In Your Best Interest - Introduction

INTRODUCTION

引言

Welcome to the third edition of In Your Best Interest. In this edition, I have added a lot of new content, including a chapter on Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), a new section on forecasting interest rates, and beefed-up sections on preferred shares, convertible bonds, and real return bonds (RRBs). I have also included an update on Canada's ABCP fiasco and what has happened in the income trust sector.

欢迎阅读第三版的 In Your Best Interest。在这一版中，我增加了大量新的内容，包括有关交易所交易基金（ETF）的章节、预测利率的新部分，以及加强了关于优先股、可转换债券和实际回报债券（RRB）的部分。我还更新了有关加拿大资产支持商业票据（ABCP）丑闻以及收入信托市场最新情况的内容。

The core principles of this book remain unchanged; individual investors, through a laddered portfolio of individual interest-bearing bonds or zero coupon bonds, are able to preserve their principal while obtaining satisfactory returns. The events of the past three years certainly underscore the importance of maintaining well-balanced portfolios with the fixed-income portion designed to avoid the four biggest risks to fixed-income portfolios:

1. Maturity risk (also known as reinvestment risk)
2. Credit risk
3. Inflation
4. Currency

本书的核心原则保持不变；个人投资者通过构建一个分阶梯的单一计息债券或零息债券投资组合，能够在保护本金的同时获得令人满意的收益。过去三年的事件无疑强调了保持良好平衡投资组合的重要性，而固定收益部分则旨在避免固定收益组合中四大主要风险：

1. 到期风险（也称为再投资风险）
2. 信用风险
3. 通胀风险
4. 货币风险

All of these factors can be mitigated using a laddered approach; I have long favoured ladders with maturities from one to ten years. This allows investors to capture the extra yield available in the six- to ten-year maturities, while at the same time the average term of the portfolio is only just over five years. Ten-year maturities allow for greater credit selection while a steady parade of maturities ensures that, should inflation become a problem, money will be available for reinvestment at higher yields.

所有这些因素都可以通过分阶梯投资法来缓解；我长期以来就偏好一年至十年到期的阶梯投资法。这样，投资者不仅能捕捉到六至十年到期债券提供的额外收益，同时投资组合的平均期限也仅略高于五年。十年到期使得信用选择范围更大，而持续不断到期则确保在通胀问题出现时，投资者能够以更高收益率再投资。

Most Canadians will retire in Canada and will need Canadian dollar income. It is imprudent, in my view, to diversify a fixed-income portfolio out of the Canadian dollar, since, with today's low nominal yields, a small adverse currency move can wipe out any extra yield. The explosion in ETFs has not swayed my view on owning individual bonds; there is such a bewildering array of choices that investors end up guessing again. I think that specialty ETFs such as high-yield or emerging-market bond funds might have a role to play, but for regular investing, I prefer individual bonds and GICs. While it is true that ETFs have lower fees than do mutual funds and are designed to merely track an index, they share the same major fault that mutual funds do: they never mature and you don't know what their future value will be.

大多数加拿大人将会在加拿大退休，并需要以加元获得收入。在我看来，将固定收益投资组合分散到非加元资产中是不明智的，因为在当今低名义收益率的环境下，任何小幅的不利汇率波动都可能抹去额外的收益。ETF的爆发式增长并没有改变我对持有单一债券的看法；由于可供选择的种类极其繁多，投资者最终还是会再次猜测。我认为某些专业化ETF（如高收益或新兴市场债券基金）可能在投资组合中有其地位，但对于常规投资而言，我更青睐单一债券和定期存款（GICs）。虽然ETF的费用低于共同基金，并且设计上只是追踪指数，但它们与共同基金共享一个主要缺点：永不到期，未来价值无法预知。

CREDIT CRUNCH

信贷紧缩

Lehman Brothers bankrupt, Bear Stearns sold for peanuts, Merrill Lynch absorbed by Bank of America! Who could have guessed that these icons would disappear and that hundreds of billions of dollars would be needed to prop up many other institutions, including the likes of General Motors? This was all triggered by the subprime fiasco and the accompanying collapse in the underlying derivatives. The housing market entered the biggest swoon since the Great Depression and it remains severely depressed today. In turn, this is having an adverse effect on the employment market, as many jobs go unfilled as the mobility of labour is severely hampered by the weakness in the housing market.

