《经济学人》双语：华尔街最热门业务是什么？

原文标题：
Wealth management for the many
Wall Street is racing to manage your wealth. That is a good thing
The hottest trend in finance offers more than just fat profits for advisers
面向大众的财富管理
华尔街竞相为您管理财富，这是好事
金融领域最热门的趋势为顾问带来的好处不只有丰厚的利润

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A book published in 1940, reflects a healthy scepticism of the advice peddled by financiers. Somehow they always seemed to get rich, regardless of how their clients fared.
1940 年出版的一本书反映了人们对金融家提供的建议持有合理怀疑。不管客户的理财状况是亏是盈，金融家似乎总是能赚到钱。

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In the decades that followed, ordinary investors evened the score. They poured money into low-cost index funds, which passively track a market benchmark, and shunned the fee-charging stockpicker.
在接下来的几十年里，普通投资者扳回了局势。他们将资金投入被动跟踪市场基准的低成本指数基金，并避开了收费的证券投资顾问。

BlackRock and Vanguard, two index-fund providers, oversee $8trn-9trn in assets apiece.
贝莱德和先锋是两家指数基金提供商，各自管理着 8-9万亿美元的资产。

In 2019 the volume of passively managed assets in America eclipsed those overseen by active funds for the first time.
2019 年，美国被动管理的资产规模首次超过主动基金。

Today, however, another shift is under way.
然而如今，正在发生另一种转变。

The hottest thing on Wall Street is wealth management, which helps clients allocate assets, minimise tax bills and plan for retirement—typically for an annual fee of 1% of invested assets.
华尔街最热门的业务是财富管理，它帮助客户配置资产，减少税费，规划退休生活——通常收取投资资产1%的年费。

Firms are piling into the business, spurred by the prospect of profits that will only become juicier as the world gets richer. Could it be good for clients, too?
在利润前景的刺激下，各家公司纷纷涉足这项业务，而随着世界变得越来越富裕，利润也会越来越丰厚。这对客户也有好处吗？

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The wealth industry has long been highly fragmented.
长期以来，财富行业一直高度分散。

In America and Europe many of the comfortably well-off long relied on defined-benefit pension funds.
在美国和欧洲，许多小康家庭长期依赖固定收益养老基金。

Others were often served by retail outfits that sold them expensive mutual funds on commission or picked stocks through brokerage accounts.
其他富裕阶层则通常依靠零售机构，这些机构通过销售昂贵的共同基金并从中获取佣金，或通过券商账户选股。

Across Asia and Latin America, domestic banks often managed local millionaires’ wealth.
在亚洲和拉丁美洲，国内银行经常管理着当地百万富翁的财富。

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Several of these firms are now being knitted together. That is in large part because the prize has become more tantalising.
现在，其中几家公司正在合并，这在很大程度上是因为利润诱人。

For the past 20 years global wealth has grown faster than economic output.
过去20年来，全球财富的增长速度快于经济产出的增长速度。

Much of that has been fuelled by younger customers and those in Asia.
其中大部分是由年轻客户和亚洲客户推动的。

According to a survey by UBS, there were 849,000 dollar millionaires in India last year, for instance, nearly 23 times as many as in 2000. The number of millionaires in Africa has risen more than tenfold.
根据瑞银集团的一项调查，印度去年有84.9万名百万美元富翁，几乎是2000年的23倍。非洲的百万富翁数量增长了十多倍。

Worldwide, the amount of liquid assets for advisers to salivate over is expected to rise to $230trn by 2030, from $130trn today.
预计到2030年，专业顾问们可投资的全球流动资产总额将从现在的130万亿美元增加到230万亿美元。

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The emergence of slick platforms for managing wealth and the automation of basic advice have also expanded the pool of potential clients.
精细的财富管理平台的出现和基本建议的自动化也扩大了潜在客户群。

By lowering the cost of managing wealth, technology has enabled advisers who once served only the uber-rich to help the merely affluent, too.
技术降低了财富管理的成本，使过去只为超级富豪服务的顾问也能为普通富裕阶层提供帮助。

The steady, low-capital business of offering wealth advice, meanwhile, has become more attractive.
与此同时，稳定、低资本的财富咨询业务变得更具吸引力。

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The consequence of all this has been a frenetic rush into wealth management.
结果是财富管理业务受到了狂热追捧。

Morgan Stanley, which snapped up the wealth arm of Citigroup during the global financial crisis, has since acquired E*TRADE, a brokerage platform, through which it now offers the masses access to its advisers.
摩根士丹利在全球金融危机期间收购了花旗集团的财富部门，随后又收购了经纪平台E*TRADE。摩根士丹利现在通过该平台为大众提供咨询服务。

Citi, in a bid to rebuild what it sold, is poaching talent from rival firms.
花旗为了重建财富部门，正在从竞争对手公司那里挖人才。

Consolidation is only hastening the trend. After its shotgun marriage to Credit Suisse, the new-look UBS is now head and shoulders above its rivals in Asia.
整合只会加速这一趋势。瑞银与瑞信联姻之后，焕然一新的瑞银现在在亚洲市场大幅领先于竞争对手。

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For the firms and their shareholders, the future looks exhilarating.
对于金融公司及其股东来说，未来看起来令人振奋。

