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Finance & economics
财经版块
Buttonwood
梧桐树专栏
Fed bound
美联储的约束
Silicon Valley Bank’s demise signals a painful new phase in financial markets.
硅谷银行倒闭标志金融市场进入痛苦的新阶段。
To quell inflation, goes the adage, central bankers must tighten monetary policy until something breaks.
有句谚语说，为了抑制通胀，央行官员必须收紧货币政策，直到某些东西崩溃。
For much of the past year this cliché has been easy to dismiss.
在过去一年的大部分时间里，这种陈词滥调很容易被人忽视。
Starting in March 2022, America’s Federal Reserve has raised rates at the fastest clip since the 1980s.
从2022年3月开始，美联储以自上世纪80年代以来最快的速度加息。
Even as markets plunged, the world’s financial system stayed wreckage-free.
即使市场暴跌，世界金融体系也没有遭到破坏。
When British pension funds wobbled in September, the Bank of England swiftly helped right them.
当英国养老基金在9月份摇摇欲坠时，英格兰银行迅速帮助其恢复正常。
The most notable collapse--that of ftx, a disgraced former crypto exchange--was well outside the mainstream and, regulators say, caused by fraud rather than the Fed.
最引人注意的崩溃，即名誉扫地的前加密货币交易平台FTX的崩溃，远在主流市场之外，监管机构表示，这是由欺诈而非美联储造成的。
Now something has broken.
现在，有些东西崩溃了。
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a mid-tier American lender that went bust on March 10th, sent shock waves through markets.
3月10日，美国中型贷款机构硅谷银行(SVB)破产，给市场带来巨大冲击。
Most noticeable were convulsions in the stocks of other banks, which investors worried may have similar vulnerabilities.
最引人注目的表现是其他银行的股票发生震荡，投资者担心这些银行可能存在类似的脆弱性。
Nasdaq’s index of bank stocks dropped by a quarter in the course of a week, erasing gains from the preceding 25 years.
纳斯达克的银行股指数在一周内下跌了四分之一，将过去25年的增长一下抹去。
Shares in American regional lenders were bludgeoned much harder.
美国地区性贷款机构的股票也遭受了更为沉重的打击。
Then the turmoil went global: shares in Credit Suisse, a European bank, cratered on March 15th.
然后，动荡蔓延至全球：欧洲银行瑞士信贷的股价在3月15日跌至谷底。
Financial markets have entered a new phase, in which the Fed’s tightening cycle starts to bite.
金融市场进入了一个新阶段，美联储的紧缩周期开始引起刺痛。
One feature of this phase is that markets are suddenly working with the Fed rather than against it.
这一阶段的一个特点是，市场突然开始与美联储合作，而不是与其作对。
For more than a year, the central bank’s officials have been repeating the same message:
一年多来，央行官员一直在重复同样的信息：
that inflation is proving more stubborn than expected, meaning interest rates will need to rise higher than previously predicted.
事实证明，通胀比预期更顽固，这意味着利率需要比之前预测的有更大幅度的提高。
This message was reinforced by data released on March 14th showing that underlying consumer prices had once again risen faster than expected.
3月14日发布的数据强化了这一信息，数据显示，潜在消费者价格再次以快于预期的速度上涨。
Policymakers want to tighten financial conditions--such as lending standards, interest costs or money-market liquidity—in order to reduce aggregate demand and cool price rises.
政策制定者希望收紧金融环境--如贷款标准、利息成本或货币市场流动性--以减少总需求并为价格上涨降温。
Since October, markets have been pulling in the other direction.
自去年10月以来，市场一直在向相反的方向发展。
A gauge of financial conditions compiled by Bloomberg, a data provider, has shown them steadily loosening.
数据提供者彭博社对金融环境的衡量数据显示，金融环境正在稳步放松。
Over the past week, all this loosening has been reversed.
在过去一周里，所有这些放松趋势都发生了逆转。
SVB’s collapse has shocked markets into doing the Fed’s job.
硅谷银行的倒闭震惊了市场，促使其开始履行美联储的职责。
