Will the down market never end For months, policy makers around the world have tried bailouts, interest rates cuts, anything they could think of, really, to bring global markets out of their deepening depression. Once in a while, the markets do move up — only to fall again. Nothing seems to work for long.

股市跌跌不休，伊于胡底？數月來，全球決策人士已經試過他們所能想到的任何對策，包括紓困和降息，希望幫助全球市場走出日益惡化的經濟蕭條陰影。股市時而上揚，但有如曇花一現，很快又挫落。似乎沒什麼長期有效的對策。

Perhaps there's a reason that every-one has overlooked: hormones. If a research paper published earlier this year is correct, traders have become prisoners of their endocrine systems — testosterone, the elixir of male aggres-siveness, during a bull market; cortisol, a steroid that helps the body deal with stress, when the bears take over.

或許大家都忽略了其中一個理由：荷爾蒙作祟。如果今年稍早發表的一項研究報告屬實，當牛市沖天股價上揚時，股市交易員已經受制於內分泌系統中的睪丸素這個雄性侵略性的萬靈丹。反之，當熊市低掃股價下殺時，則受制於可以幫助身體對抗壓力的體內內源性類固醇皮質素（或可體松）。

The study suggests that raging hor-mones might explain why the men who rule the global markets send them rocketing up when they're on a roll, and swooping down when they get scared. One investment strategist intuitively grasped the situation when he recently told The New York Times: "Normally markets are driven by fear and greed. Now it's fear and fear." In other words, instead of a rhythm of testosterone alternating with cortisol, it's been cortisol and more cortisol for weeks. Actually there was a step in between — greed and greed, the bubble period. That's when traders were making a lot of money, which made them pump out extra testosterone, grow overconfi-dent and overcompetitive, and take on more and more risks that eventu-ally went bust.

研究指出，活躍的荷爾蒙足以解釋，為什麼掌控全球股市的男人在股市熱頭上會把股票炒高，而當他們擔心恐懼時，股市就會急殺。一名投資策略專家全憑直覺掌控股市走勢，他最近告訴紐約時報：「股市通常被恐懼和貪婪左右。如今則除了恐懼，還是恐懼。」換言之，現在已經不再是睪丸素和皮質素規律的交互作用，數周來除了可體松，還是更多可體松在起作用。事實上，其間有個泡沫成形期，就是貪婪和貪婪交互作用。這時交易員大賺一票，這又促使他們分泌更多睪丸素，變得過分自信、競爭性太強，所冒的風險愈來愈大，終至崩盤破產。

Now, in their funk, the lingering presence of cortisol makes them irra-tionally fearful, negative and risk a-verse.

現在，他們有如驚弓之鳥，皮質素可體松在體內作祟，逗留不去，使他們變得不理性的害怕、否定和不敢冒險。

John M. Coates, a former trader who is now a senior research fellow in neuroscience and finance at the Uni-versity of Cambridge, and a colleague, Joseph Herbert, laid it all out in the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Measuring steroid levels of traders in the City of London, they demonstrat-ed that successful traders were heavily influenced during market booms by a positive feedback loop fueled by in-creased levels of testosterone.

這項由寇茲和他同事赫伯特所共同進行的研究發表於美國《國家科學研究院學報》，寇茲過去是股市交易員，目前則是劍橋大學神經科學與金融資深研究員。他們測量倫敦股市交易員的類固醇含量，結果顯示，成功的交易員在股市大漲時深受睪丸素水平激升所形成的正回饋圈影響。

It's akin, Coates says, to the "win-ner's effect" among male athletes, in which successive victories push testosterone levels higher and higher, giving the winner an advantage — until he begins to misjudge risk and take stupid chances. "Testosterone doesn't create bubbles, but it exag-gerates them," Coates said. "It's possi-ble that bubbles are a male phe-nomenon."

