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翻譯組全體成員如下：
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Finance & economics | Buttonwood
財經 | 梧桐樹專欄
英文部分選自經濟學人20250229期財經板塊
Finance & economics | Buttonwood
財經 | 梧桐樹專欄
How cheap can investing get?
投資能有多便宜？
The answer depends on whether speculators resist zany ETFs
答案取決於投機者是否能抵制那些稀奇古怪的交易型開放式指數基金。
A man on a bill with a big basket and another person trying to take the bill from under him but rips it.
腳踩大鈔票，手捧大籃子；給得太多了，費率還能降
THE BATTLE between the world’s two largest exchange-traded funds has reached a pivotal moment. On February 18th VOO, an ETF tracking the S&P 500 that is managed by Vanguard, a giant passive-investing firm, took the crown as the world’s largest. Days later SPY, an ETF managed by State Street Global Advisors, another giant, reclaimed it. Both funds boast assets of over $620bn.
全球兩大交易型開放式指數基金（ETF）的較量已到關鍵時刻。2月18日，由被動投資巨頭先鋒（Vanguard）管理的、追蹤標準普爾500指數的ETF——VOO，榮膺全球最大ETF。幾天後，由另一家投資巨頭道富環球投資管理公司（State Street Global Advisors）管理的ETF——SPY，又奪回了這一寶座。這兩隻基金的資產規模均超過6200 億美元。
For retail investors, exchange-traded funds, and the index-tracking investment they facilitate, are the greatest development in modern financial history. ETFs emerged in the 1990s and provide a way to circumvent expensive fund managers. Liquid and low-fee vehicles have saved investors trillions of dollars. SPY was America’s first ETF and charges fees on assets of just 0.09% a year. VOO, which was set up in 2010, has undercut its rival with fees of 0.03%.
對散戶投資者而言，ETF和其所推動的指數追蹤投資方式堪稱現代金融史上最偉大的發展成就。誕生於上世紀九十年代的ETF提供了一種新的投資方式，可以繞開收費高昂的基金經理。這些具有流動性且低費用的投資工具已為投資者省下數萬億美元。SPY是美國首隻ETF，每年對資產收費僅0.09%。而成立於2010年的VOO的管理費率更是低於SPY，只有0.03%。
While the Godzilla and King Kong of the ETF universe duke it out, offering ever lower fees, investors looking at more recent offerings have cause for concern. New American ETFs advertise fees just 0.2 percentage points below more expensive mutual funds, down from 0.7 percentage points in 2014, according to Morningstar, a data provider. And fees on new ETFs are rising, rather than falling, as had been the trend for decades. Most funds established in the past few years have fees of 0.5% or higher.
當ETF宇宙中的“哥斯拉”和“金剛”相互鬥爭並不斷降低費率時，關注新近推出的ETF產品的投資者卻有理由感到擔憂。據資料提供商晨星公司(Morningstar)的資料顯示，美國新推出的ETF所宣傳的費率僅比費用較高的共同基金低0.2個百分點。而在2014年，這一差距曾為0.7個百分點。而且與過去幾十年的趨勢相反，新推出ETF的費率不降反升。過去幾年成立的大部分基金費率都達到0.5%甚至更高。
So is the party over for retail investors? The answer will depend on their tastes. If they still prize the cheapness and exposure to big markets first offered by the ETF industry, there is no reason their fees cannot keep falling. A handful of the very largest vehicles have gathered an extraordinary quantity of investor funds: the largest 15 equity-focused ETFs contain $3.9trn in assets, more than the next 100 combined, which in turn hold more than the next 1,000 combined. This scale lowers fees. The larger a fund, the more it can spread fixed costs for trading, management, and legal and regulatory matters. According to Citigroup, a bank, half of American ETFs probably lose money for their issuers because they are not large enough to cover these sorts of costs.
那對於散戶投資者來說，ETF的紅利已經消失了嗎？答案其實和他們的偏好有關。如果他們仍注重ETF所提供的低成本服務以及對大型市場對廣泛覆蓋，那其費用就沒有理由不繼續下降。如今，一小撮規模巨大的ETF已然吸納了驚人的資金量：排名前15的ETF總計管理著3.9萬億美元的資產，超過其後100只ETF的總和。而這100只，又超過了再往後1000只的總和。這種規模效應帶來了成本優勢。基金規模越大，就越能平攤交易、管理、法務和合規方面的費用。而當ETF的規模不足以覆蓋這些成本時，其發行方只賠不賺，根據花旗銀行的測算，大約一半的美國ETF可能都陷於這種窘境。
The new generation of funds do not charge hefty fees just because they lack scale. Although most traditional funds are straightforward, often tracking a single broad index of stocks such as the S&P 500 or NASDAQ Composite, recently created versions tend to be a little more esoteric. Some of the most popular put money into environmentally friendly industries, or stocks with specific characteristics, such as lots of free cashflow. Many are actively managed, rather than passively tracking indices. Others are ludicrous. How about a three-times leveraged bet on Nvidia? Such complexity comes at a cost, and not just to an investor’s sanity.
新一代的基金不僅僅是因為規模太小而收取高昂的費用。傳統基金結構簡單，通常跟蹤諸如標普500或納斯達克等單一大盤指數。而新型基金常常更為複雜。其中一些最受歡迎的基金會主要投資一些環保產業，或者有著明顯特徵的股票，比如高自由現金流的公司。許多這類基金採取主動管理模式，而非被動跟蹤指數。更有甚者，某些產品可謂離譜，比如對英偉達三倍槓桿的押注。這種複雜程度不僅考驗投資者的神經，也意味著更高的成本。
Investors would be better off avoiding many of the new funds altogether, which would be true even if their fees were not so elevated. Some semi-transparent vehicles, which rarely report assets and come with much higher fees, stretch the logic of an ETF to breaking-point. Heavily leveraged and single-stock funds are better options for traders than long-term investors. Thematic funds tend to follow fads that ought to be eschewed.
