What do the Indonesian stockmarket, South Korean government bonds and Robinhood, an online broker, have in common? Not much, you might think. But over the past year investors in all three have quivered(颤抖，战栗) before the same phenomenon: the awesome power(巨大的威力) of financial indices.
印尼股市、韩国国债和在线券商Robinhood有什么共同点？你可能觉得没多少。但过去一年，这三者的投资者都在同一现象面前颤抖：金融指数的巨大威力。
The largest of these now exert a tidal pull(潮汐般的拉力) on markets. As of 2025, around $36trn-worth of capital was in passive investment funds. These automatically track decisions by MSCI, FTSE Russell, S&P Global and the like to determine what to buy, and how much. Many trillions more are supposedly invested actively, but by “closet index-huggers(隐藏的指数追随者)”—timid managers who fear straying(偏离，走离) too far from their benchmarks.
其中最大的指数如今对市场施加着潮汐般的拉力。截至2025年，约36万亿美元的资金处于被动投资基金中。这些基金自动跟踪MSCI、富时罗素、标普全球等机构的决定，以确定买什么、买多少。还有数万亿美元据称是主动投资，但由'隐藏的指数追随者'——那些害怕偏离基准太远的胆怯经理人——管理。
Ironically, all this has given rise to a strategy based on discretion and guesswork. Hedge funds and other traders try to surf ahead of the wave(冲在浪潮之前) of portfolio rebalancing generated by indices changing their weights. Some corkers(惊人事件，大事件) are on the horizon(即将来临，在地平线上), with buzzy and enormous firms such as SpaceX and Anthropic expected to list their shares in the coming months, and to join stockmarket indices soon after. Sadly, making money from such events is getting harder.
讽刺的是，这一切催生了一种基于自由裁量和猜测的策略。对冲基金和其他交易者试图冲在指数权重变动引发的投资组合再平衡浪潮之前。一些令人兴奋的大事件即将到来，SpaceX和Anthropic等热门巨头预计将在未来几个月上市，并很快加入股市指数。可惜的是，从这类事件中赚钱正变得越来越难。