If revenues keep pace and margins in wealth management remain in the region of 25-30%, the industry would generate $75bn of profits a year.
如果财富管理行业的收入保持同步增长，利润率保持在 25%-30% 左右，那么该行业每年将创造 750 亿美元的利润。

The total market capitalisation of global banks is around $8trn, and has barely budged for a decade; capturing the enormous opportunity in wealth would add around a seventh to their value.
全球银行的总市值约为 8 万亿美元，十年来几乎没有变化；抓住财富管理的巨大商机将使银行价值增加约七分之一。

The biggest winners are likely to be those that have already achieved scale, such as Morgan Stanley and UBS.
最大的赢家可能是那些已经形成规模的公司，例如摩根士丹利和瑞银。

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Regulators, for their part, may see the shift into wealth as a relief.
金融机构将业务重心转向财富管理，这对监管机构来说是一种解脱。

Bolting a steady growth business on to the boom-and-bust cycles of lending and capital-markets intermediation should help stabilise banks—even if it is a little disquieting that the most appealing business in finance is managing wealth that has already been amassed, not assisting the creation of fresh riches through loan-making or issuing equity.
将一个稳定增长的业务与借贷和资本市场中介的繁荣萧条经济周期相结合，应该有助于稳定银行发展，——尽管令人不安的小问题是，金融业最吸引人的业务是管理已经积累起来的财富，而不是通过放贷或发行股票来帮助创造新财富。

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That leaves a nagging question. Does the bonanza for financiers, and a safer financial system, come at the expense of clients’ returns?
这就留下了一个令人头疼的问题。金融家的致富机会和更安全的金融体系是否会以牺牲客户的收益为代价？

The fees associated with wealth management might make you think that Wall Street is set to make a fortune while clients are ripped off once again.
与财富管理相关的费用可能会让你觉得华尔街会帮你赚钱，而实际上客户是再次被剥削一遍。

Yet there is an important distinction between a wealth adviser and an active manager.
然而，财富顾问和主动型基金经理之间存在一个重要区别。

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The allure of stockpickers rests on their promise to beat the market, something that the vast majority simply cannot do on a sustained basis.
股票挑选者的吸引力在于他们承诺能够持续击败市场，这对绝大多数人来说是不可能的。

Wealth managers, by contrast, act as “fiduciaries”—caretakers who are supposed to act in your best interest when offering financial advice.
相比之下，财富管理者充当“受托人”——他们应该始终站在客户的最佳利益立场上提供金融建议。

They make suggestions about asset allocation, but are also responsible for making sure their clients are using tax-advantaged funds and that they get into and out of investments in the most cost-effective way.
他们会提出有关资产配置的建议，也负责确保客户使用税收优惠的基金，并确保他们以最划算的方式进行投资的买入和卖出。

Whereas returns from active investing, after fees, cannot beat passive returns on average, using a wealth manager does not appear to dent returns.
尽管主动投资的平均回报率（扣除费用后）无法超过被动回报率，但采用财富经理的建议似乎并不会削弱回报率。

Even Vanguard, that giant of index investing, thinks that fiduciaries could add a little to the total lifetime return of an average investor, after fees are paid.
就连指数投资巨头先锋集团也认为，扣除费用后，财富管理者可以为普通投资者的总体终身回报率增加一点。

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Rich pickings
财富的诱惑

The investing experience is strewn with pitfalls, even aside from the vagaries of the markets.
即使抛开变幻莫测的市场不谈，投资经验也是陷阱重重。

When left entirely to their own devices people tend to hold too much cash, and to be too hasty to sell up when markets dip.
当富人们完全依靠自己时，往往会持有过多的现金，而且在市场下跌时会急于割肉。

Barely anyone has the time or inclination to work their way through the mind-boggling complexities of a tax code.
几乎没有人有时间或者有意愿去研究繁琐复杂的税法。

This is what makes advice useful to the clients who want to preserve and grow their hard-earned fortunes.
因此，对于那些想要财富保值及财富增值的客户来说，这些建议是非常有用的。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量1059左右，有删减）
原文出自：2023年9月9日《The Economist》Leaders版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
财富管理Wealth management是一种综合性的金融服务，旨在帮助个人和家庭实现财务目标，并最大化其财富增长和保值能力。财富管理内容包括：资产分配、投资组合管理、税务规划、遗产规划、保险规划、管理债务、现金流管理等。财富管理顾问通常具有丰富的投资经验和专业知识，能够为客户提供专业的咨询和建议。

【重点句子】（3个）
The hottest thing on Wall Street is wealth management, which helps clients allocate assets, minimise tax bills and plan for retirement—typically for an annual fee of 1% of invested assets.
华尔街最热门的业务是财富管理，它帮助客户配置资产，减少税费，规划退休生活——通常收取投资资产1%的年费。

By lowering the cost of managing wealth, technology has enabled advisers who once served only the uber-rich to help the merely affluent, too.
技术降低了财富管理的成本，使过去只为超级富豪服务的顾问也能为普通富裕阶层提供帮助。

The investing experience is strewn with pitfalls, even aside from the vagaries of the markets.
即使抛开变幻莫测的市场不谈，投资经验也是陷阱重重。