即便他們的費用沒有高得如此離譜，投資者也最好徹底避開許多新型基金。一些半透明的基金很少披露資產情況，卻收取遠高於行業水平的費用，這已經嚴峻挑戰了ETF這一理念。高槓杆和單一股票基金更適合炒家，而不是長期投資者。而主題基金常常追求市場潮流，這種趨勢性投資也應該被迴避掉。
Yet investors unable to resist their appeal, thereby encouraging higher fees, hardly undermine the broader industry’s model. On February 1st Vanguard, the apex predator of the low-fee approach, cut expenses on 87 of its funds, reducing its average fee from 0.08% to 0.07%. With $10trn in assets under management—a figure that has doubled since 2018—the company has immense scale. Unlike many of its competitors, it sticks to the sort of bread-and-butter funds that require little management.
然而，無法抵抗這些基金的吸引力的投資者，勢必會拉高管理費率，但這對整個行業來說幾乎無足輕重。2月1日，一直秉持低費率策略的先鋒領航集團下調了公司87只基金的費用，將平均費率從0.08%降至0.07%。該公司管理著10萬億美元的資產——這一數字自2018年以來已翻了一番，資產規模十分龐大。與許多競爭對手不同，先鋒領航集團專注於投資那些無需頻繁操作的基礎型基金。
Indeed, the megafunds and the new, higher-fee variants are strangely symbiotic. When investors can shift lots of their portfolio into diversified stocks at extremely low fees, they reduce their overall expense ratio, which is what matters for returns. This gives room to invest in pricier, more adventurous options, should they wish to gamble. The lower the very largest group of vanilla ETFs are able to push their fees, the more investors can allocate to novel bets.
事實上，巨型基金與新興高費率基金之間形成了一種奇特的共生關係。當投資者能夠以極低費率將大量資產配置於多樣化股票組合時，其整體費率得以降低——這對投資回報至關重要。這為那些願意承擔風險的投資者騰出了嘗試高價、更具冒險性投資選擇的空間。龐大的基礎型ETF將其費率壓得越低，投資者就有更多資金可配置於創新型標的。
註釋：
"Vanilla ETF"是指那些基礎型、簡單的、無複雜特徵的ETF。通常，它們是被動管理的，跟蹤某個廣泛的市場指數（如標普500、納斯達克等），費用低且結構簡單。
If average fees start to plateau, therefore, it will not be because the limits of such funds have been reached. Rather, it will reflect the fact that a growing number of investors are opting for products that are less mainstream. If they instead stick to the more vanilla offerings, and avoid the range of increasingly zany ETF flavours, there may still be trillions of dollars in savings to be made in the years to come.
因此，如果平均費率趨於穩定，那也並非是因為此類基金的費率已無法再下探，而是反映出越來越多投資者偏愛非主流產品。而如果投資者繼續堅守傳統產品，避開日益花哨的ETF品類，未來數年他們仍有望省下數萬億美元的費率。
翻譯組：
Dreamian:尋找方向
Barry，女，被金融工作耽誤的美食博主一枚
Humi，女，學習財經的金融小白，不負韶華，平視世界
校對組：
Cecilia，今年過得貴婦一點
Hannah，愛讀財經的金融小白，經濟學人唯粉
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感想
Cleo，男，學習不停，思考不止，努力成為審慎卻樂觀的深入思考者
本文立意極好，在基金費率背後其實是市場對“投資”的價值定義。如果我們從Bloomberg和Preqin中匯出2024年基金市場回報率資料，我們可以很清晰的看出，那些追蹤S&P的被動型基金表現可以超過80%至90%的主動管理基金回報。既然這些被動型基金無論是業績和費率都有著絕對的優勢，那為什麼眾多的投資者要紛紛花著很大的管理費認購那些回報率較大機率處在低位的主動性投資基金呢？
原因有兩個：
1.超級有錢的零售/機構投資者願意用可投資資產的一部分博取高額收益率；
2.投資人有著自己對於市場的判斷，這些判斷或依賴於投資人對市場的主觀理解，或許來自於其個人價值觀
這兩個投資人的心態所促成了龐大的主動積極市場，一方面滿足投資者的高回報要求，另一方面滿足投資人的價值觀的認同。但是值得我們去討論的是，滿足這些需求，當真需要花費如此高的費率嗎？
金融市場的有效性中較為關鍵的支柱就是“較低的交易成本”。回看目前的資本市場；投資者端需要花費動輒x%的管理費；發行人那邊同時也需要為一次股票發行付出千萬美元的承銷費。再加之付給盡職調查的諮詢費，一次交易下來，動輒6%的交易金額被中介瓜分。我們承認這些中介為資本市場的有效所做出的貢獻，但我們轉過頭一想，跑過80%+的主動型基金才收0.07%的佣金，那後面的80%應該有何感想？
我們不否認交易中介的必要性，可以管理幾十億美元的交易的中介也一定是專業的，頂尖的。但是，我們期盼，如過有更多的專業人士加入，甚至專業的人工智慧湧進這個市場，也許到那時，投資人的決策可以更好的反映到市場中，他們所投資的資金可以更大程度上流向企業發展的前線，那麼我們的資本市場將更加有效。
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願景