酷兔英语


Andy Xie has some advice to fine-wine collectors: Sell your Lafite now.





The famously blunt economist-- he left Morgan Stanley after writing an email that described Singapore as a money-laundering hub, and has called the current Chinese asset market a ' giant Ponzi scheme' -- wrote on his blogthat there is a bubble for Lafite, the Bordeaux of choice for China's nouveau riche.


国忠(Andy Xie)对收藏上等葡萄酒人士给出的建议是,现在应赶紧卖出你手里的拉菲酒。



Written in his trademark breezy style, the long post is an engaging read -- especially if you've been dabbling in fine-wine speculation. His argument: Lafite has spectacularly outperformed all assets, even other fine wines, which in turn has caused people to hoard the wines. (Prices for the not-yet-released 2008 vintage have gotten a further boost in China from a new bottle designthat features the Chinese character for the number eight.)


谢国忠向来以其直率坦言为人所知。他曾因写过一封把新加坡描述成洗钱中心的电邮而离开摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley),也曾把中国当前的资产市场称作"庞兹(Ponzi)大骗局"。他在自己的博客上说,拉菲酒市场存在泡沫。拉菲酒是中国新贵收藏的一种上等法国波尔多(Bordeaux)葡萄酒。





谢国忠这篇博文写得非常有趣,读来让人如沐春风,这是他的一贯风格。你若对精品葡萄酒交易略知一二,感受会更加深刻。他的观点是,拉菲酒的价格已远远超过所有资产,甚至超过其它上等葡萄酒,因此很多人开始囤积拉菲酒。(尚未推出的2008年拉菲酒因其全新的瓶身设计上有一个中国汉字"八",价格在中国市场进一步走高。)



Add in the problem of fake wines, and you have a stock of overpriced bottles whose value is being diluted by undetectable forgeries.


再考虑到市场上的冒牌拉菲酒,你手里的拉菲酒价格名不副实,正品拉菲酒的实际价值被无法甄别的假酒所稀释。



Mr. Xie says that his point about hoarding is speculative, since nobody can account for all the bottles of Lafite in the world. But he says, 'My suspicion is that [wine merchants, Chinese collectors and wine lovers] account for most of the recent vintages, say, since 2005. The real picture will only come out when the bubble bursts. When Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers went under, the world realized that the banks kept much of the toxic assets at home.'


谢国忠说,他认为囤积拉菲酒是一种投机性行为,因为没人可以垄断世界上所有的拉菲酒收藏。但他说,我怀疑酒商、中国收藏者和葡萄酒爱好者是2005年以来拉菲酒的主要买家。而是否真如谢国忠所说,只有当泡沫破裂时才会知道。贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)和雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破产后,世界才意识到银行持有这些公司的大量不良资产。



Wine merchants and drinkers, who don't normally hoard but rather sell and drink, are holding on to the bottles because prices are going up so quickly. They've now become part of the bubble as well, he argues.


酒商和葡萄酒爱好者一般并不囤酒,他们只是销售和品尝葡萄酒,但现在他们也开始握住拉菲酒不放,因为它的价格涨得太快了。谢国忠认为,这些人也是造成拉菲酒市场泡沫的原因之一。





最后,谢国忠认为,拉菲酒暴涨的价格是中国整体通货膨胀的一个表象,中国央行最终将通过加息来应对通胀。而只要加息,酒价就会下跌。



In the end, Mr. Xie argues that Lafite prices are symptomatic of an overall inflation problem in China, which the Chinese central bank will eventually deal with by raising interest rates. And once that happens, prices will drop.


谢国忠在文末总结说,如果我收藏了很多拉菲酒,我会现在出手。



'If I had a lot of Lafite,' he concludes his post, 'I would be selling.'


Jason Chow



Jason Chow