A spectre is haunting Markets – the spectre of illiquidity, frozen credit, and the failure of financial models.
Beginning with the 2007 collapse in subprime mortgages, financial markets have shifted to new regimes characterized by violent movements, epidemics of contagion from market to market, and almost unimaginable anomalies (who would have ever thought that swap spreads to Treasuries could go negative?). Familiar valuation models have become increasingly unreliable. Where is the risk manager that has not ascribed his losses to a once-in-a-century tsunami?
To this end, we have assembled in New York City and written the following manifesto.
Manifesto
In finance we study how to manage funds – from simple securities like dollars and yen, stocks and bonds to complex ones like futures and options, subprime CDOs and credit default swaps. We build financial models to estimate the fair value of securities, to estimate their risks and to show how those risks can be controlled. How can a model tell you the value of a security? And how did these models fail so badly in the case of the subprime CDO market?
Physics, because of its astonishing success at predicting the future behavior of material objects from their present state, has inspired most financial modeling. Physicists study the world by repeating the same experiments over and over again to discover forces and their almost magical mathematical laws. Galileo dropped balls off the leaning tower, giant teams in Geneva collide protons on protons, over and over again. If a law is proposed and its predictions contradict experiments, it's back to the drawing board. The method works. The laws of atomic physics are accurate to more than ten decimal places.
It's a different story with finance and economics, which are concerned with the mental world of monetary value. Financial theory has tried hard to emulate the style and elegance of physics in order to discover its own laws. But markets are made of people, who are influenced by events, by their ephemeral feelings about events and by their expectations of other people's feelings. The truth is that there are no fundamental laws in finance. And even if there were, there is no way to run repeatable experiments to verify them.
You can hardly find a better example of confusedly elegant modeling than models of CDOs. The CDO research papers apply abstract probability theory to the price co-movements of thousands of mortgages. The relationships between so many mortgages can be vastly complex. The modelers, having built up their fantastical theory, need to make it useable; they resort to sweeping under the model's rug all unknown dynamics; with the dirt ignored, all that's left is a single number, called the default correlation. From the sublime to the elegantly ridiculous: all uncertainty is reduced to a single parameter that, when entered into the model by a trader, produces a CDO value. This over-reliance on probability and statistics is a severe limitation. Statistics is shallow description, quite unlike the deeper cause and effect of physics, and can’t easily capture the complex dynamics of default.
Models are at bottom tools for approximate thinking; they serve to transform your intuition about the future into a price for a security today. It’s easier to think intuitively about future housing prices, default rates and default correlations than it is about CDO prices. CDO models turn your guess about future housing prices, mortgage default rates and a simplistic default correlation into the model’s output: a current CDO price.
Our experience in the financial arena has taught us to be very humble in applying mathematics to markets, and to be extremely wary of ambitious theories, which are in the end trying to model human behavior. We like simplicity, but we like to remember that it is our models that are simple, not the world.
Unfortunately, the teachers of finance haven’t learned these lessons. You have only to glance at business school textbooks on finance to discover stilts of mathematical axioms supporting a house of numbered theorems, lemmas and results. Who would think that the textbook is at bottom dealing with people and money? It should be obvious to anyone with common sense that every financial axiom is wrong, and that finance can never in its wildest dreams be Euclid. Different endeavors, as Aristotle wrote, require different degrees of precision. Finance is not one of the natural sciences, and its invisible worm is its dark secret love of mathematical elegance and too much exactitude.
We do need models and mathematics – you cannot think about finance and economics without them – but one must never forget that models are not the world. Whenever we make a model of something involving human beings, we are trying to force the ugly stepsister’s foot into Cinderella’s pretty glass slipper. It doesn't fit without cutting off some essential parts. And in cutting off parts for the sake of beauty and precision, models inevitably mask the true risk rather than exposing it. The most important question about any financial model is how wrong it is likely to be, and how useful it is despite its assumptions. You must start with models and then overlay them with common sense and experience.
