就算你不是水手，你也知道“水漲船高”的道理。這正是今年亞洲股市的寫照。摩根士丹利亞洲（不包括日本）指數(MSCI index of Asian stocks)上漲了近40%。在這種環境下，賺錢很容易，因為多數股票都在順勢上漲。

You don't need to be a sailor to know that when the tide goes up, every ship in the sea rises. That is what happened to Asian equities this year, with the MSCI index of Asian stocks - excluding Japan - up by nearly 40 per cent. In such an environment, it is easy to make money as most stocks go up with the flow.

    大潮尚未退去，但有些船只已開始下沉，或者至少已不再與其他船只一同上漲。而且一旦錢輕松賺到手，選股就變得異常重要。

The tide is not turning completely but some ships have begun to sink, or at least stopped rising as much as the rest. And once the easy money has been made, stock picking becomes more important than ever.

    說來容易做來難，尤其在亞洲。除了用擲飛鏢方法隨意購買股票（這種方法雖然鹵莽，但未必不是一種可以贏利的消遣），投資者還不得不依賴上市公司的估價。

That is easier said than done, especially in Asia. Short of using the dart-board approach of buying randomly - a reckless but not necessarily unprofitable occupation - investors have to rely on companies' valuations.

    但問題就出在這兒。部分是為證明自己的存在是合理的，分析師們炮制出一系列令人費解的投資比率。你是個參照“企業價值/未計利息、稅項、折舊、攤銷前收益(ev/ebitda)”的投資者，還是更看重公司市盈率的投資者？另外，為何不用“資產/鞋子尺碼比”以及“銷售/咖啡杯乘數”？（后兩種指標是我編的，但你明白我的意思。）

And here lies the rub. Partly to justify their existence, analysts have dreamt up a confusing array of investment ratios. Are you an enterprise value/earnings before interest taxation depreciation and amortisation kinda guy or more of a price/earnings ratio investor? And why not use the asset/shoe size ratio and the sale/coffee cups multiplicator? (The last two are made up but you get my drift).

    多謝ING駐香港的馬克斯•羅斯根(Markus Rosgen)，他搜索了大約7000家亞洲公司13年的數據，以確定最佳估價指標。最后，獲勝者是……股本回報率(ROE)，即公司稅后收入除以其帳面價值得出的數字。簡言之，股本回報率是衡量公司能從股東投入的資本中榨出多少利潤的指標。

Thankfully, Markus Rosgen of ING in Hong Kong has trawled through 13 years of data for some 7,000 Asian companies to determine which valuation yardstick is the best. The winner is . . . return on equity. This is the company's after-tax income divided by its book value. In simpler parlance, ROE is a measure of how much profit the company can squeeze out of what its shareholders have put in.

    據ING稱，假如你在1990年投資股本回報率最高的那10%的亞洲公司，那你平均每年的投資收益就已超過股市11.5%。

Had you invested in the 10 per cent of Asian companies with the highest ROE in 1990, you would have outperformed the market by an average 11.5 per cent per year, according to ING.

    從中可以得出兩個重要結論。首先，與人們的普遍觀點相反，亞洲公司并不都是只顧試圖推高銷售額以“獲取增長”，而不管公司利潤。

Two important conclusions can be drawn from this. First, contrary to popular perception, Asian companies do not all "chase growth" by trying to boost sales regardless of profits.

    其實，股市表現較好的公司往往是注重盈利能力的公司。這個論點已得到事實的支持：在過去13年中，每股收益增長率最高的公司，其股票表現平均超過股市10%。見www.ft.com/markets/europe的Europe stocks專欄。

In fact, the companies that do better on the stock market are the ones focusing on profitability. This is See Europe stocks column at www.ft.com/markets/europe reinforced by the fact that companies with the highest growth in earnings per share have outperformed the market by 10 per cent on average for the past 13 years.

    第二個經驗是，在亞洲，某些估值指標對選股完全無益。

The second lesson is that some valuations are completely useless for picking Asian stocks.

    最近深受投資者歡迎的“企業價值/未計利息、稅項、折舊、攤銷前收益(ev/ebitda)”指標，并未躋身亞洲十大估值指標之列。該指標衡量一家公司的總“價值”與其盈利之比。在亞洲，股息收益率對選股似乎有作用，但只限于熊市。該指標通常用于區分成熟公司和高增長公司。

A recent favourite among investors, ev/ebitda - which compares the overall "value" of a company to its earnings - does not make the top ten of Asian valuations. Dividend yield - normally used to distinguish between mature and high growth companies - seems to work in Asia but only in bear markets.

    其它策略也不太奏效，如年復一年的“追漲殺跌”，因為亞洲地區的股市易于波動，常在牛市期與熊市期之間劇烈搖擺。

Other strategies, such as "buying the winners" year after year are also not very good because the region is prone to volatile markets and sharp swings between bull and bear periods.

    一些較常見的指標對選股有一定作用，如市盈率和市價對賬面價值比等，但股本回報率仍居亞洲股市指標之冠。

More familiar yardsticks, such as the price/earnings ratio, and price to book value do not fare badly but ROE is still king in Asia.

    那么，這對投資者意味著什么呢？如果羅斯根先生的結論正確，那么投資者應集中投資于香港/中國大陸、臺灣和韓國股市，因為股本回報率最高的公司在這些地區。投資者還應集中投資于周期性消費股和科技股等板塊。

So what does that mean for investors? If Mr Rosgen is right, investors should concentrate on Hong Kong/China, Taiwan and South Korea, home to the companies with the highest ROE. They should concentrate on sectors such as consumer cyclicals and technology.

    對那些喜歡而且可以賣空的投資者來說，還有一個更好的策略。把股票按每股盈利增長高低歸類，股價表現最佳與最差表現之間的差距最大。在這種情況下，買進高盈利股票，同時賣空利潤增長緩慢的股票便可獲利。

For those who like, and are allowed, to short stocks, there is an even better strategy. The gap between the best and worst share price performances is biggest in the earnings-per-share growth category. It pays to buy the stocks with high earnings and short the ones with sluggish profit growth.

    對于我們這些把賣空作為炎炎夏日下時尚點綴的投資者而言，一大誘惑是買進股本回報率高的股票，并決定用所得收益預定去毛里求斯某個度假勝地的旅行。

For those of us who think of shorts as fashion accessories on a hot summer day, the temptation is to buy ROE and decide which resort in the Mauritius to book with the gains.

    唯一的問題是，在金融市場上，歷史決不會完全重演。要明確股本回報率今后是否仍像過去一樣高，唯一的方法是跟蹤股本回報率高的股票的表現。

The only problem is that, in financial markets, the past never quite repeats itself. The only way to find out whether ROE is as good in the future as it has been in the past is to track the performance of stocks with a high ROE.

    在最近一次統計中，亞洲有5家公司的股本回報率最高。它們是韓國在線游戲開發商Webzen、中國電池生產商比亞迪(BYD)、馬來西亞建筑集團UEM World及臺灣兩家集團——芯片生產商宏碁(Acer)和電腦零部件集團廣明光電(Quanta Storage)。

At the last count, five companies had the best ROE in Asia - South Korea's online game developer Webzen, the Chinese battery maker BYD, the Malaysian construction conglomerate UEM World, and the Taiwanese groups Acer, a chip maker, and Quanta Storage, a computer parts group.

    讓我們3月底再見。屆時，全年業績報告、現金流和資產負債表將告訴我們，用股本回報率選股是否優于可信的投飛鏢選股法。

Let's reconvene at the end of March, when we will have full year results, cash flow and balance sheet statements and see if ROE is better than a trusty dart-board.

    譯者/江潔