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When the Tokyo Stock Exchange reopened on Wednesday for the first trading session of 2017, Japan as a whole entered its fifth year of “Abenomics” — the economic revival programme that, depending on taste, has either sputtered predictably or provided investable vigour to an otherwise enfeebled Japan story.
上周三，东京证券交易所(Tokyo Stock Exchange)重新开盘，迎来2017年第一个交易日。这是日本经济迈入“安倍经济学”(Abenomics)的第五年，这一经济复苏计划效果如何？人们见仁见智，要么觉得它不出预料地失败了，要么觉得它为日本股市注入了活力，使原本不景气的日本股市有了投资价值。
Whether, by the end of this year, Abenomics remains a relevant force — or even a word people still bother to use — may depend heavily upon the performance of the Nikkei 225 Average over the next six weeks.
到今年年底安倍经济学是否仍会是一支重要力量，甚至是否仍会是值得提及的一个词语，可能很大程度取决于日经225平均股价指数（Nikkei 225 Average，以下简称日经指数）在未来六周的表现。
Survive those without the same huge dip that savaged the benchmark between the first trading session of January and mid-February last year, say analysts, and we may be looking at a market with enough foreign buying and other support to sustain the current bull run.
分析师表示，如果日本股市安然度过未来六周，没有出现像去年1月首个交易日到2月中旬之间那样的大幅下滑（其间日经指数遭受重创），那么日本股市可能会获得充足的外国买家以及其他支持力量来维持当前的牛市。
If Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is particularly lucky and all this whets domestic retail investor appetites, 2017 may even see him complete a three-year Abenomics hat-trick of massive state asset sales — either through a second tranche of Japan Post and its banking and insurance subsidiaries or, if the stars really align, the long speculated privatisation of the Tokyo Metro.
如果日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)特别幸运，而且上述一切都成功激发国内零售投资者的胃口，他甚至可能在2017年完成一个历时三年、大规模出售国有资产的安倍经济学帽子戏法——或者是再卖掉一部分日本邮政(Japan Post)及其银行和保险分支，或者是奇迹出现，达成人们长期猜测的东京地下铁(Tokyo Metro)私有化。
Many of the signals for equities are hopeful. In addition to the heavily oversubscribed $4bn privatisation of Kyushu Railway Company, Japan’s 2016 initial public offerings market generated consistent enthusiasm for new issues, with some stocks rising 200 per cent on their first day of trading.
许多信号都令人对日本股市抱有希望。除了九州旅客铁道(Kyushu Railway Company)40亿美元的私有化获得高倍数超额认购以外，日本2016年的首次公开发行(IPO)市场对新发行股票抱以持续热情，一些股票在上市首个交易日上涨了200%。
Japanese companies have just completed a record ￥6tn year of share buybacks and Goldman Sachs expects they will beat that in 2017, forecasting ￥7.8tn of purchases.
日本企业2016年股票回购创下6万亿日元的纪录，高盛(Goldman Sachs)预计这一纪录在2017年将被打破——该行预测2017年日本企业股票回购额将达7.8万亿日元。
Through its ￥6tn programme buying exchange traded funds (ETFs), the Bank of Japan is on course to remain a significant supporter of equity prices. At ￥117.6 against the US dollar, the yen is substantially weaker than where it was for most of 2016, promising solid earnings-per-share rises if that remains the case in the year ahead.
通过6万亿日元的交易所交易基金(ETF)购买计划，日本央行(Bank of Japan)预计仍将成为日本股市的重要支持者。日元兑美元汇率维持在117.6日元兑1美元，日元比2016年大部分时间都要疲软得多，如果未来一年仍然如此，每股盈利(EPS)将稳步上升。
Plenty of strategists accordingly have 12-month targets for the Nikkei (and the broader, more transparent Topix index) that are between 2 and 7 per cent higher than its December 30 close of 19,114. They see plenty of potential risks in Donald Trump’s US presidency and in China’s growth profile, but cling to what SMBC Nikko strategist Jonathan Allum describes as “the simple truth” that Japanese stocks are more cyclical than most and tend to outperform when the global economy is improving.