Many academics imagine that one beautiful day we will find the ‘right’ model. But there is no right model, because the world changes in response to the ones we use. Progress in financial modeling is fleeting and temporary. Markets change and newer models become necessary. Simple clear models with explicit assumptions about small numbers of variables are therefore the best way to leverage your intuition without deluding yourself.
All models sweep dirt under the rug. A good model makes the absence of the dirt visible. In this regard, we believe that the Black-Scholes model of options valuation, now often unjustly maligned, is a model for models; it is clear and robust. Clear, because it is based on true engineering; it tells you how to manufacture an option out of stocks and bonds and what that will cost you, under ideal dirt-free circumstances that it defines. Its method of valuation is analogous to figuring out the price of a can of fruit salad from the cost of fruit, sugar, labor and transportation. The world of markets doesn’t exactly match the ideal circumstances Black-Scholes requires, but the model is robust because it allows an intelligent trader to qualitatively adjust for those mismatches. You know what you are assuming when you use the model, and you know exactly what has been swept out of view.
Building financial models is challenging and worthwhile: you need to combine the qualitative and the quantitative, imagination and observation, art and science, all in the service of finding approximate patterns in the behavior of markets and securities. The greatest danger is the age-old sin of idolatry. Financial markets are alive but a model, however beautiful, is an artifice. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to breathe life into it. To confuse the model with the world is to embrace a future disaster driven by the belief that humans obey mathematical rules.
