Buttonwood
梧桐
How the “Magnificent Seven” misleads
“美股七巨头”的误导性
Forget the supergroup of stockmarket darlings
忘掉股市的这群超级宠儿吧
ALL MODELS are wrong, goes the statisticians’ adage, but some are useful. This time last year, plenty of pundits’ models started looking more wrong and less useful. The consensus forecast was a grim spell for economic growth and a dreary one for stock prices—and that was before a clutch of American regional banks buckled. Higher interest rates seemed set to cause pain everywhere. Instead, in the very country where the banking turmoil unfolded, the stockmarket began to soar. By the summer America’s S&P 500 index of leading shares had risen by 28% from a trough hit the previous autumn. Analysts hunted for a new model to explain what was going on, and the popular choice revolved around the “Magnificent Seven”.
统计学家的格言是，所有的模型都是错误的，但有些是有用的。去年此时，许多权威专家的模型开始显得越发错误，而更没用处。各种预测的共识是未来一段时间经济增长前景黯淡，股票价格低迷——此时一批美国区域性银行的危机尚未爆发。高利率似乎很快将会让痛苦无处不在。结果，正是在美国这个银行业发生动荡的国家，股市开始飙升。到去年夏天，涵盖美国主要股票的标准普尔500指数已经从前年秋天的低谷上涨了28%。分析师们一直在寻找一种新模型来解释这一现象，最流行的一个是围绕“美股七巨头”展开的。
- adage 谚语、格言
- pundit 某一特定学科或领域的“专家、权威、行家”（参见：小词详解 | pundit）
- 拓展学习：熟词僻义 | spell 是一种怎样的时间和意味？
- 拓展学习：熟词僻义 | buckle 是一种怎样的反应？
- turmoil 动乱；骚动；混乱；焦虑
The reason was that shares in this group of tech giants—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla—were acting as if they made up a market of their own. By the start of June the S&P 500 had risen by 12% since the beginning of the year, but virtually the entire gain was down to these seven stocks, with the other 493 having collectively moved sideways. By July they were the biggest seven companies in the index. By late October the Magnificent Seven had added $3.4trn (or 50%) to their combined market value since the start of the year, even as the other 493 had lost $1trn (3.8%). Apple was the group’s worst performer but had nevertheless seen its share price rise by 30%.
原因是这一组科技巨头——Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、Meta、微软、英伟达和特斯拉——的股票表现仿佛自成一个市场。到去年6月初，标普500指数比年初上涨了12%，但实际上全部涨幅都来自这七只股票，其他493只股票则集体横盘整理。截至去年7月，它们已成为标普500指数里最大的七家公司。到10月底，“七巨头”的总市值比去年年初增加了3.4万亿美元（涨幅为50%），而其他493家公司损失了1万亿美元（3.8%）。苹果是这个群组中表现最差的，但股价也上涨了30%。