雷曼兄弟破产，贝尔斯登低价出售，美林被美国银行吞并！谁能想到这些标志性机构会消失，并且需要数千亿美元来支撑其他许多机构，包括通用汽车等？这一切都是由次级贷款灾难以及伴随而来的基础衍生品崩盘引发的。住房市场经历了自大萧条以来最大幅度的下滑，并且至今仍处于严重低迷状态。反过来，这对就业市场产生了不利影响，由于住房市场的疲软使劳动力流动性大受限制，许多职位无法及时填补。

Nevertheless, a global economic recovery did get underway but has proven to be a halting, sub-normal one. To be sure, the emerging market countries of China, India, Singapore, Brazil, and others have displayed solid growth. However, we are experiencing a rolling sovereign debt crisis in Europe which, so far, has focused on Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. It shows no signs of ending.

尽管如此，全球经济复苏还是拉开了帷幕，但进程蹒跚、低于正常水平。当然，中国、印度、新加坡、巴西等新兴市场国家展现出了稳健的增长。然而，我们正经历一场滚动式的主权债务危机，主要集中在爱尔兰、希腊、葡萄牙、西班牙和意大利。看来这一危机暂无结束迹象。

It is a curiosity of this cycle, particularly in the United States, that both the corporate and the consumer sectors have conducted serious deleveraging while the U.S. government has had to undergo the indignity of a credit rating downgrade as the politicos in Washington seem unable to put together any meaningful fiscal package.

这一周期的一个奇特现象，尤其是在美国，是企业部门和消费者部门都进行了大规模去杠杆化，而与此同时，美国政府却不得不经历信用评级下调的屈辱，因为华盛顿的政客似乎无法制定出任何有意义的财政方案。

During this time, monetary stimulus has been extremely accommodative with short-term interest rates near zero and the yield curve very steep. This is producing problems for investors as money is earning a negative real return. While some market anomalies have corrected, there still remain some interesting issues for investors. U.S. ten-year government bonds yield under 2 percent while a significant percentage of the S&P 500 stock market index yields more than 3 percent. Corporate profits remain healthy and dividends are safe and likely to increase.

在此期间，货币政策非常宽松，短期利率接近于零，而收益率曲线则非常陡峭。这给投资者带来了问题，因为资金获得的是负实际收益率。虽然一些市场异常已经得到纠正，但仍有一些有趣的问题等待投资者去关注。美国十年期国债收益率不足2％，而标准普尔500指数中相当比例的股票收益率超过3％。企业利润依然健康，股息安全且有望增加。

What are investors to do?

那么，投资者该怎么办呢？

The temptation is to reach for extra yield; long-term yields are significantly higher than shorter-term yields, while high-yield or junk bonds offer tempting returns. For those of you with ladders, particularly one- to ten-year ladders, I recommend that you stay the course and keep reinvesting in the longest maturity of your ladder. This is not the time to be managing your ladders. There is a place for high-yield bonds in portfolios, but for this purpose I recommend high-yield ETFs for their diversification, yield, and currency protection.

诱惑在于追求额外收益；长期收益率明显高于短期收益率，而高收益或垃圾债券也提供了诱人的回报。对于拥有阶梯投资组合的投资者，尤其是一至十年阶梯投资组合，我建议您保持既定策略，并不断在阶梯中最长到期的部分再投资。现在不是去调整您整个阶梯投资组合的时候。高收益债券在投资组合中是有位置的，但就这点目的而言，我建议使用高收益ETF，因为它们具有分散风险、提供收益和货币保护的特点。

For those tempted to nab some of those high-yielding Euro-area issues, I advise caution, as there is both currency and sovereign risk involved. To invest in international bonds, again the road to follow is ETFs, and I have added significant material on ETFs to this edition.

