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Global markets have been operating with the safety net of the Federal Reserve’s zero-rates guidance for much of the current decade. On Tuesday, Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen gave the strongest signal to date that the end of that era is approaching as she paves the way for higher interest rates.
在本十年的大部分时间里，全球市场在美联储(Federal Reserve)零利率指引的安全网保护下运行。周二，美联储主席珍妮特•耶伦(Janet Yellen)发出迄今最强烈的信号：这个时代即将终结，她正在为上调利率铺平道路。
In testimony to a Senate committee, Ms Yellen indicated that if the economy carried on strengthening, the US central bank would want to drop its pledge to be “patient” with interest rates and start considering rises on a “meeting-by-meeting basis”. She said this would mean that a move in the target rate could be considered at “any” of the Federal Open Market Committee’s regular policy gatherings.
耶伦在对美国参议院的一个委员会作证时表示，如果美国经济继续加强，美国央行将希望放弃其“耐心”对待利率的承诺，转而开始在“每次会议上具体问题具体分析”，考虑加息。她表示，这将意味着，在联邦公开市场委员会(FOMC)的“任何一次”定期政策会议上都可能考虑调整目标利率。
The impending change in guidance — which analysts think could come as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in March — suggests the central bank wants to give itself maximum flexibility to set monetary policy, rather than finding itself bound by date-dependent pledges.
即将改变的指引——分析师们认为，这最早可能在美联储3月举行的下一次会议上到来——似乎表明，美国央行希望赋予自己最大的灵活性来制定货币政策，而不是让自己受到“日期依赖型”承诺的束缚。
This would mark a clean break from the Fed’s current practice, under which it has been reassuring markets that it will be “patient” before lifting rates, meaning it will wait at least two further meetings before acting.
这将标志着美联储彻底告别现行做法；美联储迄今一直向市场保证，它在加息之前会保持“耐心”，意思就是它至少将再等待两次会议过后才会采取行动。
That language was a twist on previous wording assuring markets that rates would stay low for a “considerable” period — which itself marked an evolution from earlier forms of low-rates guidance tied to the unemployment rate, and to a fixed time period.
保持耐心措辞是对之前用词的微调；之前美联储向市场保证，利率将在一段“相当长”时期内保持低位——那本身标志着先前的低利率指引形式发生演变；先前的指引将低利率与失业率挂钩，而且有一段固定的时期。
The shift will inject greater uncertainty into markets that have been pumped up by the more than six years of ultra-low interest rates. It should also avoid a re-run of the rate rise cycle of the mid-2000s, when the Fed felt locked into making quarter-point increases in every meeting.
这一转变将给六年多来一直受到超低利率刺激的市场注入更大的不确定性。它也应当能够避免本世纪头十年中期的加息周期的重演，那时美联储觉得自己被逼入每次开会加息四分之一点的境地。
George Magnus, an author and former chief economist at UBS, said greater unpredictability was welcome. “The Fed doesn’t want to cosset financial markets in the way it has done until now,” he said. “This is reverting back to a position where they want to tell the market it should be pretty much on standby for a change in monetary policy as and when the Fed thinks it is merited.”
作家、瑞银(UBS)前首席经济学家乔治•马格纳斯(George Magnus)表示，更大的不可预测性是可喜的。“美联储不希望像之前那样宠着金融市场，”他表示。“此举标志着美联储回到原来的立场，希望告诉市场：市场基本上应当随时准备好迎接货币政策的变化——只要美联储认为改变政策是可取的。”
Dov Zigler, an economist at Scotiabank in New York, said the FOMC seemed ready to remove the “final vestiges” of calendar-based guidance it briefly used earlier this decade, moving instead towards “data dependency” in policy making. Economists at Barclays said: “The end of forward guidance is in sight.”
加拿大丰业银行(Scotiabank)在纽约的经济学家多夫•齐格勒(Dov Zigler)表示，联邦公开市场委员会似乎已准备好消除其在本十年早些时候短暂用过的基于日历的指引的“最后痕迹”，在政策制定中转向“数据依赖”。巴克莱(Barclays)的经济学家们表示：“前瞻性指引的终结已经可以看到。”
Ms Yellen told the Senate committee that the US economy was in a genuinely stronger place than it was even a year ago. The labour market had improved along “many dimensions” — even if there was still room for further progress — and growth should stay strong enough to continue pulling down unemployment.
耶伦对参议院委员会表示，美国经济确实处于比一年前强劲的境地。劳动力市场已经在“多个维度上”出现起色——即便仍有进一步进展的余地，同时增长应当能够保持强劲，足以继续拉低失业率。
However, in nuanced testimony, Ms Yellen also assured senators that the Fed would not pull the trigger prematurely and stifle the recovery. Indeed, one of her goals was to ensure that if the Fed removed the “patience” language in March, it would not prompt markets to believe a rate rise two meetings later was a fait accompli.
然而，耶伦在字斟句酌的证词中也向参议员们保证，美联储不会过早扣动扳机，扼杀经济复苏。事实上，她的目标之一就是要确保，如果美联储在3月份取消“耐心”措辞，它不会促使市场认为两次会议之后加息已是一个既成事实。
Ms Yellen also stressed the risks of being too slow in acting. Policy was “highly accommodative” and the central bank needed to be forward-looking. If it waited too long, the labour market and inflation could pick up sufficiently for the Fed to overshoot its 2 per cent inflation target. Significantly, there could be “financial stability risks” in leaving rates low for too long.
耶伦也强调了行动过于迟缓的风险。此前的政策“高度宽松”，而美国央行需要具有前瞻性。如果它等待过久，劳动力市场和通胀可能显著改善，以致通胀水平超出美联储的2%目标。值得注意的是，如果保持低利率过久，就可能产生“金融稳定风险”。
The “patience” language remains in place for now. But when it is dropped, Ms Yellen’s testimony hinted at the test for judging when “lift-off” in rates should happen.
“耐心”措辞暂时得到保留。但当它被放弃时，耶伦的证词暗示了判断利率何时“起飞”的测试标准。
The FOMC would be ready to raise rates when it was “reasonably confident” that inflation was moving back towards its 2 per cent target over the medium term — provided the labour market was set to continue improving, she said. While the Fed has left itself plenty of room to back away from rises if the economy falters, reasonable confidence is not an excessively high bar for rate increases.
她表示，联邦公开市场委员会准备加息的背景将是，其“有理由相信”通胀在中期内会回归2%的目标——前提是劳动力市场有望继续好转。尽管美联储给自己留下了足够回旋余地，能够在经济失稳的情况下暂缓加息，但就加息而言，合理信心并不是过高的门槛。
That said, the Fed is sticking with previous guidance that rates will for some time remain below levels that are normal in the longer run, even once employment and inflation return to levels consistent with its mandate.
尽管如此，美联储仍坚持先前的指引，即利率将在一段时期内保持在低于长远来看正常的水平，即便在就业和通胀回归至与其使命相符的水平后也是这样。
Close watchers of the Fed who obsess about whether the central bank will raise rates in June or September were not given any definitive indications. But that made sense. Ms Yellen’s goal was to free the central bank’s hand to act when necessary, not to anchor market expectations on a particular date.
密切观察美联储的人士没有看到这家央行将在6月还是9月加息的明确迹象。但这是可以理解的。耶伦的目标就是为美联储创造自由行动的空间，在必要时采取行动，而不是将市场预期锚定于某一特定日期。
