来源：《时代周刊》
刊登日期：2021年3月29日
超纲词：crest，unleash
The fact that stocks have run up in aggregate 80% since they dived in the first weeks of the pandemic in March 2020 or that bitcoin has gone up nearly tenfold or that Tesla has soared almost eight times over to become bigger than the next nine global automakers combined by market cap certainly should force everyone to ask the bubble question.
美国股市自2020年3月新冠大流行的头几周跳水以来，已经累计上涨了80%；比特币上涨了近10倍；特斯拉的股价飙升了近8倍，超过了全球排名2到10的9家汽车制造商的市值总和：这些事实无疑会迫使所有人疑问市场是否有泡沫。
Assets soaring, however, is not in and of itself a sign of bubble. Since the dot-com crash of 2000, bubble-hunting has become a cottage industry. If there’s any doubt about the truth of that statement, just look at Google’s Ngram: the use of terms such as “stock bubble” and “stock market bubble” soared after 2000, crested in 2005 and then receded but still has stayed at level never seen until 2000. Calling bubbles, predicting them and warning of them has almost become a bubble itself, but that also means that almost all of these predictions have been wrong. The past month saw some wild selling and lots of volatility, as both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices gave up their gains for the year. That led to a fair share of "I told you so"s by those bears who had been predicting doom, but the selling was triggered not by any swift change in the fundamentals of companies but by a shift in expectations reflected in rising interest rates. Stock sold off not because of negative economic news and expectations but because of very positive ones: that the pandemic would soon be in the past, and that consumers would soon unleash spending, driving up prices and inflation.
然而，资产价格飙升本身并不是泡沫的迹象。自2000年互联网泡沫破灭以来，寻找泡沫已成为家庭作坊式的产业。如果对这一说法有任何怀疑，看看谷歌的Ngram：“股票泡沫”和“股市泡沫”等术语的使用在2000年之后飙升，在2005年达到顶峰，然后回落，但仍然保持在2000年之前从未见过的水平。呼唤泡沫、预测泡沫、警告泡沫本身几乎已经变成了泡沫，但这也意味着，几乎所有这些预测都是错误的。过去一个月出现了一些疯狂抛售和大量波动，纳斯达克和标准普尔500指数都回吐了今年的涨幅。这导致了相当一部分空头说“我早就告诉过你”，这些空头一直在预测厄运，但引发抛售的不是公司基本面的任何迅速变化，而是利率上升反映出的预期变化。股票被抛售不是因为负面的经济消息和预期，而是因为非常积极的消息：大流行很快就会成为过去，消费者支出很快将激增，推高价格和通胀。
There’s still good reason to question whether any of that signals bubbles about to burst. First, even if the bubble hunters are onto something, timing matters. If you had listened to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan in 1998 warning of irrational prosperity and sold your stocks, you would have missed massive gains.
我们仍然有充分的理由质疑，这些迹象是否预示着泡沫即将破裂。首先，即使泡沫猎手有所发现，时机也很重要。如果你在1998年听了前美联储主席艾伦•格林斯潘关于非理性繁荣的警告，并卖出股票，你就会错过大幅上涨。
The word “bubble” assumes speculative mania, and that is not at all evident just now. Stock markets represent 4000 or so companies, the vast majority of which represent the cream of the crop of capitalism. Most companies in the markets are growing far more than any national economy, and if you want your investments to grow, thumbing a lift with companies that are thriving makes more sense than investing in government bonds.
“泡沫”这个词假定投机狂热，而这一点目前还不明显。股市代表着4000家左右的公司，其中绝大多数代表着资本主义的精华。市场上大多数公司的增长速度远远超过任何国家的经济增长速度，如果你想让自己的投资增长，搭那些蒸蒸日上的公司的便车比投资政府债券更有意义。
Another reason to be skeptical of bubble mania is that so many people are so certain that we are in a bubble simply because stocks have gone up.
对泡沫狂热持怀疑态度的另一个原因是，仅仅因为股市上涨，很多人就确信我们正处于泡沫之中。
Finally, we’ve seen in the past few years rapid sell-offs that act like mini-bubble burst. Tesla, that high-flying stock, soared in 2020 and then saw its stock plunge. The result is that we may be witnessing a continually formation and popping of mini-bubbles all the time, which doesn’t fit neat narratives of huge market moves.
最后，在过去几年里，我们看到了类似小泡沫破裂的快速抛售。特斯拉，这只高歌猛进的股票，在2020年一路飙升，随后股价暴跌。其结果是，我们可能一直在目睹小泡沫的不断形成和破灭，这与有关巨大市场波动的简洁叙述不符。
It’s possible that by the time you read this, everything will have changed. The resilience of financial markets in a weird time, however, is unlikely to change much. For now, the only evident bubble in the markets is the sheer number of people predicting bubbles about to burst.
很有可能当你读到这篇文章时，一切都已经改变了。然而，金融市场在一个奇怪时期的恢复力不太可能有太大改变。就目前而言，市场上唯一明显的泡沫是大量的人预测泡沫即将破裂。