对于那些急于抢购一些高收益的欧元区债券的人，我建议要谨慎，因为这其中涉及货币风险和主权风险。若要投资国际债券，同样的建议是走ETF路线，本版中我对ETF作了大量补充说明。

This book is entitled In Your Best Interest for good reason. The investment business fails most individual investors by selling them products inappropriate for their circumstances. The basic tenets of fixed-income investing remain the same:

1. Keep what you start with.
2. Earn a return on it.

本书名为 In Your Best Interest 是有充分理由的。投资行业因向多数个人投资者销售不适合他们情况的产品而导致他们受到损失。固定收益投资的基本原则依然是：

1. 保住你最初的投资。
2. 获得其回报。

What else has happened since the second edition is that I joined Odlum Brown Limited as their fixed-income strategist. Odlum's history began in 1923, and in my opinion, it is one of the finest brokerage houses in Canada. Based in Vancouver, they focus on research and strategy for their individual clients. They do not underwrite securities nor do they trade as principal. Thus, they offer objective investment advice, untainted by the natural conflicts of dealing with underwriting products. I am very proud to be associated with them.

自第二版以来的另一个变化是我加入了Odlum Brown Limited，担任他们的固定收益策略师。Odlum的历史可追溯至1923年，在我看来，它是加拿大最优秀的经纪公司之一。该公司总部位于温哥华，专注于为个人客户提供研究和策略服务。他们不承销证券，也不以自营身份进行交易。因此，他们提供的投资建议客观中立，不会受到承销产品固有冲突的污染。我非常自豪能够与他们合作。

This is not an "I told you so" book. The principles I espouse here are applicable at any stage of an economic or market cycle. Investors have learned that they cannot rely solely on equity markets for their retirement needs. The principles of preservation of capital and returns on that capital have returned to the forefront of investing, and as retirement draws nearer, investors are starting to realize that fixed-income investments should constitute a healthy percentage of their portfolios. The principles explained in this book may be applied at any time and in any investment cycle, by investors of any age. I could have written this in the middle of the bubble and it would have carried the same message: individual investors, by adopting and employing simple principles, can produce solid returns via investing in high-quality individual fixed-income securities. What this equity-market volatility has underscored is the need for investors to invest their savings in the different categories of investments appropriate to their ages and circumstances. This mixture of investments is more commonly labelled the "asset mix." The most common categories in which to invest your money are bank deposits (cash), treasury bills, common equities (stocks), real estate, GICs, and bonds. Within each category, you can deploy your money in different ways. Within common equities, for example, you could invest in solid, dividend-paying banks and utilities or in aggressive, high-growth, high-risk technology stocks. In the bond market, you could buy Canada Savings Bonds, corporate bonds, or high-yield or "junk" bonds.

这并不是一本“我早就告诉过你”的书。我在此阐述的原则适用于任何经济或市场周期的阶段。投资者已经认识到，光靠股市来满足退休需求是不够的。保护资本和从资本中获得回报的原则重新回到了投资的前沿，随着退休日期的临近，投资者开始意识到固定收益投资应在他们的资产组合中占据健康比重。无论何时，无论处于哪个投资周期，这本书中解释的原则都可以应用于任何年龄段的投资者。我本可以在泡沫中期写下这些内容，其信息仍将一致：个人投资者只需采纳并运用简单的原则，通过投资于高质量的单一固定收益证券，就能获得稳健的回报。这次股市波动再次强调了这样一个必要性：投资者应根据自己的年龄和情况，将储蓄投资于不同类别的产品。通常这种投资组合被称为“资产配置”。将资金投资的最常见类别包括银行存款（现金）、国库券、普通股票、房地产、定期存款以及债券。在每个类别中，你又可以用不同的方式配置资金。例如，在普通股票中，你可以选择投资稳健的分红银行和公用事业公司，也可以选择进取型的高速成长、高风险的科技股。在债券市场中，你可以购买加拿大储蓄债券、企业债，或是高收益或“垃圾”债券。

