想要提高托福閱讀能力，我們一定要在日常生活中有意識地增加英語閱讀量，提升語感和熟練度，這其中比較常用也比較方便地一個方式就是利用各類英文報刊雜志文章進行精讀與泛讀練習。下面我們來看一篇經濟學人文章：科技公司是否身處泡沫之中?三個心智測試來檢驗
IS THE technology industry in La La Land? There are alarming signs. House prices in San Francisco have risen by 66% more than in New York over the past five years. Even at the height of the dotcom bubble in 2001, the gap was lower, at 58%. Shares of technology firms trade on their highest ratio to sales since the turn of the century. Four of the world’s most valuable firms are tech companies: Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon. Snap, a tiddler with $400m of sales and $700m of cash losses in 2016, listed shares on March 2nd that gave it a valuation of over $20bn.
科技產業是否正處在虛幻之國?這不乏警示信號。過去五年舊金山房價的漲幅超出紐約66%。即使在互聯網泡沫最大的2001年，這一差距也只有58%。科技公司股票市銷率已升至世紀之交以來的新高。全球市值最大的四家公司均為科技公司：蘋果、Alphabet、微軟、亞馬遜。在2016年銷售額為四億美元而現金損失達七億美元的小公司Snap在3月2日上市，估值超過200億美元。
For companies and investors in any industry, it is hard to work out if you are living in a bubble. To help, Schumpeter has created three sanity tests for global tech firms. These examine their cashflow, whether investors differentiate between companies, and whether forecasts of their future earnings suffer from a fallacy of composition. The exercise suggests that tech valuations are frothy, but not bubbling.
任何行業的公司和投資者都很難搞清自己是否處于泡沫之中。為此，熊彼特為全球科技公司設計了三個心智測試來幫助判斷。這些測試審視公司的現金流狀況，看投資者對各公司有無加以區分，并檢驗這些公司未來收益預測是否存在合成謬誤。測試顯示，科技公司的估值正在起沫，但還沒有構成虛高。
The first test is cashflow, and the industry passes it with flying colours. In 2001 about half of all listed tech firms were unable to convert their sales into hard dollars. Times have changed. In the past 12 months the biggest 150 technology companies generated a mighty $350bn of cashflow after capital expenditures—higher than the total cashflow over the same period of all the non-financial companies listed in Japan, for instance.
第一個測試針對現金流，科技行業在這方面表現出色。2001年，約半數上市科技公司無法將銷售轉化為真金白銀。時移勢易。在過去一年，最大的150家科技公司在扣除資本支出后現金流達3500億美元之巨，比同期在日本上市的所有非金融公司的總現金流還高。
In a bubble, investors bid up the value of assets regardless of their quality. The prices of good and bad tulips soared alike in 17th-century Holland, and in 2008 subprime debt was almost as valuable as Treasury bonds. So the second test is whether buyers are differentiating clearly between tech firms, of which there are three broad types. Some, such as Samsung and Apple, are mature and profitable. At other firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, Facebook and Alphabet, sales are growing at an annual rate of over 20%, with high margins. Then there are “blue-sky” firms that are unprofitable but have explosive sales growth. Uber and Snap are examples.
在泡沫時期，投資者無視資產質量而盲目推高其價值。在17世紀的荷蘭，郁金香不論優劣，價格一律飆升。2008年，次級債成為幾乎同美國國債一樣搶手的香餑餑。所以，第二個測試是看買家對三大類科技公司有否清楚區分。有一類科技公司，如三星和蘋果，發展成熟，盈利可觀。而包括阿里巴巴、騰訊、Facebook、Alphabet在內的其他一些科技公司則是年銷售增速超過20%，利潤很高。還有一些是雖未盈利但銷售呈爆炸性增長的“藍天”公司，優步和Snap便是例子。
One way to gauge whether investors are sensibly valuing each category differently is to calculate companies’ duration, or how much of their current market worth is expected to be realised soon and how much relies on pots of gold being found far into the future (see chart). Schumpeter has crunched the numbers for the world’s ten biggest tech firms and for three rising stars, splitting their market value into three parts: value which has already been realised in the form of net cash held, the present value of expected earnings in the next four years, and the value attributable to what happens after 2020. Samsung and Apple are not growing much but are low-risk: over 40% of their value can be explained by cash and near-term profits. The raciest firms, such as Tesla, are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020. These firms could well crash and burn. The good news is that investors are placing their most eye-watering valuations on a fringe of smallish companies that are growing very fast indeed.