MODELERS OF ALL MARKETS, UNITE! You have nothing to lose but your illusions.
The Modelers' Hippocratic Oath
~ I will remember that I didn't make the world, and it doesn't satisfy my equations.
~ Though I will use models boldly to estimate value, I will not be overly impressed by mathematics.
~ I will never sacrifice reality for elegance without explaining why I have done so.
~ Nor will I give the people who use my model false comfort about its accuracy. Instead, I will make explicit its assumptions and oversights.
~ I understand that my work may have enormous effects on society and the economy, many of them beyond my comprehension.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
金融街(000402)通泰大厦16楼华夏基金总部现场
7月9日下午2点，通泰大厦16楼华夏基金总部最大会议室。
身着白色短袖深色裤子的王亚伟坐在了记者对面，他的面前摆的是一瓶蓝涧矿泉水。他递给记者的名片上职务一栏印得很简单--总经理助理，名片上没有填写手机号码。
华夏基金市场部总经理周林林简单介绍了到会的华夏工作人员和媒体记者。王亚伟打开了摆放在面前的笔记本电脑，本文为座谈会王亚伟讲话实录。
为什么华夏和我总被关注
基金行业，老百姓的关注度高，具备娱乐行业的某些典型要素。
我三年前就感觉到，基金行业将日趋娱乐化，事实的发展也验证了我的判断。基金经理注定是关注的焦点，尤其是业绩好的，从业时间长的。到目前为止，公募基金行业里从业时间较长的基金经理多数已经转做私募去了，我是留下坚守的为数不多的几个，投资业绩也比较好，所以我受到广泛关注，并承担了一些额外的社会功能和娱乐化功能也是在所难免。
但另一方面，娱乐化的倾向也在客观上恶化了公募基金经理的生存环境。
媒体上有针对我的投资的质疑文章，有些不是出于炒作和吸引眼球的目的，只是客观地反映市场中存在的疑问，希望能得到解答，我很理解。在某些行业，一些有影响力的人物喜欢到处发言，媒体可以报道得很热闹，但基金行业不同，在言论方面管理更严谨，尤其基金经理，职业特性要求他们少说多做，所以即使有质疑我也很少回应，以前和媒体朋友们沟通得不够，这方面首先表示歉意。
对于各种质疑，我的心态概括起来说就是坦然面对。
之所以能够坦然面对，首先是因为我没有任何违规的操作，不心虚当然坦然；其次还因为，有质疑说明有人关心你，有人关心总比没人关心好，尽管其中存在很多误解，但我不想去和这些误解较劲。
我希望能够多一些理解，但如果理解不了我也无法强求。毕竟中国证券市场、基金业发展时间还很短，大家由于经历不同、所处位置的不同，对投资的认识也各不相同，短期内无法达成共识很正常。
也没有必要达成共识，投资上的问题，往往在达成共识后很快就会走到错误的边缘。既然如此，何不求同存异。试图让每个人理解你、说你好根本就是徒劳的，还是顺其自然吧。
在投资领域里，时间是试金石，大浪淘沙，水落石出，很多事情，需要留待时间去证明。与其把精力花在对外解释上，不如花在投资研究上，花在家人朋友上，花在兴趣爱好上，时间对我来说永远是不够用的。
