为什么美联储不去拯救股市？

年初股市暴跌，而道琼斯工业指数也在本周四跌至三月以来的最低点。

但美联储官员并未对此表示担忧。

大多数情况都不是这样的。美国和中国的股市都出现了波动，有人认为这是美联储九月加息的原因之一。投资者一直期待着格林斯潘、伯南克、耶伦等历届美联储主席采取措施，帮助投资者减少损失。因为一旦股市陷入泥沼，美联储官员就会赶来救援。

但这一次情况有所不同，美联储官员一点也没有出来救火的迹象。

旧金山联储主席约翰·威廉斯表示：“中国股市下跌溢出到美国并不是个大问题。”

威廉斯在周一的 CNBC 采访中说道：“很多人都会告诉你，中国股市只会影响到小部分中国人，而且对美国的财政系统没有直接的影响。所以对我来说，系统性风险不足为虑。”

威廉斯指出，中国经济的重心正由制造业转向服务业，因此数据疲软不足为奇。

周三，尽管美联储副主席费希尔表示全球经济前景不确定性的风险在增加，但他否认了对中国的担忧。他说最好的消息仍然是美联储会在2016年将利率提升3-4倍。

费舍尔说：“与中国在全球扮演的角色相比，中美之间的直接联系无足轻重。只有在中国对其邻国和世界其他国家的负面影响达到一定程度的时候，美国才会受到冲击。”

他说：“其他的国家对我们的影响很大。”

波士顿帕提农集团的联合首席经济学家奈杰尔·高尔特表示，当市场波动剧烈时，美联储很难做出及时的反应。

他说：“没有官员原因告诉大家情况很糟糕，因为这会激怒股市投资者。”

随后，美联储官员强调，四个加息的基线预测不是“预先计划好的”。

经济学家们认为美联储的下一次加息会在十周之内，即三月15日-16日的会议期间，因为官员们很可能会坚持他们在本月底制定的政策。

大部分美联储官员认为，美国的国内需求仍然强势，足以弥补全球的疲软。在12月的会议中，美联储决定终止2008年以来的零利率政策，他们认为全球经济和金融发展的下行风险在上一个夏天就已消失。

尽管全球通胀率仍然很低，其他主要央行也维持宽松曾策，但几乎没有人对美联储的加息政策表示不安。

美联储在12月重点解决低评级公司债券市场的问题，以消除投资者的不适。

与之相反，一些美联储官员表示，他们在寻找市场过热的迹象。这说明美联储的反应太慢了。

高尔特说：“如果美联储依靠数据来做判断，那么他们就不会在三月加息。”

他还指出，第四季度的 GDP 增长预计将低于1%，而供应管理协会制造业指数表明该版块在两个月中会出现收缩的情况。

Why the Fed isn’t running to the rescue of the ailing stock market

The stock market is off to a rocky start this year, as the Dow industrials continued to slide on Thursday and touched a three-month low.

But there is hardly any sign of concern from any Federal Reserve officials.

That’s not always, or even mostly, the case. Stock-market turbulence, both in the U.S. and China, is widely thought to have been the main reason why the Fed didn’t raise interest rates this September, for instance. Traders have long speculated about a Greenspan, and then a Bernanke, and then a Yellen, put, referring to the option designed to protect investors from losses. The notion is that when stock markets get rough, Fed officials will rush to the rescue.

This time, there has been no sign of any Fed official wanting to put on a firefighter hat — if anything, it’s been the opposite.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams said a spillover of China’s stock market declines into the U.S. wasn't “a big concern.”

 “A lot of people will tell you China’s stock market affects a relatively small share of Chinese citizens and doesn’t affect the U.S. financial system that much directly. So to me those are not major concerns in terms of systemic risk right now,” Williams said in an interview on CNBC on Monday.

Williams noted that China’s economy is pivoting away from manufacturing to the service sector and therefore weaker data weren't a surprise.

On Wednesday, Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer declined to express much concern about China, although he said uncertainty about the global economic outlook has risen a bit. He said the best forecast remained that the Fed would raise interest rates three to four times in 2016, more than the two rate increases markets have penciled in.

Fischer said it was hard to know precisely how developments in China would play out.

“For the U.S., direct links with China are much less important than the role of China in the world. If all of China’s neighbors and other parts of the world are negatively affected to a considerable extent by China then that would be an impact” on the Fed, Fischer said.

 “The rest of the world matters for us,” he said.

Fed officials have a difficult time responding when markets are moving sharply, said Nigel Gault, co-chief economist at the Parthenon Group in Boston.

“No Fed official wants to inflame the stock market by saying their views have changed and things look massively worse,” he said.

Over time, Fed officials must stress that the four rate increases in their baseline projection is “not preprogrammed,” he said.

Economists generally think the next time the Fed could raise interest rates is in 10 weeks, at its March 15-16 meeting, as officials are widely expected to stand pat on policy when they meet at end of this month.

Meanwhile, signaling that rate increases might be delayed given market turmoil or a worsening global economic outlook “would just build in more volatility,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP.

The majority on the Fed believes that domestic demand in the U.S. economy is strong enough now to power through global weakness. At the December meeting, when the Fed raised interest rates from the near-zero level that had existed since late 2008, officials said downside risks from global economic and financial developments had diminished since late summer, according to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday.

There was little concern expressed about market unease with the Fed’s decision to hike rates even as inflation remained low around the world and other major central banks were easing policy.

Officials dismissed market queasiness, which in December was concentrated in the market for low-rated corporate debt.

Instead, some Fed officials said they were on the lookout for signs of markets overheating, an indication the Fed was moving too slow.

If the Fed is data-dependent, then right now, they won’t raise interest rates in March, Gault said.

He noted that fourth-quarter GDP is expected to come in below 1% and the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index has been signaling a contraction in the sector for two months.

本文翻译由兄弟财经提供

原文地址：http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-the-fed-isnt-running-to-the-rescue-of-the-ailing-stock-market-2016-01-07