Generally, the younger you are, the more you will invest in equities and real estate. As you age and enter your peak savings years, with an empty nest and no mortgage, your thoughts begin to move toward building an adequate retirement pot to provide you with enough income. This is the time when your asset mix should become more skewed to individual fixed-income securities whose income stream and future value are known, away from the more volatile and unpredictable equity securities. You will still have some equities, but they will more than likely be conservative, dividend-paying ones. This is not a time for fixed-income mutual funds or ETFs, as their future value and income level are uncertain. But more on this later.

一般来说，你越年轻，投资股票和房地产的比例就越高。当你年纪渐长，进入收入储蓄的高峰期，再加上空巢和无房贷负担后，你会开始考虑如何积累足够的退休资金来提供稳定的收入。这时，你的资产配置应向着单一固定收益证券倾斜，因为这些证券的收入流和未来价值是确定的，而不是转向更为波动和不可预测的股票。你仍然会保留一些股票，但很可能是保守的、支付股息的股票。此时不适合投资固定收益共同基金或ETF，因为它们的未来价值和收入水平都不确定。但这一点我稍后会详细讨论。

Accentuating the importance of this asset mix is demography. The baby boom is in or entering its peak earnings years. As people age and their assets grow, they want more personal attention and individualized solutions for their investment needs. This partly explains why mutual funds are falling from favour and why there has been a marked growth in individually managed portfolios, investment counsellors, and in self-directed individual portfolios. Simply put, mutual funds or ETFs cannot differentiate one investor from another and thus cannot offer any specific solutions. Recent scandals have further increased investors' distrust.

突出这种资产配置重要性的是人口结构。婴儿潮一代正或已经进入收入高峰期。随着人们年龄增长和资产积累，他们需要更多个性化的关注和量身定制的投资解决方案。这部分也解释了为何共同基金失宠，以及为何个别管理投资组合、投资顾问和自主投资组合得到显著增长。简单来说，共同基金或ETF无法区分不同投资者，因而无法提供具体的解决方案。最近的丑闻进一步增加了投资者的不信任感。

One analogy from a book about demographics and the financial markets (footnote 1: The Pig and the Python, David Clark) explains that mutual funds of today are akin to the cheap beer of university days. While we may drink less today, we want the beer to be high quality, or perhaps we now prefer a fine wine. Translating this to investment terms, we become fussier and desire individually managed portfolios and more personal attention. This analogy is particularly appropriate for the fixed-income markets, where bond mutual funds or ETFs are just not appropriate for retirement planning in that returns, income, and future values are all uncertain.

一本关于人口统计和金融市场的书中（脚注1：The Pig and the Python, David Clark）做了一个比喻：当今的共同基金就像大学时代的廉价啤酒。虽然我们如今可能喝得较少，但我们希望啤酒品质更高，或者我们现在更喜欢的是一瓶优质红酒。将这一比喻转化为投资术语，就是我们变得挑剔起来，开始渴望个别管理的投资组合和更个性化的关注。对于固定收益市场来说，这一比喻尤为恰当，因为债券共同基金或ETF对于退休规划来说并不适宜，它们的回报、收入和未来价值都不确定。

I will show you how to achieve solid, certain returns by focusing on a specific strategy and on specific securities. The laddering strategy involves investing monies in fixed-income investments of different but evenly spaced maturities. This strategy has stood the test of time, and it will continue to do so. It has outperformed, and will continue to outperform, the majority of bond mutual funds whose managers charge too much for merely average performance. The laddered approach takes the guesswork out of the direction of interest rates and allows investors to own individual fixed-income securities with a defined income stream and a known future value. In addition, there are very valuable, retail-investor-friendly investment products called zero coupon or "strip" bonds that are excellent retirement planning tools; they provide investors with the precise future nominal value of their money. These strip bonds, when combined with the laddered approach, are ideal for RRSPs. I have also come to the view that real return bonds (RRBs) deserve to be included in your RRSPs. Currently, however, RRBs are very expensive and I do not recommend them. There is a section devoted to an analysis of these bonds in Chapter 5.