但为什么这次我要花时间出来解释一下呢？因为每次遇到这样的情况，总有很多朋友发来短信安慰我，鼓励我，我得一一回复表示感谢，我发现这占用了我不少时间，所以希望今天花一点时间，换来今后我和我的朋友们节省更多的时间。这是我今天跟大家见面的一个想法。
"我庆幸我不是贴价值投资标签的基金经理"
我觉得成为一个成功的基金经理，做投资要形成一套能够体现自己风格的，适合自己运用的比较成熟的投资方法和理念。
投资的着眼点一定要放在自己对市场本身的认识和把握上，而不是跟别人走，失去主见。不管什么时候，要独立思考。
作为基金经理，投资者把钱交给你就是要你代替他去思考，你要是随波逐流，缺乏独立思考的精神，就是没有做到尽职尽责。
目前对于价值投资存在一些误区。不知道是格雷厄姆和巴菲特没有讲清楚还是有些人在理解上出了偏差，我见到听到的一些所谓的价值投资者并不是在真正地做价值投资，他们做的只是贴标签，给自己贴上价值投资者的标签，给与他们投资方法不同的人贴上投机者的标签，给某些股票贴上价值股的标签，给其它他们没有认真研究过的股票贴上投机股的标签。
如果只有买他们贴过价值股标签的股票才算价值投资者的话，这个门槛对我来说太高了，高不可攀。
比如说，中国船舶(600150)和中国平安(601318)都是好公司，他们可能会在250元以上买中国船舶(600150)，在140元以上买中国平安，只是因为这些股票上有他们贴上去的价值股标签。他们认为自己永远都是对的，错的只是这个市场。
我庆幸自己不是这样的价值投资者。如果说只有价值投资才能获取持续稳定的收益的话，那么我有资格说自己更接近于一个价值投资者，尽管我从来不愿把自己这样归类。
从长一点时间看，市场不会以价值投资、非价值投资来区分投资者，同样是所谓的价值投资者，巴菲特是成功的投资者，而他的某些中国信徒是失败的投资者，市场会这样来划分，残酷但很公平。
一个成功的投资者，无须费尽口舌去表白自己是一个价值投资者，到头来业绩会说明一切。是否是价值投资，取决于如何投资，在什么价位投资，与谁在投资，投资什么无关，贴标签是没有用的。
巴菲特经过研究，在8元买了比亚迪，这算是投资；如果只是听说巴菲特买了比亚迪也跟着买，即使有机会在8元以下买入，也只能算是投机，因为这种行为是跟风，没有经过仔细研究。如果经过仔细研究，发现一只ST股的未来预期价值远高于当前价格，那么在低位买入的行为也是价值投资，而一旦价格高于未来预期价值了还去追，就属于投机了。我希望以自己的投资实践去丰富价值投资的内涵，对于会不会被贴上价值投资者的标签，我毫无兴趣。
我是怎么投资重组类股票的？
投资重组股和价值投资并不冲突。我关注重组股，是因为这是我国证券市场特定发展阶段的产物，蕴藏着很多投资机会，对此视而不见是不负责任的。但我从来不依据内幕信息去投资重组股，我只依靠三点：公开信息、合理推测、组合投资。
很多股票是否会重组、谁来重组、如何重组，其实已经有足够多的公开信息了，我相信如果提出质疑的人花功夫去仔细研究一下这些公开信息，也差不多能做出同样的投资判断，只可惜他们很少这样做。
在我们这个行业，出去调研也好，参加讨论也好，如果不事先做足功课是没有资格提问和发言的，所以对于这类质疑我往往不知如何回应，因为我没有时间从ABC讲起。
如果公开信息不够充分怎么办？我就加上合理的推测。那么怎样推测才合理呢？通过换位思考。经济学里有理性人的假设，重组方和被重组方都有各自的利益诉求，他们怎么想？会怎么做？这些问题看似涉及内幕信息，但实际上你根本无需打探什么内幕信息，只要换位思考一下，假设你是他们，会怎么想、怎么做，很多疑问都将迎刃而解。你站在他们角度做出的选择也基本上会成为他们实际上的选择。
基金经理必须有意识地站在产业投资者的角度去思考，这样才能知其然也知其所以然，如果仅仅站在财务投资者的角度看问题，对价值的认识往往是片面的，真正的价值投资也就无从谈起。
但是，即使仔细研究公开信息了，也做了合理推测了，投资重组股的成功概率可能也只有60%，那又该怎么办？我还有第三点：组合投资。举例来说，在我的投资组合里，精心挑选了20只潜在的重组股，如果未来一年有60%成功实施重组的话，平均每个月就会有一只，从概率分布上就是如此。
