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Two weeks ago Paddy Power, the Irish bookmaker, felt so confident that Hillary Clinton would win the US presidential election that it started paying punters who had bet on her victory.
两周前，爱尔兰博彩公司Paddy Power对希拉里.克林顿(Hillary Clinton)将赢得美国总统大选信心满满，以至于开始向押注希拉里获胜的顾客支付奖金。
Big mistake. This week Donald Trump’s chance of success, according to the Iowa Electronic Markets, has jumped from 10 per cent to about 40 per cent following revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is re-opening its probe into Mrs Clinton’s emails.
它犯了大错。爱荷华电子市场(Iowa Electronic Markets)的数据显示，美国联邦调查局(FBI)正在重启对希拉里“邮件门”调查的消息传出之后，本周，唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)的胜选几率已从10%跃升至40%左右。
So PaddyPower has done a volte-face and reopened its books. Right now, 2/1 odds are being offered on the Republican, and “91 per cent of bets on the US election [this week] have been on Trump”, the betting group says. As a spokesman observes: “I think the shock of Brexit is fresh in people’s minds.”
所以，PaddyPower掉转头，重开赌局。目前，特朗普获胜的赔率为2/1，该博彩集团称，“（本周）91%对美国大选的下注都押特朗普赢”。正如该集团一位发言人所言：“我觉得英国退欧造成的冲击让人们记忆犹新。”
A similar about-turn is under way in the financial world. Until this week many asset managers were discounting a Trump victory. Even now groups such as Goldman Sachs continue to stress that this risk is low: the bank puts Mr Trump’s chances at about half that of Mrs Clinton. “The election is now seen to be roughly as uncertain as the average election since 1992,” according to Goldman’s Alec Phillips.
类似立场反转也正出现在金融领域。直至本周，许多资产管理公司都认为特朗普不会获胜。一些机构，如高盛(Goldman Sachs)，直到现在还在继续强调特朗普胜出的风险很低：该投行认为特朗普获胜的几率只有希拉里的一半左右。高盛的亚历克.菲利普斯(Alec Phillips)表示：“此次大选的不确定性，现在被视为跟1992年以来正常情况下的大选大致相同。”
But that low risk is still too high for some investors. “A Trump presidency . . . could spark a sustained period of risk aversion,” says Mihir Kapadia, chief executive of Sun Global Investments, a London asset group.
但这种低风险对一些投资者而言还是太高。“特朗普当选总统……可能引发持续一段时间的风险规避，”伦敦资产管理集团Sun Global Investments首席执行官米希尔.卡帕迪亚(Mihir Kapadia)表示。
Investors are scrambling to readjust their portfolios. Barclays, for example, estimates the S&P 500 index could rise or fall 1.5 per cent for every 10 percentage point swing in the polls. If the chance of Mr Trump winning hits 50-50 they expect the S&P to fall 4-5 per cent; a Trump victory could spark a fall of 11-13 per cent.
投资机构正在赶着重新调整自己的投资组合。例如，巴克莱银行(Barclays)估计，民调每出现10个百分点的波动，标准普尔500指数(S&P 500)就会上涨或下跌1.5%。如果特朗普获胜的几率达到50%，他们预计标普指数将下跌4%至5%；而特朗普获胜可能引发11%至13%的大跌。
That is unnerving. The markets are also affected by the fact that the events of recent days mean that the outlook for Washington after November 8 is no longer binary. On the contrary, the risks that investors are being forced to price involve several highly complex moving parts.
这令人不安。金融市场还受到了以下事实的影响，即近几天发生的事件意味着，11月8日后华盛顿可能面临的局面将不再是二选一的。相反，投资者眼下正被迫对其定价的那些风险，涉及多个高度复杂、环环相扣的因素。
Think about it. Back in June the EU referendum gave UK voters two options: In or Out. Subsequently, it became clear that the Out choice threw up a range of scenarios, complicated further by the need for a UK parliamentary vote before Article 50 is triggered. Even so the vote was a “crossroads” — and could be modelled for investors as such.
