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Finance & economics
财经版块
Buttonwood
梧桐树专栏
Ruled by randomness
随机性统治
The accidental origins of investing revolution.
投资革命的偶然起源。
What prompts a revolution?
什么会引发革命？
When it comes to investing, no change has been as great as that which began with researchers at the University of Chicago in the 1960s.
最大的投资革命莫过于芝加哥大学的研究者们在20世纪60年代开启的变革。
Their financial-theory revolution changed the way that almost everyone invests, and made speculators many trillions of dollars.
他们的金融理论革命几乎改变了所有人的投资方式，并且让投机者赚取了数万亿美元。
The transformation is the subject of “Tune Out the Noise”, a documentary by Errol Morris, an Academy Award winner, which held its premiere in New York on March 6th.
这场变革就是纪录片《屏蔽噪音》的主题，导演是奥斯卡奖得主埃罗尔·莫里斯，并于3月6日在纽约举行了首映。
His film includes interviews with academics and investors, such as Eugene Fama, Myron Scholes and David Booth, who took ideas about market efficiency and diversification from the textbook and put them into practice in the markets.
这部电影中有对多位学者和投资人的采访，例如尤金·法玛、迈伦·舒尔兹、大卫·布斯，他们从教科书中汲取了市场效率和多样化的理念，并将这些理念应用到市场实践中。
This led to a surge in the use of data and a disciplined focus on costs, in turn providing the foundation for modern passive investing.
这导致对数据的使用大幅增加，以及对成本的严格关注，进而为现代被动投资奠定了基础。（注：被动投资是长期持有股市指数的全部成分股，寻求获得与指数表现相同的收益；主动投资是积极寻找合适的股票类型和时机，从而获得最大的收益。）
Mr Morris’s film may, in theory, be about brilliant individuals, but its most powerful message is about the role played by chance.
理论上，莫里斯的这部电影可能是讲述杰出个人的，但它传递的最有力的信息是偶然性所扮演的角色。
History, like markets, is affected by randomness, and luck brought together the right people at the right time.
历史如同市场，受到随机性的影响，运气在恰当的时刻将合适的人聚集在一起。
Each had to be present for the financial revolution to emerge.
每个人都必须在场，才能让金融革命得以出现。
The University of Chicago’s role is just about the only part of the story that happened by design.
芝加哥大学的作用几乎是这个故事中唯一经过设计的部分。
It had become the nexus for financial research owing to its reputation for excellence in economics.
由于其在经济学领域的卓越声誉，芝加哥大学已成为金融研究的中心。
The Centre for Research in Security Prices was established there in 1960, and its wealth of data on the price of bonds and stocks over decades enabled the academics to do their work.
证券价格研究中心于1960年在那里成立，数十年来丰富的债券和股票价格数据使学者们能够开展研究工作。
Randomness is apparent just about everywhere else.
而在其他所有方面，随机性都很明显。
Although Mr Fama, who would later win a Nobel prize for his work on asset pricing, completed a doctorate at Chicago in 1964, he almost never made it to the university.
虽然法玛（后来因其在资产定价方面的研究获得了诺贝尔奖）于1964年在芝加哥大学获得了博士学位，但他差点没能进入这所大学。
After completing an undergraduate education at Tufts University, he had to chase up his application to Chicago, discovering that it had never been received.
在塔夫茨大学完成本科学业后，他不得不催促芝加哥大学的申请进度，结果发现他的申请从未被收到。
On phoning the university, he reached the dean of students by chance, who told him about a scholarship for Tufts graduates, before offering it to him on the spot.
他打电话给芝加哥大学时，碰巧联系到了学务主任，主任向他介绍了给塔夫茨毕业生的一项奖学金，然后当场将奖学金给了他。
It was a similar story for Mr Scholes, another future Nobel laureate.
舒尔兹也是类似的情况，也是另一位未来的诺贝尔奖得主。
In the summer of 1963 he started a job as a computer programmer despite scant expertise.