寇茲表示，這類似男運動員的「贏家效應」，也就是連續獲勝可以推促睪丸素水平越來越高，使贏家占優勢，直到他誤判風險，抓錯時機。「睪丸素不會製造泡沫，但會使泡沫變大，」寇茲說。「泡沫很可能是一種男性現象。」

Likewise, when markets tumble, traders are stressed out by the uncer-tainty and volatility and produce a lot of cortisol; they fall into a negative feedback loop that turns them into e-motional fear-mongers, rather than analytical thinkers. So they're now prolonging and deepening the market plunge, and dragging down the e-conomy.

同理，當股市慘跌時，交易員感受到股市不確定性和劇烈動盪，並因而產生大學皮質素，他們就掉入負回饋圈中，使他們變成情緒化的驚弓之鳥，到處散布利空消息，而不再是有思考能力的分析師。因此他們如今徒然延長和深化股市跌幅，拖垮經濟。

With markets swinging scarily from one day to the next — up 800, down 350, down 400, up 250 and so on — traders have become bundles of duel-ing hormones.

隨著股市令人驚恐的一天天擺盪，狂漲800點，下跌350點，再暴跌400點，又上揚250點，周而復始，交易員已經變成兩股互相對決的荷爾蒙。

Though Dr. Coates hasn't studied it yet, he said "it's possible" that testos-terone-fueled competitiveness may even have driven investment bankers to be ever more creative in inventing the risky, complex securities designed to deliver more leverage and better returns. They got so creative that few people understood their risks.

雖然寇茲博士尚未仔細研究，但他表示，睪丸素所激發的競爭力「有可能」促使投資銀行家更有創意，從而發明風險高但複雜的債券，可以創造更大的優勢和利潤。他們因為很有創意，所以很少人了解其中的風險。

Jonathan D. Cohen, director of the neuroscience program at Princeton, said, "This is intriguing, but correla-tion is not causation. That's the first thing we learn in science."

普林斯頓大學神經科學計畫主任柯恩說：「這的確很有意思，但相關性不等於因果關係。這是我們在科學中所學到的第一課。」

Still, Dr. Bruce McEwen, head of the neuroendocrinology lab of Rockefeller University, said "it's kind of exciting." "Who knows," he asked, "what other hormones are doing as well There's a lot we don't know, because people don't think about hormones in this context, but this is an aspect we have to consider."

但洛克斐勒大學神經內分泌學實驗室負責人麥凱文博士表示，「這還頗令人興奮的」。「天知道」他問道，「還有其他什麼荷爾蒙也在起作用？還有很多我們未知的領域，因為一般人不會從這個脈絡去思考荷爾蒙，但這是我們要考量的。」

Women, Dr. Coates explained, have only about 10 percent of the testosterone men have; their judgment is not bollixed by it. He said he also suspected that women were less likely to produce excess cortisol. So he ad-vised getting "more women and older men on trading floors."

寇茲並解釋說，女人的睪丸素大約只有男人的10%，她們的判斷較不易毀於睪丸素。他表示，他懷疑女人也比較不可能產生過量皮質素，因此他建議「請更多女人和年長的男人上場交易。」

There's a lesson in this, too, for central bankers. "This explains why bubbles and crashes are beyond the control of central banks," Dr. Coates said, and they should recognize that male traders simply don't respond ra-tionally to their pricing signals. And maybe they should add more women to the mix, too.

中央銀行也可從中汲取教訓。「這足以解釋為什麼泡沫和崩盤非央行所能控制，」寇茲說，他們也應認清，男交易員就是無法對股價訊息作出理性回應，也許他們也應增加女交易員。（取材自紐約時報）

【詞解】

endocrine systems 內分泌系統
testosterone 睪丸素
steroid 類固醇
elixir of male aggressiveness 雄性侵略性的萬靈丹
cortisol 皮質素可體松
rocketing up 炒高
on a roll 在熱頭上
bubble period 泡沫形成期
go bust 破產崩盤
in funk 在畏縮恐懼中
risk averse 不敢冒險
positive feedback loop 正回饋圈
negative feedback loop 負回饋圈
winner's effect 贏家效應
fear-mongers 驚弓之鳥
intriguing 有意思
correlation 相關性
causation 因果關係
neuroendocrinology神經內分泌學
in this context在這個脈絡中
bollixed 毀損