质疑我总是精准押中重组股的人只看见了树木。孤立的看某只股票是成功了，但就整个重组股组合而言单月的成功概率仅为1/20。如果我有本事做到所谓的精准踩点，百发百中，那岂不是这个月押中20只，下个月又押中另外20只？这是不可能的。
我绝不会去挑战法律法规
利益输送，是法律法规和华夏基金公司内控制度严格禁止的。公司制定了公平交易管理制度，由交易管理部严格执行，风控部门定期进行基金交易行为分析，杜绝利益输送。
从业十多年，我绝不会去试图挑战法律法规的严肃性和监管的有效性，历来坚持稳健经营、规范运作的华夏基金公司绝不会允许利益输送的情况存在，视业绩为生命的华夏基金的基金经理们也绝不会牺牲自己基金的业绩去为其他基金输送利益。
只要用常识去思考，就能得出结论，在华夏基金根本不存在利益输送的生存土壤。
如果搞利益输送，是无法做到整体业绩优秀的，更无法吸引和留住好的人才。华夏基金从来不为股东、专户、单只基金做任何利益输送，历史上没有，未来即使发展到上万亿规模甚至更大，也决不会做。
为什么我能做到连续几年业绩领先？我认为是投资风格使然。我的投资风格在趋同化的公募基金业内有点独特，举个极端的例子，我的风格是A，其它基金的风格是B，如果A风格优于B风格，那么我的基金持续领先就是大概率事件，但如果我也和别人一样是B风格，那么我的基金持续领先就是小概率事件，因为我并不比别人聪明，就这么简单。
这也是为什么我要始终坚持自己的风格而不愿被同化的原因。被同化当然会舒服很多，不用再被质疑了，但是为了持有人利益最大化，我选择坚持。质疑我靠利益输送才能持续多年业绩领先，想象力有点丰富，如果把这样的想象力运用到选股上，投资能力一定会突飞猛进。
鱼和熊掌有没有可能兼得呢？有可能。
股票基金有不同的类型，有的适合把规模做得很大，比如被动型的华夏沪深300指数基金，而对于主动型的股票基金而言，业绩和规模往往是一对矛盾，这点无需否认，是鱼和熊掌的关系。
鱼和熊掌有没有可能兼得呢？有可能。
那么鱼和熊掌有没有把握兼得呢？没有把握。当然可以去尝试一下，放开申购，相信规模会变得很大，证明一下自己有能力管好大基金，也无妨。但万一不成功呢？损失的是持有人的利益。
冒损失持有人利益的风险，去尝试证明自己的能力，值得吗？我认为不值得。我没有兴趣去证明自己有管理好大基金的能力，我只想给持有人最好的收益。
况且华夏大盘(000011)精选基金虽然份额不到7亿份，但单位净值已经超过7.8元，基金总规模在50亿元左右，也并非部分人所认为的小盘基金。当然有些投资者无法申购可能会有抱怨。这种轻规模、重业绩的想法和华夏基金的经营理念是一致的，公司始终追求投资者利益的最大化，而不追求规模的最大化，比如在2007年市场最狂热的时候，公司几乎暂停了所有主动型股票基金的申购，以此帮助投资者控制风险。
短期落后于指数我并不担心，长期战胜指数我有信心
上半年华夏大盘净值增长率为60.25%，在72只偏股混合基金中排第7位，华夏策略(002031)净值增长率为43.9%，在48只灵活配置混合基金中排名第10，均名列前四分之一。对于这个成绩，我基本满意。
不满意的地方在于资产配置，由于对极度宽松的流动性环境估计不足，对实体经济恢复的前景和持续性不很确定，上半年在实际操作中过于保守，华夏大盘(000011)和华夏策略(002031)上半年的平均股票仓位仅为65%和55%，影响了净值表现。
另一方面，靠这么低的平均股票仓位取得这样的收益率，对自己的选股还是比较满意，同时由于净值波动率低，整体上夏普比率还是很高的。至于一两个月内的净值表现是否突出，我并不在意。
历史上华夏大盘有过多次短期业绩落后的情况，比如2007年上证指数从7月初的3800点飙升到10月中旬的6100点，指数涨幅60%，但华夏大盘同期净值增长率仅为49%，明显落后。但到2008年1月中旬的5500点时，指数从最高点下跌了10%，但同期大盘精选的净值却增长了15%。大盘精选的差异化投资风格使得其净值变化与指数的相关度不是很高，所以短期落后于指数我并不担心，长期战胜指数我有信心。
我不会离开公募基金
