Until now the rise of computers has democratised finance by cutting costs. A typical ETF charges 0.1% a year, compared with perhaps 1% for an active fund. You can buy ETFs on your phone. An ongoing price war means the cost of trading has collapsed, and markets are usually more liquid than ever before. Especially when the returns on most investments are as low as today’s, it all adds up. Yet the emerging era of machine-dominated finance raises worries, any of which could imperil these benefits.
到目前为止，计算机的兴起通过降低成本使金融民主化。典型的ETF每年收取0.1%的费用，相比之下，主动型基金可能收取1%的费用。你可以在手机上购买ETF。一场持续的价格战意味着交易成本大幅下降，市场的流动性通常比以往任何时候都更强。特别是当大多数投资的回报和今天一样低的时候，这一切都是有意义的。然而，机器主导金融的新时代引发了这些好处可能被危及的担忧。
One is financial stability. Seasoned investors complain that computers can distort asset prices, as lots of algorithms chase securities with a given characteristic and then suddenly ditch them. Regulators worry that liquidity evaporates as markets fall. These claims can be overdone—humans are perfectly capable of causing carnage on their own, and computers can help manage risk. Nonetheless, a series of “flash-crashes” and spooky incidents have occurred, including a disruption in ETF prices in 2010, a crash in sterling in October 2016 and a slump in debt prices in December last year. These dislocations might become more severe and frequent as computers become more powerful.
一是金融稳定。经验丰富的投资者抱怨说，电脑可以扭曲资产价格，因为许多算法追逐具有特定特征的证券，然后突然抛弃它们。监管机构担心，随着市场下跌，流动性会蒸发。这些说法可能有些过火——人类完全有能力自己制造屠杀，而计算机可以帮助管理风险。尽管如此，还是发生了一系列“闪崩”和令人毛骨悚然的事件，包括2010年 ETF 价格的崩溃、2016年10月英镑的暴跌和去年12月债务价格的暴跌。随着计算机功能的增强，这种错位可能会变得更加严重和频繁。
Another worry is how computerised finance could concentrate wealth. Because performance rests more on processing power and data, those with clout could make a disproportionate amount of money. Quant investors argue that any edge they have is soon competed away. However, some funds are paying to secure exclusive rights to data. Imagine, for example, if Amazon (whose boss, Jeff Bezos, used to work for a quant fund) started trading using its proprietary information on ecommerce, or JPMorgan Chase used its internal data on credit-card flows to trade the Treasury bond market. These kinds of hypothetical conflicts could soon become real.
另一个担忧是，电脑化的金融如何能够集中财富。因为性能更多地依赖于处理能力和数据，那些有影响力的人可以赚到不成比例的钱。定量投资者辩称，他们拥有的任何优势很快就会被竞争殆尽。然而，一些基金正在为获得数据的专有权而付费。想象一下，例如，如果亚马逊(其老板杰夫•贝佐斯曾在一家定量基金工作)开始利用其在电子商务方面的专有信息进行交易，或者摩根大通利用其在信用卡流动方面的内部数据进行美国国债市场的交易。这种假想的冲突可能很快就会变成现实。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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