衡量投資者是否明智地對各類科技公司做區別性估值的一個辦法是計算這些公司的股票久期，即其市場估值有多少能于近期實現，多少要依靠在未來發掘的價值(見圖表)。熊彼特計算了全球最大的十家科技公司及三大后起科技公司的數據，將其市值分為三部分：已經以留存凈現金的形式實現的價值、未來四年預期收益的現值、2020年后實現的價值。三星和蘋果的增長不大，但風險低：其價值中超過40%為現金和近期利潤。而特斯拉等最獨特而有活力的公司90%的估值要在2020年后才會實現。這些公司很可能撐不到那個時候。好消息是，投資者給出最大膽估值的那群小公司確實增長迅猛。
The third test is whether there is a fallacy of composition. In a bubble the bullish claims of individual companies aren’t plausible once you add them all up. In the dotcom era the market-share targets of internet-service providers added up to well over 100%. In the subprime crisis every bank claimed that it had offloaded its risks onto other banks. The technology industry is less vulnerable to criticism on this front. The aggregate profits of the top five tech firms are expected to rise from 6% of American corporate earnings last year, to 10% by 2025: bold, but not implausible. Managers are not anticipating the same profit stream twice. For example, Facebook is not expected to become a force in search, while Google is not expected to conquer social media.
第三個測試檢查是否存在合成謬誤。存在泡沫時，只要把各家公司的豪言匯總，就會發現它們各自的說辭并不合理。在互聯網泡沫時期，網絡服務供應商的市場份額目標加起來遠超過100%。在次貸危機中，每家銀行都說自己已把風險轉移到其他銀行身上。在這方面科技行業的可指摘之處較少。到2025年，前五大科技公司的總利潤在美國企業盈利的占比預計將從去年的6%上升至10%——這是一個大膽的預測，但并不離譜。高管們沒有預期通過復制別人的業務帶來利潤流，例如，他們并不期望Facebook成為搜索巨頭，也沒想讓谷歌稱霸社交媒體。
Although the lunatics have not taken over the asylum, there are, however, pockets of excess. Even though their valuations are now starting to deflate, there are still too many privately held technology firms with stretched valuations of $1bn-10bn. Worldwide, such companies have a total worth of $350bn. When it comes to facing up to failure, too, the industry’s record is bad. Twitter’s sales may shrink by 14% this quarter compared with a year earlier, and it is losing money. Past company failures in the tech business suggest that once decline sets in, it takes only two years or so for a firm to lose a quarter or more of its sales. Yet Twitter is sticking to its line that rapid growth will soon return.
雖然情況尚未失控，但確有虛浮之象。盡管這些科技公司的估值開始下降，仍有太多私有科技公司估值過高(在10億至100億美元之間)。在全球，這些公司總值達3500億美元。而說到應對挫折，科技業過往的表現也不妙。推特本季度的銷售額可能比去年同期下降14%，而且正在虧損。業界記錄顯示，科技公司一旦遭遇衰退，只消兩年左右，其銷售額便會蒸發四分之一或更多。然而，推特仍堅持既定路線，認為快速增長會很快恢復。
Truly amazing
Another worry is Amazon. It is one of the most optimistically valued firms, with 92% of its current worth justified by profits after 2020. Outside investors have a lot at stake because it is huge, with a market value of $410bn. About a third of this value is justified by its profitable cloud-computing arm, AWS. But the rest of the firm, which straddles e-commerce, television and films, as well as logistics, barely makes money despite generating large sales. Nor is it growing particularly fast for its industry. To justify its valuation you need to believe that it becomes a sort of giant utility for e-commerce which by 2025 cranks out profits of around $55bn a year, or probably more than any other firm in America.
確實驚人
另一個憂慮的焦點是亞馬遜。作為估值最樂觀的公司之一，其當前價值的92%需依賴2020年后實現的利潤。外部投資者的風險很大，因為這是一個市值高達4100億美元的巨無霸。其中約三分之一的估值是基于它的一個盈利部門——AWS云計算服務平臺。而該公司橫跨電子商務、影視、物流領域的其余部門盡管銷售額巨大，卻盈利甚微。按科技行業的標準來看，亞馬遜目前的增長也不是非常快。如果認為其估值合理，你需要相信，到2025年，亞馬遜將成為年利潤約達550億美元(很可能超越美國任何其他公司)的巨型電子商務平臺。
The final worry is that technology firms are flouting the laws of corporate finance, which hold that there is a relationship between a company’s market value, its profits and the sums it has invested. New entrants should be attracted by the fact that companies are winning huge valuations from tiny investments, in turn dragging profits and valuations back down. As a group, the biggest ten technology firms have $8 of market value for every dollar they have sunk in net fixed physical and intangible assets. For Snap the figure is $36, and for Tencent it is $53. If new competitors do not, or cannot, emerge, then competition authorities are likely to intervene more than they do now. It sounds odd, but the main valuation risk for many of the world’s tech giants is that they rake in too much money.
最后的一個憂慮是，科技公司無視企業融資的規律。這些規律認定公司的市值、利潤及投資總額之間要保持一定關系。新進入者應該會留意到，在位公司從微小的投資獲得巨大的估值，從而吸引它們進入這一領域，如此一來就會把利潤和估值都壓下來。整體來說，最大的十家科技公司每投入一美元到固定和無形凈資產，便可獲得八美元的市場價值。對Snap來說，這一數字為36美元，騰訊則為53美元。假如新的競爭對手沒有或無法出現，競爭監管機構很可能比現在介入更多。聽來奇怪，但對世界許多科技巨頭而言，估值的主要風險是它們斂財太過。