基金行业人是决定性的因素，虽说想做基金经理的大有人在，谁走了都能找个新的填上，但管理能力是有差别的。好的基金经理都是各公司花了大代价培养起来的，优秀的人才流失，很让人痛心，也会动摇投资者对基金行业的信心。
去做私募，有可能获得高得多的报酬，但我相信有相当一部分基金经理不只是冲着钱去的，可能更多的是为了实现自己的投资理想。能否创造一种更好的环境，吸引优秀的基金经理留在公募基金行业去实现投资理想呢？这需要各方面的努力。公募基金不是一个完美的行业，存在一些制度性的缺陷，由此给了私募基金发展的空间。
我作为基金经理在华夏基金工作了11年，对公募基金行业、对公司有很深的感情，离开不是一个容易的决定。虽然付出很多，但得到的更多，我一直心怀感恩，感谢这个行业给予我很多机会，我也愿意继续为行业发展贡献力量。
当然，如果我的投资风格确实无法再适应公募基金发展的要求，我也只能考虑其它的发展路径。只是目前，没有这方面的任何打算。
7月9日下午2点，通泰大厦16楼华夏基金总部最大会议室。
身着白色短袖深色裤子的王亚伟坐在了记者对面，他的面前摆的是一瓶蓝涧矿泉水。他递给记者的名片上职务一栏印得很简单--总经理助理，名片上没有填写手机号码。
华夏基金市场部总经理周林林简单介绍了到会的华夏工作人员和媒体记者。王亚伟打开了摆放在面前的笔记本电脑，本文为座谈会王亚伟讲话实录。
为什么华夏和我总被关注
基金行业，老百姓的关注度高，具备娱乐行业的某些典型要素。
我三年前就感觉到，基金行业将日趋娱乐化，事实的发展也验证了我的判断。基金经理注定是关注的焦点，尤其是业绩好的，从业时间长的。到目前为止，公募基金行业里从业时间较长的基金经理多数已经转做私募去了，我是留下坚守的为数不多的几个，投资业绩也比较好，所以我受到广泛关注，并承担了一些额外的社会功能和娱乐化功能也是在所难免。
但另一方面，娱乐化的倾向也在客观上恶化了公募基金经理的生存环境。
媒体上有针对我的投资的质疑文章，有些不是出于炒作和吸引眼球的目的，只是客观地反映市场中存在的疑问，希望能得到解答，我很理解。在某些行业，一些有影响力的人物喜欢到处发言，媒体可以报道得很热闹，但基金行业不同，在言论方面管理更严谨，尤其基金经理，职业特性要求他们少说多做，所以即使有质疑我也很少回应，以前和媒体朋友们沟通得不够，这方面首先表示歉意。
对于各种质疑，我的心态概括起来说就是坦然面对。
之所以能够坦然面对，首先是因为我没有任何违规的操作，不心虚当然坦然；其次还因为，有质疑说明有人关心你，有人关心总比没人关心好，尽管其中存在很多误解，但我不想去和这些误解较劲。
我希望能够多一些理解，但如果理解不了我也无法强求。毕竟中国证券市场、基金业发展时间还很短，大家由于经历不同、所处位置的不同，对投资的认识也各不相同，短期内无法达成共识很正常。
也没有必要达成共识，投资上的问题，往往在达成共识后很快就会走到错误的边缘。既然如此，何不求同存异。试图让每个人理解你、说你好根本就是徒劳的，还是顺其自然吧。
在投资领域里，时间是试金石，大浪淘沙，水落石出，很多事情，需要留待时间去证明。与其把精力花在对外解释上，不如花在投资研究上，花在家人朋友上，花在兴趣爱好上，时间对我来说永远是不够用的。
但为什么这次我要花时间出来解释一下呢？因为每次遇到这样的情况，总有很多朋友发来短信安慰我，鼓励我，我得一一回复表示感谢，我发现这占用了我不少时间，所以希望今天花一点时间，换来今后我和我的朋友们节省更多的时间。这是我今天跟大家见面的一个想法。
"我庆幸我不是贴价值投资标签的基金经理"
我觉得成为一个成功的基金经理，做投资要形成一套能够体现自己风格的，适合自己运用的比较成熟的投资方法和理念。
投资的着眼点一定要放在自己对市场本身的认识和把握上，而不是跟别人走，失去主见。不管什么时候，要独立思考。
作为基金经理，投资者把钱交给你就是要你代替他去思考，你要是随波逐流，缺乏独立思考的精神，就是没有做到尽职尽责。
目前对于价值投资存在一些误区。不知道是格雷厄姆和巴菲特没有讲清楚还是有些人在理解上出了偏差，我见到听到的一些所谓的价值投资者并不是在真正地做价值投资，他们做的只是贴标签，给自己贴上价值投资者的标签，给与他们投资方法不同的人贴上投机者的标签，给某些股票贴上价值股的标签，给其它他们没有认真研究过的股票贴上投机股的标签。