许多策略师因此预测，到今年年底时，日经指数将比去年12月30日19114点的收盘点高出2%到7%（更全面、更透明的东证股价指数(Topix)也同样如此）。他们认为唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)当选美国总统以及中国增长情况都潜存诸多风险，但正如SMBC日兴资本市场(SMBC Nikko Capital Markets)策略师乔纳森?阿勒姆(Jonathan Allum)所说，他们坚信一个“简单的事实”，即日本股市比大多数股市更具周期性，而且在全球经济向好时往往表现出众。
Even if 2016 saw only a very narrow (0.42 per cent) rise for the Nikkei index, recent market history is on the prime minister’s side. Since Mr Abe took office in late December 2012, investors have repeatedly given him and Abenomics the benefit of the doubt.
虽然2016年日经指数仅窄幅上涨0.42%，但近期股市表现对安倍有利。自安倍于2012年12月下旬就任以来，投资者一再选择相信他和他的安倍经济学。
He has certainly enjoyed the tailwind of prolonged yen weakness (and its traditional boost to corporate profitability) but even as doubts swirl over whether he will deliver much more in the way of serious structural reform, wage increases or real progress on “womenomics”, the Nikkei Average has risen in each of the years he has been in power.
安倍肯定喜欢日元长期疲软（以及它对企业盈利能力一如既往的提振）这股顺风，但即使外界一直怀疑他能否推动切实的结构性改革、工资增长或在“女性经济学”方面取得真正进展，日经指数在他上台以来依然年年上涨。
Increasingly, however, the strong stock market is exposing a persistent failure of Abenomics. A buoyant Nikkei — the most followed share barometer by Japanese investors — does not, on its own, constitute a success for the prime minister’s programme and 2017 could be the year that Mr Abe’s benefit of the doubt runs out.
然而，强劲的股市越来越暴露出安倍经济学的一个持久不足。日经指数——日本投资者最关注的股市晴雨表——上涨本身，并不构成安倍计划的成功，2017年可能就是人们不再选择相信这位日本首相的一年。
While positive returns for the market may create a superficial sense of progress, the purpose of the BoJ’s ETF-buying programme, of the corporate governance code and various other efforts broadly ascribed to Abenomics, is far wider.
虽然市场的积极回报可能在表面上让人觉得情况有所进展，但日本央行的ETF购买计划、《公司治理准则》的出台以及大致归属于安倍经济学的种种其他努力的目的，要广泛得多。
The idea was to use the equity market, among other mechanisms, to create a cycle in which companies feel stronger, wages rise and Japan breaks cleanly free of its 20-year deflationary mindset. Along the way, runs the core underlying Abenomics ambition, Japanese households and particularly the younger ones should be tempted to shift some of their ￥1,700tn savings out of bank accounts and into riskier assets.
最初的设想是，利用股市（以及其他机制）创造一个让企业感觉更强大、让薪资上涨、让日本彻底打破其20年通缩思维的周期。安倍经济学的核心根本抱负是，在这个过程中，日本家庭（尤其是较为年轻的家庭）应该会忍不住将部分储蓄转出银行，投入风险更高的资产——日本家庭总储蓄已达1700万亿日元。
None of this, though, has yet happened convincingly. Even the massive IPOs of Japan Post in 2015 and JR Kyushu in 2016 — successfully priced to entice the individual investor in consecutive years — did not create the desired equity culture.
然而，所有这些设想还没有一条可以令人信服地宣称已经实现。甚至2015年日本邮政和2016年九州旅客铁道这样庞大的IPO——它们的定价成功地在随后几年吸引了散户投资者——也没有创造出理想的股市氛围。
In 2014, Japan introduced the Nippon Individual Savings Account (NISA) — a tax-sheltered vehicle that allows savers to park ￥1.2m annually in stocks and mutual funds. Some 10m people have opened accounts since the launch but more than half are aged over 60 and across the whole scheme, the average total in each account remains below ￥900,000.
