股息收入愈发难求
DIVIDENDS provide the vast bulk of long-term returns from equities. Work by Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton of the London Business School shows that the real annual total return from American shares since 1900 has been 6.4%. Capital gains supplied just a third of that figure; reinvested dividends accounted for the rest.
股息是股票可以长期获得的主要收益。伦敦商学院的Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh和 Mike Staunton研究表明：自1900年以来，美国股票的真实年度总收益保持在6.4%。资本收益仅占该数值的三分之一，而其余均为再投资的股息。
So the outlook for dividends ought to be crucial for equity investors. They should be concerned that, in some markets, dividend income is concentrated in a small number of stocks (see chart). In Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, more than 70% of the dividends come from just 20 companies.
因此，股息未来的高低对于股票投资人至关重要。投资人应该会担心，一些市场的股息收入只是集中在少数股票（见图表）上。在澳大利亚、英国、法国、德国及瑞士诸国，70%的股息仅来源于20家公司。
That leaves investors’ income dependent on the fortunes of just a few industries. Banks were big dividend-payers until the financial crisis of 2008; energy and mining companies have been good sources of income since then. But falling commodity prices are leading energy companies to reduce their payouts. Last year 504 American companies cut their dividends, according to Standard & Poor’s, a credit-rating agency, compared with 291 in 2014. Energy companies made up nearly half of the dividend-cutting group in the fourth quarter.
这使得投资人的收入依赖于少数行业的命运。银行在2008年金融危机前一直是大额股息的派发者。从那之后，能源和矿业公司成为上好的股息收入来源。但目前，大宗商品价格下跌导致能源公司削减支出。据信用评级机构标普的数据，去年有504家美国公司减少股息，与此相比2014年是291家。而在第四季度减少股息的公司中，能源公司占到将近一半。
As a result of these cuts, dividends are growing more slowly than before. In the fourth quarter of 2015, dividends rose by $3.6 billion in cash terms, compared with a $12 billion increase in the same period of 2014. Investors who need income are now relying on the pharmaceutical and health-care sectors; research by Andrew Lapthorne of Société Générale, a bank, shows that the three largest stock holdings of global income funds are Pfizer, Roche and Johnson & Johnson.
股息减少，所以股息增长比之前更加缓慢。2015年第四季度，以现金计股息增长了36亿美金，而与之相比，2014年同期增长幅度为120亿美金。需要收入的投资者们现在依赖的是制药和健康领域。法国兴业银行的Andrew Lapthorne 研究表明：全球收益型基金的最大三家控股公司为辉瑞、罗氏和强生。
The narrow base of dividend provision is important when it comes to judging the attractiveness of equities. In some markets, dividend yields are higher than government-bond yields; in Britain, for example, the FTSE All-Share index yields 4% whereas 10-year gilts offer just 1.7%. For some, this makes equities a bargain.
在判断股票的吸引力时，股息派发的窄基底很重要。在一些市场，股息收益高于政府债券收益。以英国为例，富时全股指数收益为4%，而十年期英国国债收益仅为1.7%。对一些人而言，买股票更划算。
Until the 1950s it was the norm for equities to have a higher yield than bonds. Shares were perceived to be riskier than government bonds so investors demanded higher payouts for owning them. But opinion changed as the market began to be dominated by institutional investors—pension funds and insurance companies. Their size allowed them to own diversified portfolios, in which the consequences of the failure of an individual firm were much reduced. Thus hedged, they piled into equities to capitalise on the tendency of dividends to grow over time. Interest payments on bonds, in contrast, are fixed, which was a particular problem in the inflationary environment of the 1960s and 1970s. As a result the dividend yield dropped below the government-bond yield in most markets and stayed there.
一直到上世纪50年代，股票的收益通常都是高于债券。因为人们认为股票比政府债券风险大，所以投资人会要求更高的回报才持有股票。但是当机构投资者（养老基金和保险公司）主导市场时，观念发生了转变。机构投资者资金量大，可持有多元化的资产组合，个别公司业绩不佳产生的影响会显著减小。如此对冲风险后，他们便大量购入股票，因股息会随时间呈增长而获利。相比之下，债券的利息支付是固定的，这在上世纪60、70年代的通胀环境下曾是个特定问题。结果在大多数市场，股息收益率降到政府债券收益率之下，并持续保持这种状况。
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the ratio seems to have undergone another fundamental shift. Government bonds are valued for their safety, particularly in a world of low inflation. A high yield on an equity, meanwhile, may simply suggest that investors expect the dividend to be cut. Shares in BHP Billiton, a mining group, have plunged along with commodity prices. That makes their yield, calculated using last year’s dividend, look extremely high, at 12%. But analysts expect the dividend to be cut in half this year. Investors may also be seeking a higher overall dividend yield on equities to reflect the riskier nature of the income stream now that dividends are more concentrated among fewer companies.
自2008年金融危机以来，这一比率似乎发生了另一根本转变。政府债券因其安全性，特别是在全世界低通胀的情况下，而受到推崇。而同时，股票的高收益率可能仅仅意味着投资者预期股息会减少。矿业集团必和必拓的股票随着大宗商品价格跳水而暴跌。这使得它们的收益以去年的股息计算，看上去极高，达到了12%。但是分析人士预计今年股息会减半。既然股息收益会集中于少数公司手中，投资者可能还会寻求更高的总股息收益，这也显示了现金流的风险性。
What about share buy-backs? They are an alternative source of income for investors; for some, they are a more tax-efficient way of receiving cash. But buy-backs are much more variable than dividends: the amount spent on them by non-financial companies in the S&P 500 index fell from over $400 billion in 2007 to under $70 billion in 2009, according to Deutsche Bank. Companies can quietly trim their buy-back programmes; a dividend cut is a public sign of trouble. And, of course, investors who sell their shares in a buy-back need to find some other asset to replace that source of income.
股票回购情况怎样？它们是投资者收入的一个替代来源。对一些投资人来说，股票回购是一种缴税较少的收取现金的方式。但是回购比股息的变数大得多，据德意志银行数据，标准普尔500指数中的非金融公司用于回购的金额，已从2007年的4000亿美元下降至2009年的700亿美元以下。公司可以不动声色地修改各自的回购计划。减少派息则是一个公开的危险信号。当然，在回购中出售股票的投资人需要找到其它资产替代这一收入来源。
Investors ignore dividends at their peril. In more than a century of data, across 19 countries, the LBS academics found that annual returns from the markets with the highest dividend yields were eight percentage points higher than those from the lowest-yielding markets. So during the current reporting season, smart investors will be looking not just at notional earnings (which can be a highly subjective measure) but at the cold, hard cash that companies are shelling out.
投资人不顾股息红利，后果堪虑。伦敦商学院的学者们通过19个国家一个世纪多的数据发现，最高股息率市场的年回报比最低股息率市场高8个百分点。因此，在目前财报季，聪明的投资者不仅会关注假想收益（这个标准可能非常主观），还会关注公司支付的实打实的现金。
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