华尔街可以从BP泄漏中学到什么

如果从2007 - 2008年的金融危机中汲取了任何经验教训，海湾的灾难就是证据表明我们可能已经忘记了其中一些。BP PLC最近的惨败将其根源在一个企业文化中有利于短期利润而无需长期风险 - 两年前只离开华尔街的同样亚慱体育app怎么下载的哲学。此外，这两个危机都对投资者的信仰表示，即联邦监管机构有能力和意愿，为在错误可能具有灾难性后果的行业中提供过度风险的斗殴。

事后看来,最令人惊讶的thing about the collapses that rocked the financial sector is that they did not happen sooner. The problem began with a dramatic shift in mortgage lending practices. When banks held the mortgage loans they funded, they had their own skin in the game – and if they lent unwisely, they would pay the consequences. When home loans instead were sold almost immediately to packagers of mortgage-backed securities, lenders no longer had any incentive to ensure that prospective buyers were actually able to service the loans they took out. The resulting lack of due diligence, aided by dysfunctional credit rating agencies, turned the mortgage-backed security business into a kind of Russian roulette.

In the short term, however, mortgage-backed securities and the industry they spawned were also amazingly profitable. A preoccupation with these short-term gains quickly grew, fanned by executive compensation programs that offered rich rewards based on corporate performance over very limited periods. While most understood that there was at least a possibility that changes in the housing market could result in disaster in the long run, such a scenario was seen as highly unlikely – the fabled “black swan.”

This thinking, of course, badly misconstrued the true nature of risk. Risk is in essence the likelihood of an event multiplied by the harm it might cause. An event with a relatively high chance of occurring but few consequences – say, getting caught in the rain, may require little precaution. On the other hand, events that are unlikely but can potentially bring devastating harm, like an automobile accident, are something that any prudent person plans for. In the financial crisis, compensation schemes and analyst expectations fostered a system that was willing to risk the possibility of catastrophe in the long term in exchange for lucrative results in the present.

在许多方面，BP的深水地平线灾难是同样危险思维的结果。虽然有关导致灾难导致灾难的事件的信息仍然是新兴的，但众所周知，BP长期以来推动运气寻找短期奖励。2007年，当托尼海沃德担任公司首席执行官时，他承诺改善公司的风险管理。然而，在他的领导下，BP在深水钻井中保证了其积极的利润目标，并在深水钻井中寻求异常危险的机会，尽管缺乏处理深水钻井事故的技术专业知识。这是缺乏缺乏准备，导致公司支出几个月测试一个失败的解决方案，因为溢出通过环境和美国南部经济的溢出效果。对BP投资者的后果同样糟糕，公司的股价下跌近三分，以及清理运营和诉讼的最终成本仍在统计。

然而，对BP投资者的最大震动是联邦监管机构负责监督公司业务安全的膨胀作品。从历史上看，投资者在银行和深水钻井等风险，严重监管的行业，期望监管机构即使管理层和董事会也不是，监管机构将密切关注安全。市场已经学习了这种信心可能错位的艰难方式。负责检查深水钻井平台的矿物管理服务的官员多次失败，因为证券交易委员会的官员，美联储和商品期货交易委员会未能防止银行巨头积累过度风险直到它太晚了。

Dodd-Frank Wall Street改革和消费者保护法案将使金融部门和影子银行业的重组，以一种最大限度地减少风险管理的灾难，如两年前看到的那样。重要的是，新规约中所体现的许多改革都将有助于减少远远超出财务部门的风险的企业行为 - 例如在执行赔偿的规定中，过度加权短期收益。

虽然新的立法提供了很多庆祝，但深水地平线危机是一个鲜明的提醒，投资者不应该放下他们的警卫。魔法思考风险仍然是一个市场危险，它仍有待观察监管机构是否可以在防止它方面做有效的工作。

Michael W. Stocker是律师事务所Labaton Sucharow的律师。他代表了机构投资者，是国家和亚博赞助欧冠国际出版物的财务和治理问题的评论员。