我将向你展示如何专注于特定策略和特定证券，从而实现稳健且确定的回报。阶梯投资策略涉及将资金投资于具有不同但均等间隔到期时间的固定收益产品。这一策略经过时间考验，并且将继续保持优势。它已经超越了并且将继续超越那些仅仅为平庸表现收取高额费用的债券共同基金。阶梯投资策略无需猜测利率走向，它使投资者能够持有具有固定收入流和已知未来价值的单一固定收益证券。另外，还有一类非常有价值、适合散户投资者的产品——零息或“剥离债券”，它们是出色的退休规划工具；这种剥离债券能让投资者确切知道未来的名义金额。当这些剥离债券与阶梯投资策略相结合时，非常适合用于注册退休储蓄计划（RRSP）。我也逐渐认为实际回报债券（RRB）应当被纳入RRSP中。不过，目前RRB价格较高，我并不推荐它们。书中第5章专门分析了这类债券。

For taxable income needs, I again recommend the laddered approach, but using interest-bearing provincial and corporate bonds for their higher yield. Mutual bond funds and ETFs, you may have noticed, are not part of this strategy. In this edition, I have expanded the product section considerably, added a chapter on preferred shares, included an updated analysis of online fixed-income trading, and have expanded many portions, including bond market transparency. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have proliferated in the past two years, offering investors far more cost-effective choices in fixed-income markets. I have included an in-depth discussion of the fixed-income ET choices facing investors.

对于应税收入需求，我仍然推荐阶梯投资策略，但采用计息的省级和企业债券以获得更高的收益。你可能注意到，本书的策略中并未涉及债券共同基金和ETF。在这一版中，我大大扩充了产品部分，增加了关于优先股的章节，更新了在线固定收益交易的分析，并扩展了包括债券市场透明度等多个部分。过去两年中，ETF大量涌现，为投资者在固定收益市场提供了更具成本效益的选择。我在书中详细讨论了固定收益ETF给投资者带来的选择。

By demystifying the fixed-income market and by educating you in all of its aspects, I will show you how to meet your income and retirement needs and make the retail fixed-income market less expensive, less formidable, more accessible, and more efficient. In other words, I want to make you wealthier. That could mean increasing your net worth and your income, making your retirement portfolio bigger, or allowing you to retire sooner. To accomplish this, I will examine the bond market, what it is, how it functions, and explain the various individual products. As well, I will point out sound strategies to follow that have worked for others.

通过揭开固定收益市场的神秘面纱，并在其各个方面对你进行教育，我将向你展示如何满足你的收入和退休需求，使散户固定收益市场变得更经济、更容易接近、更高效、更不令人生畏。换句话说，我希望让你变得更加富有。这可能意味着增加你的净资产和收入，扩大你的退休投资组合，或是让你能够更早退休。为此，我将详细阐述债券市场的构成、运作方式，并解释各种个别产品。同时，我会指出经过实践证明行之有效的策略。

The prime reason I am in this business is to make my individual investors better off by offering them excellent advice. A high percentage of investment advisors (IAs), however, merely sell products and do not focus on their clients' needs. Thus, it is in your best interest to not only learn about the fixed-income markets and how they work but also to select an IA who can help you to satisfy your needs. Even without finding the right IA, you can still do it yourself using an online bond-trading account. (Later in the book I have included an analysis of available sites.) After reading this book, you will be able to buy and sell individual bonds, know how to choose the appropriate ones, how to build your own portfolio, and where you can find a good IA.

