From February through May, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 1000 points in an almost uninterrupted daily march
upward. Then came the 'flash crash' of May 6 and day after day of losses through May. Now, in mid-June, the market has been up six of the past seven days.
2月到5月,道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数(Dow Jones Industrial Average)几乎是不间断地上涨,累计涨幅超过1,000点。然后在5月6日遇到了"闪电崩盘",整个5月份就一天天地节节下跌。现在到了6月中旬,过去七天市场有六天都在上涨。
What accounts for these sudden moves? Why do investors so often seem to
resemble a school of fish, all changing direction together?
这种潮起潮落原因何在?投资者为什么如此经常地表现得像一群鱼一样,全都一窝蜂地改变方向?
Sometimes the most interesting answers to
financial questions come from
scientific labs. A study published last week in the
journal Current Biology found that the value you place on something is likely to go up when other people tell you it is worth more than you thought, and down when others say it is worth less. More strikingly, if your evaluation agrees with what others tell you, then a part of your brain that specializes in processing
rewards kicks into high gear.
对金融市场疑问的最有趣回答,有时候还是来自于科学实验室。《当代生物学》杂志(Current Biology)上周发表的一份研究报告发现,当别人说某个东西比你原来想的更有价值时,你就有可能越是看重这件东西,当别人说这个东西没有你原来想的那样有价值时,你眼中这个东西的价值就下降了。更令人注意的是,如果你对这件东西价值的评估和其他人所说的一致,那么你大脑中一个专门处理奖励的部分就立马高速运转起来。
In other words, investors often go along with the crowd because-at the most basic
biological level-conformity feels good. Moving in herds doesn't just give investors a sense of 'safety in numbers.' It also gives them pleasure.
也就是说,投资者常常随群而动的原因,从最基本的生物学层面来讲,在于随大流感觉很好。从众不仅让投资者有一种"人多势众"的安全感,而且还能感受到快乐。
That may help explain why market
sentiment can change so
swiftly, why true contrarians are so hard to find and why investors care so much about the 'consensus view' on Wall Street.
这或许有助于解释,为什么市场情绪可以如此快速地转换,为什么真正的反向操作者如此难以找到,为什么投资者对华尔街的"共同观点"如此在意。
In the experiment, researchers from University College London and Aarhus University in Denmark asked 28 people to
submit a list of songs they wanted to buy online and then to decide which they would most like to own. Then the participants viewed the ratings of the same songs by two
professional music experts. Meanwhile, a
magnetic resonance imaging machine recorded the patterns of activity in their brains. Finally, as a way to
measure the influence of the experts' views, the participants had the chance to change their minds about which songs they wanted the most.
在这个实验里,来自伦敦大学学院(University College London)和丹麦奥胡斯大学(Aarhus University)的研究人员让28人各自提交一份名单,名单上列出哪些歌曲是他们希望在网上购买的,然后让他们确定最想买哪些。然后,参与者们看到了两名音乐专家对同一批歌曲的打分。与此同时,一部磁共振成像仪记录了他们大脑的活动方式。最后,作为测量专家观点影响力的一种方式,参与者有机会变更他们最想买哪些歌曲。
The brain scans showed that as soon as people
learned they had chosen the same song as the experts, cells in the ventral striatum-a
reward center wired with dopamine neurons that
respond to pleasures like sugar and sex-fired intensely.
脑部扫描结果显示,当人们知道自己选择了和专家一样的歌曲时,腹侧纹状体的细胞变得极度兴奋。腹侧纹状体是一个负责奖励的中心,连接着响应糖和性等愉悦感的多巴胺神经元。
'If someone agrees with your choice, it's intrinsically
rewarding in the same way food or money is
rewarding,' says one of the experimenters, Chris Frith of University College London.
研究人员之一、伦敦大学学院的费里思(Chris Frith)说,如果有人同意你的选择,给你的奖励在实质上相当于食品或金钱带来的奖励。
Why might other people's estimates of what something is worth lead you to change your own? Their appraisal could make you unsure that yours is correct. You might become more popular once you agree with others, or joining the experts may make you feel like one yourself. 'We are very social creatures,' says Prof. Frith, 'and we are
desperately keen to be part of the group.'
为什么其他人对某种东西的评价有可能导致你改变自己的评价呢?这是因为,他们的评价有可能让你不确定自己对不对;当你和其他人意见一致时,你可能会变得更受欢迎;或者是因为,和专家意见一致有可能让你觉得自己也是专家。费里思说,我们是非常社会化的生物,我们渴望成为群体的一员。
'When someone influences you, it happens very quickly, in under a second,' says the lead researcher, Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn of Aarhus University. 'That
mechanism can travel quite quickly through a population.'
牵头研究人员、奥胡斯大学的坎贝尔-米克尔约翰(Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn)说,当有人影响你的时候,速度是非常快的,不到一秒钟;这种机制可以在一个人群里非常迅速地传播。
The experiment also showed that
learning that the experts agree with one another-regardless of whether you agree with them-triggers activity in the insula, a brain region associated with pain and heightened body awareness. This suggests that the
agreement of others may have a special
ability to grab our
mental attention. No wonder a consensus opinion is almost impossible for many investors to ignore.
实验还显示,当某人知道专家们的意见相互一致时,不管自己是否同意专家的观点,大脑的岛叶部分就活跃起来,而这个区域跟疼痛和身体知觉加强有关。这说明,其他人达成的一致意见可能有一种抓住我们精神注意力的特殊能力。难怪很多投资者几乎不可能忽略某个共同观点。
Benjamin Graham, the
founder of value investing, wrote that 'the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and
impersonal mechanism, in
accordance with its
specific qualities.' Rather, he added, 'the market is a voting machine,
whereon countless individuals
register choices which are the product
partly of reason and
partly of emotion.' Herding, Graham understood, is part of the human condition.
价值投资宗师格雷厄姆(Benjamin Graham)写道,市场并不是一个称重器,不是每件东西的价值都以一种精准、客观的机制根据它的具体素质记录下来。相反,市场是一个表决器,由无数个人提交他们的选择,这些选择一部分是理智的结果,一部分是情感的结果。格雷厄姆明白,从众是人类局限性的一部分。
Thus, if you buy individual stocks, you should note which way the herd is moving-and go the other way. You should get interested in a stock when its price gets trampled flat by investors stampeding out of it. The list of new 52-week lows is a rough guide to what the voting machine has been trashing
lately. Then run your own weighing machine, studying the company's
financial statements, products and competitors to determine the value of its business-while ignoring the current price of its stock. And make a
permanent record that
thoroughly details your rationale for making the
investment. That way, you set in stone exactly where you stood before the herd began
trying to sweep you away.
所以,如果你买个股,你应该注意到大流是什么,然后反向而行。你应该在投资者蜂拥逃出、把一只股票的价值踩扁的时候注意到它。52周新低名单是一个粗略的指引,告诉你这个表决器最近是在抛弃哪些股票。然后启动你自己的称重器,研究这家公司的财务报表、产品和竞争对手,来确定其业务的价值──同时忽略该公司股票的当前价格。然后从头到尾地记下你做此投资的推理过程并永久保存。通过这样做,在人群开始要把你裹挟而去之前,你自己就已经站稳了脚跟。