1963年夏天，尽管专业知识并不丰富，但他还是开始了一份计算机程序员的工作。
The six other programmers who were hired failed to show up for the job, leaving Mr Scholes alone to assist in the financial research of other academics.
其他六名被聘用的程序员未能到岗，只剩下舒尔兹一人去协助其他学者的金融研究。
He took to the work, abandoning his plan to return to his family’s book-publishing company, and was in time offered a place on the university’s doctoral programme.
然后他开始喜欢上了这个工作，放弃了回到家里的图书出版公司的计划，并最终获得了芝加哥大学博士项目的录取资格。
Mr Booth, whose name now adorns Chicago’s business school, and Rex Sinquefield, his business partner, put the academic ideas into practice by co-founding Dimensional Fund Advisors, a firm that today boasts $777bn in assets under management.
布斯的名字如今已镌刻在芝加哥大学商学院的招牌上，他与商业伙伴雷克斯·辛克菲尔德携手将学术理念付诸实践，共同创立了德明信基金，这家公司如今管理着高达7770亿美元的资产。
In 1969 Mr Booth narrowly avoided being made to fight in the Vietnam war, when a lenient officer postponed his conscription since he planned to study for a PhD.
1969年，布斯险些被征召参加越南战争，因为他计划攻读博士学位，所以一位宽容的军官推迟了他的入伍。
Mr Sinquefield did serve in the armed forces during the war, but poor eyesight kept him from combat.
辛克菲尔德确实在越战期间在武装部队服役，但由于视力不佳，他未能参与战斗。
A few twists of fate—an unanswered phone call, a prickly recruiting officer, more diligent computer programmers or better eyesight—would have prevented some of the men from reaching Chicago.
如果命运发生一些转折，比如电话没有被接听、征兵军官很难缠、其他几个计算机程序员很勤奋，或者辛克菲尔德有更好的视力，那么其中一些人就无法来到芝加哥大学。
Without the confluence of thought, investing might look very different today, making the world much poorer.
如果没有思想的交汇，如今的投资可能会大不相同，世界也会因此变得更为贫穷。
Such happenstance is found elsewhere, too: other parts of economics and nuclear physics, for instance, relied upon the concentration of talent in America after geniuses, often Jewish, fled from the Nazis.
这种偶然性在其他领域也能找到：例如，其他经济学领域和核物理学都依赖于众多天才头脑（大部分是犹太人）逃离纳粹并汇集在美国。
In the 1950s Silicon Valley looked to be an unlikely home for the American tech industry, with corporate research mostly taking place on the east coast.
在20世纪50年代，硅谷看起来不太可能成为美国科技产业的发源地，因为当时的企业研究主要集中在东海岸。
That changed in large part because William Shockley, an inventor of transistor technology, set up his own firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.
这种情况发生了改变，主要是因为晶体管技术的发明者威廉·肖克利把自己的公司设在了旧金山湾区。
The company’s employees went on to establish giants including Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
这家公司的员工后来创立了包括仙童半导体和英特尔在内的巨头企业。
Shockley had picked the area simply because he wanted to be close to his elderly mother.
而肖克利选择旧金山，仅仅是因为他想离年迈的母亲近一些。
“Tune Out the Noise” leaves viewers wondering where the next investing revolution will come from.
《屏蔽噪音》让观众不禁思考，下一场投资革命将从何处而来。
Quantitative trading has speeded up market activity, which is not quite as transformative as the changes that emerged from the 1960s.
量化交易加速了市场活动，但这并不像20世纪60年代的转变那样具有变革性。
Some fret that cryptocurrencies are the most significant newish innovation, and that they are the preserve of speculators and criminals.
一些人担心，加密货币是最重要的新兴创新，而且只是投机者和罪犯的专属领域。
But, in time, more useful ideas could emerge from the industry.
但是随着时间的推移，这个行业可能会产生更多有用的想法。
There is always a chance.
总有机会/概率的。
