Investors should resist the tyranny of quarterly earnings

废除季报如何？

Investors should resist the tyranny of quarterly earnings

作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家 约翰•凯

In the past few months, I have discovered that almost no one supports the obligation on listed companies to produce quarterly accounts or interim management statements. The European Union is now engaged in the slow process of removing this requirement.	过去几个月中，我发现几乎没有一个人赞同上市公司有义务公布季报或是管理层中期报告。目前，欧盟(EU)正在研究取消这些要求，不过这一过程将是缓慢的。
This issue is the tip of a large iceberg. The common reaction to every failure in financial markets has been to demand more disclosure and greater transparency. And, viewed in the abstract, who could dispute the merits of disclosure and transparency? You can never have too much information.	这个问题只是冰山一角。面对金融市场的每一次失败，通常的反应是要求加大信息披露力度，并增强透明度。而且一般来说，谁会质疑信息披露和透明的好处？信息，永远多多益善。
But you can. There are costs to providing information, which is why these obligations have proved unpopular with companies. There are also costs entailed in processing information – even if the only processing you undertake is to recognise that you want to discard it. Many people resent junk mail as they throw it away and pay to have spam filters installed on their computers. They are not convinced by the argument that you never know when you might need counterfeit Viagra or a replica Rolex.	但事实并非如此。提供信息会产生成本，正因为如此，企业才会对这些义务颇有微词。处理信息也会 产生成本——即便你处理信息的唯一成果，就是认识到你不需要这些信息。很多人都痛恨垃圾邮件，他们不仅要删除这类邮件，还花钱在电脑上安装垃圾邮件过滤 器。他们并不认同这样一个观点：即你永远不知道自己什么时候可能需要假冒“伟哥”(Viagra)或是仿制的劳力士(Rolex)。
But these direct costs of unwanted data are often small relative to the indirect costs. Even if information is useless or misleading, it influences behaviour. This effect may be hard- wired: our ancestors looked for clues that might help them to spot wild game or hostile tribes, and had to accept that most of the rustles in the undergrowth were the wind rather than the meat.	然而，无用数据产生的这些直接成本，通常都不及它所产生的间接成本。即便信息毫无用处或是充满 误导性，它依然能对人们的行为产生影响。这种影响或许是天生固有的：我们的祖先通过一些线索来发现猎物或是侦察不怀好意的部落，结果发现多数情况下，树丛 中的响声只是风吹草动，而不是猎物。
It was not long before charlatans exploited the need for reassurance in an uncertain world to tell their customers they could make better decisions by examining the entrails of sacrificial animals and observing the movements of the planets. Not everyone has the confidence to tell respected authorities, whether they are priests or chartered accountants, that they are talking nonsense.	不久后，行骗者学会了利用人们在一个不确定的世界里对于安全感的渴求，他们告诉前来寻求帮助的人，他们可以通过观察祭祀动物的内脏或是行星运动的轨迹，做出更好的决定。不是每个人都有勇气告诉备受尊敬的权威（不管这些人是祭司还是注册会计师），你们其实是在胡言乱语。
Even if the tendency to absorb what we do not need to know is not in our genes, it is certainly part of our conditioning. If we had not been required to pay attention to information we thought at the time was useless, few of us would have learnt much at school.	我们往往会吸取我们并不需要的信息，即便这不是与生俱来的，也肯定属于一种条件反射。如果没有人要求我们关注当时被我们视为毫无用处的知识，那么将很少有人能够在学校学到丰富的知识。
One experiment in behavioural economics nicely illustrates the problem. The subjects were asked questions to which they did not know the answer, such as: “How many African countries are members of the UN?” At the front of the room, a man rotated a wheel with numbers on it. The figure displayed by the wheel had considerable influence on the estimates: the higher the number, the more independent African countries the respondents believed there were.	行为经济学的一个实验很好地说明了这个问题。实验对象会被问到若干他们不知道答案的问题，比如 “联合国成员中有多少个非洲国家？”在房间前端会有一个人旋转着一只带有数字的轮盘。轮盘上显示的数字对实验对象的猜测产生了显著影响：数字越大，实验对 象猜测的独立非洲国家的数量就越多。
In conditions of ignorance, people seize on any information available, even if their reason should tell them that it is irrelevant. Just watch the occupants of the airport lounge fiddling with their BlackBerrys. Few people with an investment portfolio can resist the temptation to check its value whenever they get a chance – even though they know, or ought to know, that most short-term share price movements are only the noise of rustling undergrowth.	在一无所知的情况下，人们会抓住一切可以获得的信息，即便理智告诉他们这些信息是不相关的。看 看机场候机大厅里那些摆弄着黑莓(BlackBerry)手机的人吧。持有投资组合的人群中，一旦有机会，很少有人能抵御住查看资产价值的诱惑——尽管他 们清楚，或是应该清楚，大部分短线内的股价波动都只是“风吹草动”。
Annual reporting dates from a time when agriculture was the principal form of economic activity and there are still some businesses – such as retailers – for which the year is probably a relevant timescale. But for many others business – oil companies or builders – the relevant timescale for measuring the consequences of actions is much longer. When I asked a group to think of an entity for which the relevant cycle was three months, the only suggestion offered was banks.	在年报起源的年代，农业是经济活动的主要形式，目前仍有一些企业——例如零售企业——对它们来 说，“一年”或许是适宜的时间尺度。但对其他许多企业来说——如石油公司和建筑公司——评估企业行为效果的适宜时间尺度则要长得多。当我让一群人想想有没 有哪种实体的适宜周期是3个月时，他们给出的唯一答案是：银行。
That judgement could hardly be more wrong. The underlying profitability of most financial activities can be judged only over a complete business cycle – or longer. The damage done by presenting spurious profit figures, derived by marking assets to delusionary market values or computed from hypothetical model-based valuations, has been literally incalculable.	这种看法恐怕是大错特错了。大部分金融活动的潜在盈利情况只有经过一个完整的商业周期甚至更长时间之后，才能加以评判。制造虚假盈利数据（通过为资产错误定价，或是依据以模型为基础的假定估值计算）带来的损失其实是无法估量的。
The tyranny of quarterly earnings has created a dysfunctional cycle of smoothed and exaggerated numbers and relations between companies and analysts based on earnings guidance, an activity almost unconnected to the real business of the company and to assessing its progress. “Never mind the quality, feel the length” has been the guiding principle of corporate disclosure for too long. It is time companies and their investors got together to identify information, usually sector specific, relevant to their joint needs.	强令公布季报创造了一种功能失调的周期，被美化和夸大的不仅是季报上的数字，还有建立在盈利指 引基础之上的公司与分析师之间的关系。发布季报已成为一种几乎与企业实际业务以及与评估企业发展完全脱节的行为。长久以来，“不重质量，只重篇幅”一直都 是企业在披露信息过程中奉行的指导原则。现在，企业和它们的投资者是时候根据他们共同的需求、并依据具体行业的不同，一起对信息作出界定了。
	译者/薛磊