我从事这一业务的主要原因就是通过提供卓越的建议来使我的个人投资者受益。然而，大量的投资顾问（IAs）仅仅是销售产品，而不关注客户的实际需求。因此，了解固定收益市场及其运作原理只是你的第一步，更重要的是要选择一位能满足你需求的投资顾问。即使你找不到合适的投资顾问，也可以通过在线债券交易账户自己操作。（书后部分我对可用的网站进行了分析。）阅读本书之后，你将懂得如何买卖单一债券，知道如何挑选合适的债券，如何构建属于自己的投资组合，以及如何找到一个优秀的投资顾问。

The following sections are included in the book: what the bond market is, how it functions, the various products, how to use this market profitably, winning strategies, how to find and choose an IA, the mathematics of bonds, the concept of duration, how to forecast interest rates, bonds for the speculator, retirement planning (RRSPs and RRIFs), reinvestment risk, preferred shares and bond mutual funds, and GICs versus individual fixed-income products. There are separate chapters for zero coupon bonds and for the laddered approach, as they represent the cornerstones for your retirement needs. In addition, there is an expanded section on real return bonds (RRBs) and an expanded products chapter, separating conventional bonds from structured products. As an added bonus, you will know which way bond prices go when interest rates fall! I should point out here that all the various terms that are explained within the body of the book are also defined in the glossary located on page 223 at the end of the book.

本书涵盖的内容包括：债券市场是什么、它如何运作、各类产品介绍、如何在该市场中实现盈利、成功策略、如何寻找及选择投资顾问、债券数学、久期概念、如何预测利率、投机性债券、退休规划（RRSPs与RRIFs）、再投资风险、优先股和债券共同基金，以及定期存款与单一固定收益产品的比较。其中，零息债券和阶梯投资策略各自占有独立章节，因为它们构成了满足你退休需求的基石。此外，还特别扩展了实际回报债券（RRB）的部分，并将常规债券与结构化产品在扩展的产品章节中进行了区分。额外的收获是，当利率下降时，你将知道债券价格走向！需要指出的是，书中解释的各种术语也都在书末第223页的词汇表中有所定义。

Someone asked me the other day about how the bond market worked. I have been asked that question countless times, but this time, without a lot of forethought, I blurted out: "It is all about relationships." After I said it, I realized that I had tripped over the most concise and accurate description of how the bond market actually functions: relationships. Your success in the fixed-income market will be directly related to your relationship with your IA. Therefore, I spend some time discussing how to find a suitable one. That IA must have an excellent relationship with the trading desk of his or her firm. And that trading desk must have a strong relationship with all the IAs of that firm, as well as with the various counterparties it trades with. Thus, I stress the value of finding that right IA, one who will provide you with a good financial relationship and who knows how to build a relationship with the bond-trading desk of his or her firm. You may not have to worry about this if you are simply opening an online trading account. Perhaps the best of all worlds is to find an IA with fixed-income expertise and combine that with an online account. This would offer you the flexibility you need to do it yourself.

前几天有人问我债券市场是如何运作的。我被问到这个问题无数次，而这一次，在没有太多预思索的情况下，我脱口而出：“这全关乎关系。”说完这句话后，我意识到自己无意中给出了对债券市场实际运作方式最为简洁而准确的描述：关系。你在固定收益市场上的成功，将直接依赖于你与投资顾问之间的关系。因此，我花了一些篇幅讨论如何找到合适的投资顾问。这个顾问必须与他或她所在公司的交易部门保持良好的关系，而该交易部门又必须与公司内所有投资顾问以及与各类交易对手之间建立牢固的关系。如果你仅仅是开设一个在线交易账户，那么你或许不必太过担心这些问题。也许最理想的状态是找到一位具有固定收益专业知识的投资顾问，并配合一个在线账户使用，这样既能提供你所需的灵活性，又能在必要时获得专业支持。

In addition — and this is vital to your understanding of the fixed-income markets - almost all bonds trade in relation to another bond. Most bonds do not trade every day, so they are priced in relation to a bond that does. You will discover that bond prices change all the time, all day long, as the actively traded bonds (dubbed "benchmarks") change in price. Other factors that can affect your returns are the relationship between short-term yields and long-term yields (the "yield curve"), the yield relationship among developed countries, the relationship between supply and demand in the different sectors of the market, and the relationship between today's prices and yields and historical prices. This, in turn, permits you to conduct technical analyses, which can be of great help in timing purchases and sales. I urge you to study all these relationships, as they are vital to understanding this gigantic, practically invisible market.

