经济学人:梧桐树专栏 买股票的精髓是什么?(2)

 　　An obvious apparent difference between dividends 2 and buy-backs is that every shareholder 3 gets the dividend 1 but not all of them tend to take part in a buy-back. 股息与回购的明显区别是每个持股人都会得到分红，但并不是所有的持股人都打算参与回购。

　　But theory suggests investors 4 should gain from a share buy-back even if they do not take part. 从理论上讲，投资者即使不参与，也会从股票回购中获利。
　　The buy-back will reduce the number of shares in issue, giving existing investors a proportionately larger claim on the profits and assets of the company. 回购将会减少股票发行量，从而让现有的投资者对公司利润和资产方面有更大的索求权。
　　Over time, buy-backs are offset 5 by the shares companies issue to make acquisitions and honour executive share-option schemes. 一段时间后，回购股份会被企业发行的用来收购和承兑执行股票期权计划的股票所抵消。
　　In the half century since 1970 new share issuance has exceeded buy-backs. 在1970年之后的半个世纪中，新股发行量已经超过了回购量。
　　But in the ten years to 2014, on average, buy-backs have predominated. 但是截止到2014年的这十年中，平均来说，回购已经占据了主导地位。
　　The authors also experiment with using the total payout yield as a yardstick 6 of whether stocks are dear or cheap. 研究者做了个实验，以总股息收益率作为标准，衡量股票价格是否便宜。
　　By averaging the yield over ten years, they work out the cyclically adjusted total yield (CATY)  他们通过将十多年的收益率平均化计算，得出了周期调整总收益率（CATY ），
　　and compare it with the cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio (CAPE 7), which averages corporate 8 profits. 并将其与表示企业平均利润的周期调整市盈率（CAPE）相比较。
　　They find that CATY is at least as good as CAPE in predicting market movements. 他们发现CATY至少和CAPE一样可以很好的预测市场走势。
　　As for the link with economic growth, it is often hard to find a short-term correlation 9 between this and stockmarket performance, which tends to be much more volatile 10. 至于股市表现与经济增长之间的联系，人们很难找出其中的短期相关性，因为股市波动越来越大。
　　But the authors found that, over the very long run, growth in the aggregate 11 payout from American equities 12 has matched that of the country's GDP,  但是研究者发现，长期来看，美国股票的总股息增长已经与国家GDP的增长相吻合，
　　and payout-per-share growth has matched that of GDP per head. 每股股息增长也与人均GDP增长相当。
　　There is no guarantee that this relationship will continue. 没有人可以保证这种关系是否将会继续保持。
　　Payouts lagged a long way behind GDP in the second half of the 20th century, and have only caught up because of the surge in buy-backs. 到二十世纪下半叶，美国股息增长还远远落后于GDP，现在只是由于回购的激增才赶了上来。
　　And the stockmarket is much more international than it used to be; almost half the revenues of S&P 500 companies come from outside America. 股市比以往更加国际化，因为标准普尔500指数企业的收入几乎一半来自于美国国外。
　　Focusing on total payouts allows the authors to be a bit more optimistic in their forecasts of future returns than the traditional dividend-based approach would suggest. 关注股票总派息会使研究者对于未来收益的预测比传统的基于股息的预测方法更乐观。
　　Historically, total payouts have grown by around 1.67% per year, compared with 1.46% for dividends alone. 从历史上看，相比于只增长了1.46%的股息，总派息每年大约增长1.67%。
　　Combine that with the current payout yield and you get an expected future real return of 5.1%, compared with just 3.6% if dividends alone are used. 如果把总派息与当前的股息收益相结合进行估算，你将会获得5.1%的预期实际收益率，而如果只考虑股息，那就只有3.6%的预期实际收益率了。
　　Whether even that return, however, would be enough to meet defined-benefit pension promises,  然而，即使是这样的回报，是否足以满足养老金福利的承诺，
　　particularly those made to their workers by state and local governments in America, is another question. 尤其是美国州和地方政府给他们的工人的承诺，这是另一个问题。