????高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)正面臨前所未有的壓力。由于資本市場風聲鶴唳、交易環(huán)境糟糕，普遍預計這兩家金融公司近期將公布疲弱的三季度業(yè)績。花旗集團(Citigroup)分析師預計高盛將公布三季度虧損——果真如此，那將是高盛上市以來的第二個虧損季度。

????然而，三季度業(yè)績還不是這兩家公司最大的麻煩。未來幾個月將出臺的新法規(guī)很可能會砍掉它們大塊的利潤——特別是爭議不斷的沃爾克法則(Volcker Rule)。盡管沃爾克法則的細節(jié)仍在討論中，但這項法規(guī)對兩家公司凈利潤的長期影響可能是破壞性的。如果這兩家銀行找不出法律的空子，保住賺錢的經(jīng)紀交易業(yè)務(wù)，它們未來將面臨一個無奈的選擇——保留，還是放棄銀行控股公司的身份。

????沃爾克法則首份草案周二向公眾發(fā)布。草案長達298頁，對華爾街最神秘的一個領(lǐng)域提出了很多問題和評論。

????沃爾克法則2009年由美國總統(tǒng)奧巴馬（Obama）提出，目的是降低金融系統(tǒng)風險。這項法則是多德-弗蘭克（Dodd-Frank）金融監(jiān)管法案的一部分，將削弱銀行以自有資金進行交易和投資的能力，以保護儲戶免受高額的交易損失。法則禁止銀行持有和投資私募股權(quán)基金和對沖基金，并強制要求銀行壓縮大量經(jīng)紀交易業(yè)務(wù)。

????法則對大型銀行的影響很大。法則要求它們關(guān)閉各類高毛利中心，專注于相對安全和低毛利的業(yè)務(wù)。法則還禁止銀行參與可能導致銀行和客戶間“嚴重利益沖突”的交易計劃，以有效遏制銀行提前下單或違背客戶指令反向操作的行為。雖然并購、企業(yè)上市等核心投行業(yè)務(wù)安然無恙，但所有交易類業(yè)務(wù)都可能被取締。

????草案初稿規(guī)定了例外情況，允許銀行保留做市活動，以便幫助客戶對沖頭寸風險，以及維持市場流動性。但要參與做市活動，銀行必須買賣證券，承擔一定的風險。很多人擔心銀行會將所有的自營交易活動都歸為做市活動，以維持業(yè)務(wù)正常運行。

????但是政府很清楚這個風險，而且高度重視這個問題。事實上，草案大部分筆墨都著眼于此。一項提議法規(guī)將要求銀行公布所有用于做市活動的交易計劃。它要求銀行證明沒有參與證券短期轉(zhuǎn)售，也沒有通過套利或?qū)_交易從任何實際或短期價格波動中獲利。

????那么，關(guān)鍵就在于執(zhí)行了。監(jiān)管機構(gòu)不一定要抓住每一筆偽裝為做市活動的自營交易。幾次違規(guī)受到高額罰款，就會給企業(yè)利潤率造成很大壓力，迫使這些公司最終執(zhí)行法律精神。

??? 沃爾克法則的審議對銀行業(yè)來說來得很不是時候。當前，世界經(jīng)濟充滿了不確定性，美國銀行業(yè)的高毛利資本市場活動陷入了困境。第三季度全球IPO募資額同比減少49%，全球宣布的并購交易數(shù)量同比減少了19%。數(shù)據(jù)服務(wù)提供商Dealogic的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，第三季度全球投行營收預計環(huán)比將減少37%。

????Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are facing headwinds like never before. The two financial firms are widely expected to post weak third quarter earnings in the coming days thanks to the spooked capital markets and sour trading environment. Analysts at Citigroup now predict Goldman will report a loss for the quarter -- it would be only its second quarter in the red since becoming a public company.

????But the third quarter should be the least of their worries. New regulations are set to roll out in the coming months that threaten to kill off a large chunk of their profits -- most notably, the controversial Volcker Rule. While the specifics of the Volcker Rule are still being debated, the long-term impact on the firms' bottom line could be quite damaging. If the banks fail to engineer satisfactory loopholes to protect their profitable broker-dealer operations, they will then face a daunting choice – to be or not to be a bank holding company.

????The first draft of the proposed Volcker Rule was released to the public on Tuesday. At 298 pages, the draft rule is full of questions and comments regarding one of the most esoteric corners of Wall Street.

????The Volcker Rule was proposed by President Obama in 2009 as a way of mitigating risk in the financial system. The rule, which was folded into the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill, would limit a bank's ability to trade and invest its own capital in an effort to shield their depositors from potentially large trading losses. Banks would be barred from owning and investing in private equity and hedge funds and would be forced to curtail many of their broker-dealer operations.

????The implications are significant for the large banks. The rule forces them to shut down a variety of high margin profit centers and focus on safer, lower margin businesses. It would also bar them from engaging in trading schemes that would be considered to be a "material conflict of interest," between the bank and its customers, effectively ending the banks' ability to front run or bet against their client's orders. While core investment banking operations, like deal-making and taking companies public, would be spared, anything in the trading realm could be up for elimination.

????The original rule made exceptions that allowed banks to keep their market-making activities in order to help their clients hedge their positions and maintain liquidity in the markets. But to engage in market-making, a bank must take on a certain amount of risk by buying up and selling securities. Many fear that the banks will just lump all their proprietary trading activities under the market-making exception to allow business to go on as normal.

????But the government is well aware of that risk and appears to be taking it very seriously. In fact, the majority of the draft is spent on this very topic. One proposed rule would force the banks to report any trading plan used for market making activities. It would require the banks to prove that they were not engaging in a short-term resale of a security and also prove that they were not benefitting from any actual or short-term price movements through trading arbitrage or hedging.

????It would then all come down to enforcement. The regulators don't have to catch every prop trade disguised as a market-making trade. Hefty fines for just a few violations will eventually squeeze the profit margin of the business, forcing the firms to eventually comply with the spirit of the law.

????Discussion of the Volcker Rule couldn't have come at a worse time for the banks. High margin capital markets activity at the big U.S. banks has hit a snag amid uncertainty in the world economy. The amount of money raised in IPOs in the third quarter globally was down 49% from the same time last year, while the number of mergers and acquisitions announced globally were down 19%. Global investment banking revenue is expected to fall 37% in the third quarter compared with the previous quarter, according to Dealogic.