s and Japan’s five-year government bond yields has narrowed by more than a percentage point since October. Oddly, over the same period, the yen has fallen by another 4% against the dollar.日元一蹶不振，疲软得令人瞠目，最耳熟能详的解释莫过于美日货币政策的差异。尽管日本央行也稍稍提升了利率，但却完全无法与美联储的“鹰姿勃发”相提并论，无怪乎过去几年中投资者更倾向于持有美元。不过最近事情开始转向：去年十月以来，美日五年期政府债券收益率的差距已经缩小了超过一个百分点。怪就怪在，日元兑美元同期居然又贬值了4%。Why is the yen continuing to weaken? Successful corporate-governance reforms may be in part to blame. As a consequence of changes that began under Abe Shinzo, whose second spell as prime minister ran from 2012 to 2020, Japanese companies have become increasingly focused on returns on investments and have shed needless shareholdings in other firms. Indeed, the country’s stocks have outperformed those in most of the non-American rich world over the past decade.为何日元持续疲软？这就不得不提到日本企业治理改革的斐然战绩了。2012-2020年安倍晋三第二次担任首相期间，一系列变革使得日本公司愈发重视投资回报，且不断减持企业间无谓的交叉持股。事实上，过去十年里，日本股市表现要优于大多数美国之外的富裕国家。 But the focus on returns is also pushing money overseas. In the year to the end of May, Japanese firms invested $178bn more abroad than foreign firms invested in the country, up from $72bn in 2010. Although flows of portfolio investment in and out of Japan—money entering and leaving stocks, bonds and other securities—are volatile, direct investment is clearly going in one direction: out of the country.然而，对投资回报的重视使得资金流向海外。截至今年5月，日本企业在海外的投资比外企在日本的投资多出1780亿美元，高于2010年时的720亿美元。虽然进出日本的组合投资（如股票、债券、其他证券）波动较大，但直接投资的流向是十分明确的，那就是离开日本。A recent decision bytsmc to build factories in Kumamoto province, in the south of Japan, caught international attention, but the Taiwanese semiconductor giant remains an outlier. Japan’s cultural oddities and language barriers ultimately deter many overseas companies considering a move. The total stock of foreign direct investment in the country is worth just 5% of gdp—a figure that puts it near the very bottom of global rankings, between Kiribati and Burundi, and far below the global average of 44%. As such, there is simply not much demand for the yen. 最近，台积电决定在日本南部的熊本县设立工厂，引发国际关注。然而，这家台湾半导体巨头只是个例外。日本的文化异质性和语言障碍最终令许多考虑投资日本的海外公司望而却步。外国直接投资总额仅相当于日本GDP的5％，远低于44%的全球平均水平；全球排名中，夹在基里巴斯和布隆迪之间的日本也是吊车尾的存在。因此，市场对日元的需求不大。The greater focus on returns has changed what Japanese companies do with overseas profits, too. Rather than bringing home cash made abroad, they now increasingly keep it in higher-yielding foreign bonds and investments. Japan ran a trade deficit of ¥4trn in the year to May. According to Japan’s official statistics, this is more than offset by the earnings of the country’s companies overseas, known as the “primary-income balance”, which registers a healthy surplus of ¥37trn.But if these earnings are not actually returning to Japan, and being converted to yen, then they will not support the exchange rate. That makes Japan’s consistent current-account surplus, which should in theory prop up the currency, something of a mirage. Indeed, an estimate by Karakama Daisuke of Mizuho Bank suggests that only a tenth of the primary surplus is reflected in actual flows of cash returning to the country.更加重视投资回报还改变了日本企业处理海外利润的方式。它们“海外赚钱海外花”，不再将营收带回国内，而是直接砸给高收益的海外债券和投资。截至今年五月，日本贸易赤字达4万亿日元。据日本官方数据，日本企业在海外的利润抹平这一逆差绰绰有余：这样的“初级收入余额”有着37万亿日元的可喜盈余。但如果这些收入并未真正汇回日本，兑换成日元，那么也就无益于支撑汇率。结果是，理论上应该能撑起日元汇率的经常账户盈余不过是镜花水月。事实上，据瑞穗银行（Mizuho Bank）的唐鎌大辅（Karakama Daisuke）估计，初级收入余额中只有十分之一以现金的形式回流到日本。Over the very long run, Japan’s attractiveness as a location for supply-chain diversification may help to strengthen the yen. More immediately, if the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates faster than markets now expect, the narrowing of the gap between American and Japanese bond yields will support the currency.长远来看，作为供应链多元化的潜在选择之一，日本有着巨大的吸引力，这或许能够提振日元。短期来看，如果美联储降息速度快于市场预期，美日债券收益率差距缩小也将支撑日元。However, there are also forces pulling in the opposite direction. Given Japan’s shrinking labour force, it is difficult to imagine that a rush of companies will followtsmc’s example. Moreover, as long as Japanese firms continue to become more disciplined, lean and effective, they will continue to put pressure on the currency. That is, at least, good news for Americans keen to sample some omakase. 然而，促使日元走低的因素同样存在。考虑到日本劳动力减少，很难想象会有大批公司追随台积电赴日的脚步。此外，愈发自律、精简、高效的日本企业会继续对日元走势产生压力。至少，对急于品尝日料的美国食客来说，这是个好消息。翻译组：
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