仔细想想这件事。今年6月的英国公投给了选民两个选择：去或是留。随后变得明显的是，退欧的选择抛出了一系列可能的场景，而触发《里斯本条约》第50条还须先经英国议会投票又使问题进一步复杂化。即使如此，那次公投也是一种“十字路口”型选择——并且可以按照这种形态为投资者建模。
In the US election, however, the potential scenarios look more like a “fan chart of probabilities”. Yes, the presidential choice seems binary: Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump. But, given the vagaries of the electoral college system, the outcome need not match the popular vote.
然而，在美国大选中，潜在的场景看起来更像一个“概率扇形图”。没错，总统似乎只能二选其一：希拉里或特朗普。但是，考虑到选举人团制度的难以预料，大选结果不一定非要与普选投票结果相吻合。
Meanwhile the rise of a third-party candidate, Evan McMullin in Utah, creates the (smallish) risk that neither Mr Trump nor Mrs Clinton will win a simple majority of electoral colleges.
与此同时，第三方候选人埃文.麦克马林(Evan McMullin)在犹他州的崛起，带来了特朗普和希拉里都无法赢得过半选举人票的风险——尽管这种风险微乎其微。
In addition, the outcome of the races in the Senate and House of Representatives could alter the implications of the presidential vote. If Mrs Clinton gains control of both, for example, her policies might be dragged leftwards to appease figures such as Senator Elizabeth Warren.
此外，参众两院选举结果也可能改变总统大选所能带来的影响。例如，如果希拉里控制了两院，她的政策就可能就会被迫向左倾斜，以安抚参议员伊丽莎白.沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)等人物。
Conversely, if control of the House and Senate is split, that could deliver more gridlock — unless Mrs Clinton is able to forge a new bipartisan spirit.
反过来，如果希拉里未能同时控制两院，那就可能产生更多的僵局，除非希拉里能够缔造一种让两党抛弃党派之见的新精神。
There is yet another issue complicating these risk models: legal threats. If Mr Trump wins, he faces a court case over his “university”. This, in itself, is bizarre. But the danger hanging over Mrs Clinton is even more peculiar — and alarming.
还有一个问题让这些风险模型更加复杂，那就是法律威胁。如果特朗普赢得大选，他仍将面临关于特朗普“大学”的官司。这本身就够奇怪了，但悬在希拉里头顶的法律风险还要更怪，也更为令人担忧。
It looks likely that the reopened FBI probe will last weeks, if not months.
FBI重新启动的调查可能会持续数周时间，甚至数月。
At best, that could distract and disrupt the next administration. At worst, it could unleash a full-blown constitutional crisis, akin to the Nixon scandals of 40 years ago.
在最好的情况下，这也可能分散和干扰下届政府的注意力。在最坏的情况下，它可能引发类似40年前的尼克松丑闻那样的全面宪法危机。
“The decline is not just because the stock market is nervous about Donald Trump,” says Capital Economics. “It also reflects the reality that even if Clinton now wins, her authority and mandate will be damaged.”
针对标普500指数在FBI重启调查消息传出后大幅下跌，凯投宏观(Capital Economics)表示：“这一下跌不仅是因为唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)让股市提心吊胆……它还反映出即便希拉里赢了，她的权威和授权也将遭到损害。”
So — while the shock result of Brexit might be haunting everyone’s minds — the dirty truth of markets today is that the risks thrown up by Brexit look almost simple compared with those of the US election.
因此，尽管人们对英国退欧的意外结果记忆犹新，但如今市场令人不快的真相是，与美国选举带来的风险相比，英国退欧的风险几乎不值一提。
That is particularly true in a world where most investors are ill-placed to price scenarios that come in multiple shades of grey — and where no one can create an algorithm to model the antics of the FBI.
在一个大多数投资者应付不来为不是非黑即白的多种场景定价、也没有人能创造一个算法为不按常理出牌的FBI的举动建模的世界里，情况尤其如此。
Brace yourself for further market turbulence.
准备好迎接进一步的市场动荡吧。