此外——这对你理解固定收益市场至关重要——几乎所有债券都是以其他债券作为参照来交易的。大多数债券并非每天都有交易，因此它们的定价都是相对于那些每天交易的债券。你会发现，随着那些活跃交易的债券（称作“基准债券”）的价格变化，债券价格也会全天不断波动。其他可能影响回报的因素还包括短期收益率与长期收益率之间的关系（即“收益率曲线”）、发达国家间的收益率关系、市场不同板块中供求关系以及当前价格和收益率与历史价格之间的关系。反过来，这也使你能够进行技术分析，这对把握买入和卖出时机大有裨益。我强烈建议你研究所有这些关系，因为它们对于理解这个庞大且几乎无形的市场至关重要。

In this book I will also share with you some of my personal thoughts, experiences, and anecdotes from a lifetime in the securities business. I have held a wide variety of positions, including research analyst, institutional bond trader, institutional salesman, zero coupon specialist, portfolio manager (for two prominent financial organizations, Standard Life and Investors Group), and global bond trader (for CIBC). Since 1988, I have built and managed three fixed-income trading departments (Dean Witter Canada, First Marathon Securities, and Blackmont Capital), whose mission was (and still is) the provision of competitive pricing on a complete array of fixed-income products combined with top-notch service to investment advisors and their individual clients. Since April 2009, I have been associated with Odlum Brown Limited as their fixed-income strategist, and I have found it to be rewarding to work with their investment advisors and clients to enhance their returns. I have also enjoyed my repeat engagements with BNN as they recognize the need and demand for education in the world of fixed-income.

在本书中，我还将分享一些个人见解、经历和终生从事证券业务的趣闻轶事。我曾担任过多种职务，包括研究分析师、机构债券交易员、机构销售、零息债券专家、投资组合经理（曾为两家知名金融机构——Standard Life和Investors Group服务）以及全球债券交易员（在加拿大帝国商业银行任职）。自1988年以来，我建立并管理了三个固定收益交易部门（分别在Dean Witter Canada、First Marathon Securities及Blackmont Capital），其使命是（并至今如此）提供具有竞争力的定价、涵盖全面的固定收益产品以及为投资顾问和其个人客户提供一流服务。从2009年4月起，我成为Odlum Brown Limited的固定收益策略师，与他们的投资顾问和客户共同努力以提升收益，这让我感到非常有成就感。我也非常享受与BNN的反复合作，因为他们意识到了在固定收益世界中进行教育的必要性和需求。

I will briefly explain the wholesale or institutional business and point out its relevance to the retail market for fixed-income securities; its dominance and structure go a long way in explaining why the retail fixed-income investor has difficulty finding good service and prices.

我将简要说明批发或机构业务，并指出其对散户固定收益证券市场的相关性；批发业务的主导地位和结构在很大程度上解释了为何散户固定收益投资者在寻找优质服务和价格时会遇到困难。

Another important reason for this difficulty is the poor education of both IAs and their clients. I am a leading proponent of making fixed-income markets more visible or transparent to the investing public by electronically distributing a wealth of prices and offerings on an extensive array of constantly re-priced fixed-income products, solely with the retail investor in mind. (I use the term transparency to mean the ease with which individual investors can gain access to information and prices for fixed-income securities. Fixed-income trades would be reported post-trade for everyone to see.) These quotations are now made available through IAs or directly to private clients via electronic connection with various vendors such as Markets, Reuters, or Bloomberg. The larger investment dealers offer bonds online to their internal sales forces and their discount brokers via their own private legacy systems. In addition, CBID Perimeter (CBID) offers real-time quotes on a variety of government and corporate bonds on their website: www.canadianfixedincome.ca. In addition, www.canadianbondindices. com offers a wealth of information for individuals and www.canpxonline. com features live prices on benchmark bonds.

