|
And people wonder why it’s hard to understand the stock market.
人们想知道，为什么股市这么令人费解。
Take a consumer sitting at home buying stuff on Amazon.com with his iPhone. To him, Apple’s product is a clear leader in the market, while Amazon is the retailer he uses most. Amazon’s shares are up nearly 40 percent over the last 12 months, while Apple’s are down nearly 30 percent over the same period. So why have their stock prices diverged so much when both companies appear to be at the top of their game?
以一个坐在家里用iPhone在亚马逊上(Amazon.com)上购物的消费者为例。在他看来，苹果的产品显然是市场的领导者，而亚马逊也是他用得最多的零售商。过去12个月，亚马逊的股价涨幅几近40%，而同一时期，苹果的股价却跌了近30%。那么，当两家公司都好像是各自所在领域的领军者时，它们股价曲线的差异为何如此之大？
Growth is the most common answer you’ll hear. When a company convinces investors that its earnings can keep going up, an enthusiasm grows around the shares, and they tend to perform well. Wall Street analysts expect Amazon’s earnings next year to be 66 percent higher than the forecast for 2013. They project a 10 percent uptick for Apple.
增长是你最常听到的答案。当一家公司说服投资者，公司的收益能持续增加时，投资者会对其股票生出一种越来越大的热情，这个公司股票往往也就表现良好。华尔街的分析人士预计，亚马逊明年的收益会比2013年的预估值高出66%。他们同时预测，苹果的收益会上涨10%。
But there’s another conversation you need to have.
但你还需要听听另一种说法。
It revolves around whether the market has already factored the hoped-for growth into the stock price. It is possible to pay too much for excellence.
这种说法的核心是，市场是否已把投资者期望的增长计入了股价。而为了获得优秀股票，投资者完全有可能付出了过高代价。
There are all sorts of ways to gauge how much credibility investors ascribe to a company’s “growth story.” One is to look at what investors are paying now for a company’s free cash flows, or the hard dollars it takes in from profits (minus the spending it does on plant and equipment). The results are stark. Apple’s stock market value is nine times last year’s free cash flows. On this metric, Amazon is at over 300 times. Sane investors would never touch a stock with such a dear valuation unless they felt cash flows were going to soar in the future.
有各种办法可以来衡量，投资者对一家公司的“增长故事”到底相信多少。其中的一个办法是，观察投资者眼下为公司的自由现金流，即公司利润（减去在厂房和设备上的支出）中的现金部分付出的价格。结果间的差异相当巨大。苹果的当前市值是其去年自由现金流的9倍。而亚马逊的当前市值是其去年自由现金流的300多倍。神智健全的投资者永远不会染指估值如此之高的股票，除非他们觉得现金流将来会大幅飙升。
And this brings us to the part of investing that usually separates winners from losers: guessing whether companies will actually do what we expect them to.
而这让我们进入了投资中的一个环节：猜测公司会不会真的做出我们期望它们做的行为。这一步往往决定着成败。
Amazon’s believers don’t mind that it’s spending such huge amounts on setting up new operations for its retail and data businesses. At some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, that spending will fall as the expansion reaches its limits. In that case, Amazon will be churning out much bigger cash flows as it enjoys near unassailable dominance.
相信亚马逊的人不介意亚马逊在为它的零售和数据业务开疆辟土时花费巨额资金。在一定的时间，希望是在不远的将来，当扩展达到极限时，这种开支便会减少。在这种情况下，鉴于亚马逊占据着几乎不容置疑的主导地位，它将获得大得多的现金流。
Sure, but how wondrous will those cash flows be? Amazon’s operations produced $4.2 billion of cash flows last year. Let’s generously assume 10 percent annual growth for them, which would take them to $5.1 billion by the end of 2014.
好吧，但这些现金流会有多了不起呢？去年，亚马逊的业务带来了42亿美元（约合259亿元人民币）的现金流。我们大胆假设这些现金流的年增长幅度为10%，那么，到2014年年底，亚马逊的现金流将为51亿美元。
Let’s be kind again and assume that capital expenditures fall a lot, to, say, $1 billion a year, from last year’s $3.8 billion. Free cash flows in 2014 would therefore total $4.1 billion.
我们再次宽容一些，假定资本支出大幅下降，比如从去年的38亿美元降至每年10亿美元。那么，2014年的自由现金流将为41亿美元。
Now, remember, at this future point, Amazon’s growth in free cash flow will have slowed a lot. Investors will probably decide to attach a lower valuation to the company. Being generous, let’s assume they value those hypothetical 2014 free cash flows at 21 times, Google’s multiple today. That would give Amazon a market worth of about $86 billion. That’s 30 percent lower than today.
现在，请记住，那时，亚马逊自由现金流的增速将大幅放缓。投资者可能降低它的估值。我们大方一些，假定他们把亚马逊的市值定为假设出来的2014年自由现金流的21倍，也就是谷歌(Google)当前市值同自由现金流的比值。这将让亚马逊拥有一个约为860亿美元的总市值。这一数字比当前低30%。
Of course, the stock market believes what it wants to believe. It may well decide to remain starry-eyed about Amazon and give it a much higher valuation for years to come. But Apple’s recent drubbing suggests even the strongest runs can end nastily.
当然，股市会相信它愿意相信的东西。它很可能继续对亚马逊持有过度乐观的态度，并在接下来的数年里大幅推高亚马逊的估值。但苹果最近的跌势表明，即便是表现最强劲的股票也可能会惨淡收场。
翻译：陈亦亭
|
- VOA 英语教学节目
-
- 经典英语在线训练资源
-
|
