In a broader sense, however, the stockmarket clearly matters to the Fed.
然而,从更广泛的意义上讲,股市显然对美联储很重要。
Jerome Powell, its current chairman, has repeatedly said that its policies are transmitted to the real economy through financial conditions—a term that refers to the availability and cost of funding for businesses and consumers.
美联储现任主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔一再表示,美联储的政策是通过金融形势传递至实体经济的。金融形势指的是企业和消费者获得资金的可能性和成本。
Stockmarkets play a crucial role in both shaping and gauging financial conditions.
股票市场在塑造和衡量金融形势方面都发挥着至关重要的作用。
Admittedly, they play a small part in a formal sense: for instance, in one index of financial conditions created by the Fed’s Chicago branch, equity and other asset markets account for just ten of its 105 separate inputs, contrasting with the bigger weights assigned to credit markets.
诚然,从形式来看,股市只起到了很小的作用:例如,在美联储芝加哥分行编制的一个金融形势指数中,股票和其他资产市场在其105个独立输入项中只占10个,相比之下,信贷市场的权重更大。
But stocks reflect these other metrics.
但股票能反映其他指标。
This is especially true at times of stress.
在困难时期尤其如此。
Share prices have fallen this year as indices of financial conditions have tightened, and they have risen when these indices have eased.
今年,随着金融形势指数收紧,股价有所下跌,而当指数宽松时,股价又有所上涨。
Concerns about inflation only add to the market’s importance.
对通胀的担忧只会更加凸显股市的重要性。
When share prices rise, consumers, feeling flush, tend to spend more money and companies, feeling confident, tend to hire more workers.
当股价上涨时,消费者感到富裕,往往会花更多的钱,而公司会感到自信,往往会雇佣更多员工。
A paper in 2019 by Gabriel Chodorow-Reich of Harvard University and colleagues concluded that each dollar of increased stockmarket wealth lifted consumer spending by about three cents annually, while also boosting employment and wages.
哈佛大学的加布里埃尔·乔多罗-瑞奇及其同事在2019年的一篇论文中得出结论,股市市值每上涨一美元,就会使消费者的支出每年增加约3美分,同时促进就业和工资上涨。
For a central bank fighting inflation, a large rise in share prices would therefore cut against its efforts.
因此,对于抗击通胀的美联储来说,股价大幅上涨会让其事倍功半。
This makes for borderline hypocrisy in Fedspeak.
这使得美联储的言论近乎虚伪。
Sober central bankers can explain that they want “appropriate firming of monetary policy and associated tighter financial conditions” to help rectify the supply-and-demand imbalances that are fuelling inflation (as the Fed did indeed say in the minutes of its rate-setting meeting in June).
清醒的央行官员可以解释说,他们希望“适当紧缩的货币政策和相关的收紧的金融形势”能够帮助扭转推高通胀的供需失衡(正如美联储在6月份的议息会议纪要中所说的那样)。
Yet it would be beyond the pale for them to declare that they want “appropriate firming of monetary policy and associated weakness in the stockmarket”—even if their meanings are closely aligned.
但是,如果他们宣称想要“适当紧缩的货币政策和相关的疲软的股市”就过分了,即使这两种说法几乎是一个意思。
In a market crash that impairs the financial system, the Fed put would come back into focus.
如果损害金融体系的市场崩盘爆发,美联储看跌期权将重新成为焦点。
For now, though, the sell-off has been mostly orderly.
不过,就目前而言,抛售基本上是有序进行的。
A sustained rebound in stocks would be unwelcome for the Fed, and might well tilt it towards more hawkishness.
股市持续反弹不会受美联储待见,还有可能会促使美联储更加鹰派。
Investors accustomed to viewing the central bank as a friendly force must instead confront the harsh reality of a Fed call.
习惯于将美联储视为友军的投资者,不得不面对美联储看涨期权的残酷现实。