在2014年，日本推出了“小额投资免税制度”(NISA)，这是一种避税工具，账户持有人每年最多可以投资120万日元的股票和共同基金而不用缴税。自该项目推出以来，约1000万人开了户，但逾半数是60岁以上的老年人，而且在整个项目中，每个账户的平均金额依然低于90万日元。
The next few days, say brokers, could harden the case for caution. Toshiba ended the year with its shares in virtual freefall, down nearly 43 per cent in just three days as investors responded to a vaguely worded warning of “several billion dollars” worth of unexpected impairment costs on its nuclear business — and media reports suggest there may be other accounting problems lurking. If a name as seemingly bulletproof as Toshiba can suddenly crash, runs the logic of the conservative Japanese household, what hope of a safe investment in anything? If there is any sort of share sell-off contagion, to Toshiba’s main lending banks or through its supply chain, the damage to sentiment could leave many NISA accounts untouched for months.
券商表示，接下来的几天可能会让人们更有理由保持谨慎。东芝(Toshiba)股价在2016年结束之际近乎自由落体式下跌，在仅仅3天内就下跌了近43%，投资者对其措辞含糊的核能业务出现“数十亿美元”意外减值损失的警告感到不安，而媒体报道表明，该公司可能还有其他潜藏的会计问题。如果一个像东芝这样似乎十足稳妥的公司可以突然暴跌，还能指望投资什么是安全的？保守的日本家庭就是这么认为的。如果这股抛售潮出现任何蔓延（波及东芝的主要放贷行或者传导至该公司的供应链），对投资者情绪的破坏就可能让许多NISA账户数月没有交易。
Another part of the problem is technical: retail investors testing individual stock ownership for the first time are naturally drawn to household names. Unfortunately, many of these — including Nintendo, Fanuc, Shimano, Fast Retailing and Mitsubishi Estate — have shares whose minimum trading units are too big to fit into a NISA account’s annual allotment. One early effort in 2017, say government officials, may be to encourage these companies to undertake share splits to make them investable by NISA holders.
另一个问题是技术上的：首次尝试自己炒股的散户投资者自然会被家喻户晓的公司所吸引。遗憾的是，许多这样的公司——包括任天堂(Nintendo)、发那科(Fanuc)、禧玛诺(Shimano)、迅销(Fast Retailing)和三菱地所(Mitsubishi Estate)——股票的最小交易单位过大，超过NISA账户的年度配额。政府官员表示，2017年较早拿出的一项举措可能是鼓励这些公司分拆股票，让它们适合NISA账户持有人投资。
But the pivotal test of this central Abenomics theme, says Koji Nagai, the chief executive of Nomura Securities, will be inflation. “If people think deflation will continue, they will probably leave their assets as bank deposits and if they think otherwise, they will invest in something. If Japan’s CPI really hits 2 per cent and inflation kicks in, as [BOJ governor Haruhiko] Kuroda has been saying, people will naturally withdraw money from their bank deposits and move to investment.
但野村证券(Nomura Securities)社长永井浩二(Koji Nagai)表示，对安倍经济学这一中心主题的关键考验将是通胀。“如果人们认为通缩将会持续，他们很可能会继续把钱放在银行，如果他们不这么认为，他们将会进行投资。如果像日本央行行长黑田东彦(Haruhiko Kuroda)一直说的那样，日本消费价格指数(CPI)真的触及2%，通胀来临，人们自然会从银行账户取出钱，进行投资。”
Japanese investors are clever and have been very logical in the past and probably will be clever going forward,” says Mr Nagai.
永井浩二说：“日本投资者非常聪明，过去一直非常理性，未来很可能也会非常聪明。”