如果只有买他们贴过价值股标签的股票才算价值投资者的话，这个门槛对我来说太高了，高不可攀。
比如说，中国船舶(600150)和中国平安(601318)都是好公司，他们可能会在250元以上买中国船舶(600150)，在140元以上买中国平安，只是因为这些股票上有他们贴上去的价值股标签。他们认为自己永远都是对的，错的只是这个市场。
我庆幸自己不是这样的价值投资者。如果说只有价值投资才能获取持续稳定的收益的话，那么我有资格说自己更接近于一个价值投资者，尽管我从来不愿把自己这样归类。
从长一点时间看，市场不会以价值投资、非价值投资来区分投资者，同样是所谓的价值投资者，巴菲特是成功的投资者，而他的某些中国信徒是失败的投资者，市场会这样来划分，残酷但很公平。
一个成功的投资者，无须费尽口舌去表白自己是一个价值投资者，到头来业绩会说明一切。是否是价值投资，取决于如何投资，在什么价位投资，与谁在投资，投资什么无关，贴标签是没有用的。
巴菲特经过研究，在8元买了比亚迪，这算是投资；如果只是听说巴菲特买了比亚迪也跟着买，即使有机会在8元以下买入，也只能算是投机，因为这种行为是跟风，没有经过仔细研究。如果经过仔细研究，发现一只ST股的未来预期价值远高于当前价格，那么在低位买入的行为也是价值投资，而一旦价格高于未来预期价值了还去追，就属于投机了。我希望以自己的投资实践去丰富价值投资的内涵，对于会不会被贴上价值投资者的标签，我毫无兴趣。
我是怎么投资重组类股票的？
投资重组股和价值投资并不冲突。我关注重组股，是因为这是我国证券市场特定发展阶段的产物，蕴藏着很多投资机会，对此视而不见是不负责任的。但我从来不依据内幕信息去投资重组股，我只依靠三点：公开信息、合理推测、组合投资。
很多股票是否会重组、谁来重组、如何重组，其实已经有足够多的公开信息了，我相信如果提出质疑的人花功夫去仔细研究一下这些公开信息，也差不多能做出同样的投资判断，只可惜他们很少这样做。
在我们这个行业，出去调研也好，参加讨论也好，如果不事先做足功课是没有资格提问和发言的，所以对于这类质疑我往往不知如何回应，因为我没有时间从ABC讲起。
如果公开信息不够充分怎么办？我就加上合理的推测。那么怎样推测才合理呢？通过换位思考。经济学里有理性人的假设，重组方和被重组方都有各自的利益诉求，他们怎么想？会怎么做？这些问题看似涉及内幕信息，但实际上你根本无需打探什么内幕信息，只要换位思考一下，假设你是他们，会怎么想、怎么做，很多疑问都将迎刃而解。你站在他们角度做出的选择也基本上会成为他们实际上的选择。
基金经理必须有意识地站在产业投资者的角度去思考，这样才能知其然也知其所以然，如果仅仅站在财务投资者的角度看问题，对价值的认识往往是片面的，真正的价值投资也就无从谈起。
但是，即使仔细研究公开信息了，也做了合理推测了，投资重组股的成功概率可能也只有60%，那又该怎么办？我还有第三点：组合投资。举例来说，在我的投资组合里，精心挑选了20只潜在的重组股，如果未来一年有60%成功实施重组的话，平均每个月就会有一只，从概率分布上就是如此。
质疑我总是精准押中重组股的人只看见了树木。孤立的看某只股票是成功了，但就整个重组股组合而言单月的成功概率仅为1/20。如果我有本事做到所谓的精准踩点，百发百中，那岂不是这个月押中20只，下个月又押中另外20只？这是不可能的。
我绝不会去挑战法律法规
利益输送，是法律法规和华夏基金公司内控制度严格禁止的。公司制定了公平交易管理制度，由交易管理部严格执行，风控部门定期进行基金交易行为分析，杜绝利益输送。
从业十多年，我绝不会去试图挑战法律法规的严肃性和监管的有效性，历来坚持稳健经营、规范运作的华夏基金公司绝不会允许利益输送的情况存在，视业绩为生命的华夏基金的基金经理们也绝不会牺牲自己基金的业绩去为其他基金输送利益。
只要用常识去思考，就能得出结论，在华夏基金根本不存在利益输送的生存土壤。
如果搞利益输送，是无法做到整体业绩优秀的，更无法吸引和留住好的人才。华夏基金从来不为股东、专户、单只基金做任何利益输送，历史上没有，未来即使发展到上万亿规模甚至更大，也决不会做。