造成这种困难的另一个重要原因是投资顾问及其客户缺乏相关知识。我一直主张让固定收益市场对投资公众更为透明，通过电子方式分发大量价格信息及各类不断重新定价的固定收益产品信息，这些产品都是专门为散户投资者设计的。（我使用“透明度”一词，指的是个人投资者获取固定收益证券信息和价格的便捷性。固定收益交易将会在交易后向所有人公开报告。）如今，这些报价可以通过投资顾问或直接通过与Markets、Reuters或Bloomberg等各类供应商的电子连接向私人客户提供。较大的投资经纪商则通过其内部销售团队及折扣经纪商，利用自家的私有遗留系统在线提供债券。此外，CBID Perimeter（CBID）在其网站 www.canadianfixedincome.ca 上提供各类政府和企业债券的实时报价；同时，www.canadianbondindices.com 为个人投资者提供了大量信息，而 www.canpxonline.com 则展示了基准债券的实时价格。

There are several initiatives underway in the realm of transparency. The net result will be broader visibility and availability of real-time bond pricing for individuals. Also, these online systems come with tools to make it easier for individuals to implement their strategies. I will talk more about transparency later.

目前在透明度方面已有几项举措正在进行中。最终结果将是更广泛的实时债券定价信息向个人投资者开放。此外，这些在线系统还配备了工具，帮助个人投资者更轻松地实施他们的策略。我将在后文中详细讨论透明度问题。

Like all markets, the bond market is undergoing a transformation. With the return to deficits at all levels of government, there are a lot more government bonds to choose from. Corporations, on the other hand, have exhibited considerable discipline and have not had to use the bond market as frequently as before the recession. The result has been a considerable narrowing of the yield spread between government and corporate bonds, with the attendant superior performance of corporate bonds. The amount of money invested by individuals in Canada in fixed-income investments totals approximately $793 billion. Approximately 58 percent of this total is in GICs. Bond mutual funds amount to $106 billion, ETFs $11 billion, while investments in individual fixed-income products total $218 billion. It is my belief, and a central theme of this book, that a large percentage of this money will find its way into individual fixed-income products, which, combined with safety of principal, offer greater yield than do bank deposits and GICs. Simply put, bond mutual funds charge too much in fees and produce average returns with uncertain future value. GICs are too short-term for long-term planning and are illiquid. Individual bonds offer a defined income stream, a known future value, liquidity, plus the flexibility to accommodate individual circumstances.

正如所有市场一样，债券市场也正经历一场变革。随着各级政府赤字的回归，可供选择的政府债券大幅增加。另一方面，企业表现出了显著的纪律性，并不像经济衰退前那样频繁借助债券市场融资。其结果是政府债券与企业债券之间的收益率差距大幅缩小，从而使得企业债券表现更优。加拿大个人在固定收益投资上的总金额约为7930亿加元，其中约58%为定期存款。债券共同基金金额为1060亿加元，ETF为110亿加元，而个人直接购买固定收益产品的投资则总额达到2180亿加元。我坚信，并且这也是本书的核心主题，大量这笔资金将流向单一固定收益产品，因为这些产品在保证本金安全的同时，比银行存款和定期存款提供更高的收益。简单来说，债券共同基金收费过高，回报平平且未来价值不确定，而定期存款则过于短期且流动性较差。单一债券则能提供固定收入流、已知的未来价值、较好的流动性，同时能够灵活满足个人需求。

Now, let us begin the process of providing you with the information and tools to help you make financial decisions in your best interest.

现在，让我们开始为你提供信息和工具，帮助你做出符合自身最佳利益的财务决策。