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Japan crossed a financial Rubicon yesterday as the country sold new 10-year bonds with a yield below zero at a government auction.
昨天，日本實施了破釜沉舟的金融舉措，在一輪政府拍賣中銷售了一批負收益率的新十年期債券。
The sale is the latest sign of a worldwide collapse in borrowing costs which has upended assumptions about the workings of financial markets, as policymakers take ever more drastic steps to stimulate economic growth.
這輪銷售是借款成本全球范圍大幅下滑的最新跡象。隨著各國政策制定者采取日益激進的舉措刺激經濟增長，借款成本的急劇下降已顛覆了人們對金融市場運作方式的原有認識。
It also highlights the challenge of retaining support for unconventional central bank measures, with Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, struggling to maintain momentum behind his “Abenomics” growth policies.
它還凸顯出日本維持對央行非常規舉措的支持所面臨的挑戰。目前，日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)的“安倍經濟學”(Abenomics)經濟增長政策已難以為繼。
Disruption and uncertainty created by the Bank of Japan’s announcement of negative interest rates has left 50 per cent of voters dissatisfied with the government’s economic policy, according to a Nikkei poll published this week.
根據本周由日本經濟新聞社(Nikkei)發布的民意測驗，日本央行(BoJ)宣布負利率政策所引發的混亂和不確定性，已導致50%的選民不滿日本政府的經濟政策。
The world’s third-largest economy last month followed Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and the European Central Bank by cutting short-term interest rates below zero to prevent stagnation and deflation.
繼瑞士、瑞典、丹麥和歐洲央行(ECB)之后，這一全球第三大經濟體上個月也把短期利率降至零以下，以防止經濟停滯和通貨緊縮。
The ECB is expected to announce further monetary easing next week, and 10-year German Bunds yield only 13 basis points. Japan is the second country to sell 10-year bonds at a negative yield, after Switzerland became the first in April last year.
歐洲央行預計下周會公布進一步貨幣寬松政策，而十年期德國國債收益率則只有13個基點。日本是繼瑞士之后第二個以負收益率銷售十年期國債的國家。去年4月，瑞士成為首個銷售負收益率國債的國家。
The auction — of Y2.2tn ($19.4bn) in 10-year paper, at an average yield of minus 0.024 per cent — means investors have paid a fee to lend money for a decade to the government of Japan, the most indebted G7 nation.
日本拍賣價值2.2萬億日元（合194億美元）、平均收益率為-0.024%的10年期債券，意味著投資者付錢把資金借給日本政府10年時間。日本是七國集團(G7)中負債最高的國家。
“I don’t think it would be surprising if one day this happened in Germany,” said Peter Goves, European interest rate strategist for Citigroup.
“如果有一天這發生在德國，我不認為那會讓人感到驚訝，”花旗集團(Citigroup)歐洲利率策略師彼得•格羅夫(Peter Goves)表示。
The buying appears to have been almost entirely by dealers and speculators looking to hold the paper for a brief time or covering short sales accumulated in expectation of the yield falling into negative territory. Traders expect much of it to be flipped directly back to Japan’s central bank in a few weeks as part of a bond-buying programme.
認購者幾乎全部是希望短期持有這些債券、或者結清之前由于預期債券收益率落入負值而累積的空頭頭寸的交易商和投機者。交易商預計，大部分債券會在幾周內直接回流入日本央行，成為一項債券購買計劃的一部分。
Big investors, which include Japan’s biggest pension funds and banks, are understood to have stayed away from the auction as the fund management industry readjusts its strategies for the distortions of a financial environment where negative rates become the norm.
據信日本最大的養老基金和銀行等大投資者沒有參與拍賣，因為基金管理行業正在根據負利率變成常態而發生扭曲的金融環境重新調整策略。
As well as forcing wholesale adjustments to the structure of many investment products, analysts at Nomura have warned that the Japanese government bond market could now be prone to regular phases “where fair prices are no longer obvious”.
除了迫使許多投資產品在批發環節調整結構，野村(Nomura)的分析師們警告，日本政府債券市場現在可能容易進入“合理價格不再明顯”的常態階段。
Analysts described the sale as the latest in a string of “inevitable distortions” that have descended on Japan since the BoJ revealed its negative rates policy on January 29.
分析師們將此次銷售描述為在日本央行1月29日公布負利率政策后，降臨在日本的一連串“不可避免的扭曲”中的最新一例。