为什么我能做到连续几年业绩领先？我认为是投资风格使然。我的投资风格在趋同化的公募基金业内有点独特，举个极端的例子，我的风格是A，其它基金的风格是B，如果A风格优于B风格，那么我的基金持续领先就是大概率事件，但如果我也和别人一样是B风格，那么我的基金持续领先就是小概率事件，因为我并不比别人聪明，就这么简单。
这也是为什么我要始终坚持自己的风格而不愿被同化的原因。被同化当然会舒服很多，不用再被质疑了，但是为了持有人利益最大化，我选择坚持。质疑我靠利益输送才能持续多年业绩领先，想象力有点丰富，如果把这样的想象力运用到选股上，投资能力一定会突飞猛进。
鱼和熊掌有没有可能兼得呢？有可能。
股票基金有不同的类型，有的适合把规模做得很大，比如被动型的华夏沪深300指数基金，而对于主动型的股票基金而言，业绩和规模往往是一对矛盾，这点无需否认，是鱼和熊掌的关系。
鱼和熊掌有没有可能兼得呢？有可能。
那么鱼和熊掌有没有把握兼得呢？没有把握。当然可以去尝试一下，放开申购，相信规模会变得很大，证明一下自己有能力管好大基金，也无妨。但万一不成功呢？损失的是持有人的利益。
冒损失持有人利益的风险，去尝试证明自己的能力，值得吗？我认为不值得。我没有兴趣去证明自己有管理好大基金的能力，我只想给持有人最好的收益。
况且华夏大盘(000011)精选基金虽然份额不到7亿份，但单位净值已经超过7.8元，基金总规模在50亿元左右，也并非部分人所认为的小盘基金。当然有些投资者无法申购可能会有抱怨。这种轻规模、重业绩的想法和华夏基金的经营理念是一致的，公司始终追求投资者利益的最大化，而不追求规模的最大化，比如在2007年市场最狂热的时候，公司几乎暂停了所有主动型股票基金的申购，以此帮助投资者控制风险。
短期落后于指数我并不担心，长期战胜指数我有信心
上半年华夏大盘净值增长率为60.25%，在72只偏股混合基金中排第7位，华夏策略(002031)净值增长率为43.9%，在48只灵活配置混合基金中排名第10，均名列前四分之一。对于这个成绩，我基本满意。
不满意的地方在于资产配置，由于对极度宽松的流动性环境估计不足，对实体经济恢复的前景和持续性不很确定，上半年在实际操作中过于保守，华夏大盘(000011)和华夏策略(002031)上半年的平均股票仓位仅为65%和55%，影响了净值表现。
另一方面，靠这么低的平均股票仓位取得这样的收益率，对自己的选股还是比较满意，同时由于净值波动率低，整体上夏普比率还是很高的。至于一两个月内的净值表现是否突出，我并不在意。
历史上华夏大盘有过多次短期业绩落后的情况，比如2007年上证指数从7月初的3800点飙升到10月中旬的6100点，指数涨幅60%，但华夏大盘同期净值增长率仅为49%，明显落后。但到2008年1月中旬的5500点时，指数从最高点下跌了10%，但同期大盘精选的净值却增长了15%。大盘精选的差异化投资风格使得其净值变化与指数的相关度不是很高，所以短期落后于指数我并不担心，长期战胜指数我有信心。
我不会离开公募基金
基金行业人是决定性的因素，虽说想做基金经理的大有人在，谁走了都能找个新的填上，但管理能力是有差别的。好的基金经理都是各公司花了大代价培养起来的，优秀的人才流失，很让人痛心，也会动摇投资者对基金行业的信心。
去做私募，有可能获得高得多的报酬，但我相信有相当一部分基金经理不只是冲着钱去的，可能更多的是为了实现自己的投资理想。能否创造一种更好的环境，吸引优秀的基金经理留在公募基金行业去实现投资理想呢？这需要各方面的努力。公募基金不是一个完美的行业，存在一些制度性的缺陷，由此给了私募基金发展的空间。
我作为基金经理在华夏基金工作了11年，对公募基金行业、对公司有很深的感情，离开不是一个容易的决定。虽然付出很多，但得到的更多，我一直心怀感恩，感谢这个行业给予我很多机会，我也愿意继续为行业发展贡献力量。
当然，如果我的投资风格确实无法再适应公募基金发展的要求，我也只能考虑其它的发展路径。只是目前，没有这方面的任何打算。
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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