Smart money is the capital that is being controlled by institutional investors, market mavens, central banks, funds, and other financial professionals. Smart money was originally a gambling term that referred to the wagers made by gamblers with a track record of success.

“聪明钱”是由机构投资者、市场专家、央行、基金和其他金融专业人士控制的资本。“聪明钱”最初是一个赌博术语，指的是有成功下注的赌徒进行的下注。

Understanding Smart Money

理解“聪明钱”

Smart money is cash invested or wagered by those considered experienced, well informed, "in-the-know," or all three. There is little empirical evidence to support the notion that smart-money investments perform better than non-smart-money investments; however, such influxes of cash influence many speculation methods.

所谓“聪明钱”，是指那些经验丰富、消息灵通、“熟识”的人用现金进行的投资或下注。几乎没有实证证据支持这样一种观点，即“聪明钱”投资比“不聪明钱”投资表现更好；然而，这种现金流入影响了许多投机方法。

The term, "smart money" comes from gamblers that had a deep knowledge of the sport they were betting on or insider knowledge that the public was unable to tap into. The investing world is similar. The populace perceives that the smart money is invested by those with a fuller understanding of the market or with information that a regular investor cannot access. As such, the smart money is considered to have a much better chance of success when the trading patterns of institutional investors diverge from retail investors.

“聪明钱”这个词源于赌徒，他们对参与的赌博活动有着深厚的了解，或者说拥有公众无法触及的内幕消息。投资界也是如此。普通人认为，明智的投资者对市场有更全面的了解，或者掌握了普通投资者无法获得的信息。因此，在机构投资者和散户的交易模式出现分歧时，“聪明钱”投资被认为更容易成功。

Smart money also refers to the collective force of big money that can move markets. In this context, the central bank is the force behind smart money, and individual traders are riding the coattails of the smart money.

“聪明钱”也指的是能够推动市场的大资金的集体力量。在这种背景下，央行就是聪明钱背后的力量，个人交易员则搭上了聪明钱的便车。

In the context of gambling, smart money refers to those who earn a living on their bets; many gamblers use historical mathematical algorithms to decide how much and on what to wager.

在赌博的背景下，“聪明钱”是指那些靠他们的赌注谋生；许多赌徒使用历史数学算法来决定赌多少和赌什么。

Identifying Smart Money

识别“聪明钱”

Conventional wisdom holds that insiders and informed speculators typically invest more, so it should follow that smart money is sometimes identified by greater-than-usual trading volume, particularly when little or no public data exists to justify the volume. However, very little evidence exists to confirm that widely-held suspicion.

传统观点认为，内部人士和消息灵通的投机者通常会加大投资。因此，聪明的投资者有时会通过高于正常水平的交易量来判断，尤其是在公共数据不足以证明交易量的情况下。然而，几乎没有证据可以证实这种广泛持有的怀疑。

One source of information that is generated almost exclusively by more informed market participants is the pricing of stock and index options. Such information is complex and confusing to untrained investors and traders so it naturally serves, and is used, by a more informed set of market participants. Knowing who the holders are of smart money and where they are investing can be of great benefit to retail investors who want to ride the coattails of smart money investors.

几乎完全由更知情的市场参与者产生的一个信息来源是股票和指数期权的定价。这些信息对未经培训的投资者和交易员来说既复杂又令人困惑，因此它们自然会为更多知情的市场参与者服务和使用。了解哪些人是“聪明钱”的持有者，以及他们将在哪里投资，对于希望搭“聪明钱”投资者便车的散户投资者而言，将大有裨益。

Some data providers use various methods and data sources to group transaction data from commercial and non-commercial traders. One such source is known as the Commitment of Traders (COT) report. This data is published weekly by by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).Many analysts use this information to divide futures trading activity into actions being taken by better-informed investors. Any such "smart money versus dumb money" chart study should emphasize the recognizable differences in how the two groups position themselves in the market.

一些数据提供者使用各种方法和数据源对来自商业和非商业交易者的交易数据进行分组。其中一个来源就是交易员承诺(COT)报告。这一数据由商品期货交易委员会(CFTC)每周公布。许多分析师利用这些信息将期货交易活动划分为消息更灵通的投资者正在采取的行动。任何这样的“聪的钱和笨钱”的图表研究都应该强调这两个群体如何在市场中定位自己的可识别的差异。

However, chart readers should be aware that a chart study that labels price action as smart money or dumb money is prone to invalid characterizations. Not every investing action can relay the investors' intent through the price action alone. Additionally, returns of a given individual, and even most professional portfolio managers, are often unable match the returns of mechanical index investing over time.

然而，图表的读者应该意识到，如果一份图表研究将价格行为标注为“聪明钱”或“笨钱”，则很容易出现无效的特征描述。并非每一个投资行为都可以仅仅通过价格行为来传达投资者的意图。此外，随着时间的推移，给定个人的回报，甚至是最专业的投资组合经理的回报，往往无法匹配机械指数投资的回报。

The Scale of Smart Money

“聪明钱”的范围

Investors with large followings, such as Warren Buffett, are considered smart money investors, but the scale of their activities is not always taken into account. When the cash reserves at Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, accumulate and are not invested, this is definitely a sign that Buffett does not see many value opportunities in the market. However, Buffett functions on a different scale. A $25,000 investment is not too significant in a billion-dollar portfolio.

沃伦·巴菲特等拥趸众多的投资者被认为是精明的投资者，但他们的投资规模并不总是被考虑在内。当巴菲特旗下公司伯克希尔-哈撒韦的现金储备积累起来，但尚未用于投资时，这绝对表明巴菲特认为市场上没有多少价值投资机会。不过，巴菲特的作用有所不同。在一个10亿美元的投资组合中，25,000美元的投资并不太重要。

Buffett's smart money acquires companies rather than taking a position. Institutional investors of Buffett's size need scale for overall portfolio impact. Therefore, even when the smart money is out of value picks in the current market conditions, it does not mean that there are no opportunities—particularly for modestly sized stocks.

巴菲特的聪明钱是收购公司，而不是持仓。像巴菲特这样规模的机构投资者，需要规模来影响整体投资组合。因此，即使在当前市场条件下，这些聪明钱没有进入价值选择范畴，也并不意味着没有机会，特别是对于中等规模的股票。

Dumb Money vs. Smart Money

笨钱 vs. 聪明钱

Average individual investors who trade money are often shoved under the “dumb money” umbrella. If you fall into this category, try not to take offense. The terms “dumb money” and “smart money” were coined by the financial media, not to insult anyone’s intelligence, but to describe different groups of investors.

进行货币交易的普通个人投资者往往被纳入“笨钱”范畴。如果你属于这一类，尽量不要生气。金融媒体创造了“笨钱”和“聪明钱”这两个词，并不是为了贬低任何人的智慧，而是为了描述不同的投资群体。

Big institutional investors and mutual fund companies are labeled “smart money.” These investors have somewhat of an unfair advantage over your run-of-the-mill individual investor. Armed with teams of experienced investment analysts, “smart money” investors can evaluate exactly what’s going on in the market, allowing them to make more informed investment decisions. This does not necessarily mean they always make smart decisions—in fact, plenty of them make bad trades from time to time. They simply have access to valuable information that allows them to make a more educated choice.

大型机构投资者和共同基金公司都被贴上了“聪明钱”的标签。相对于普通的个人投资者，这些投资者拥有一些不公平的优势。有了经验丰富的投资分析师团队作后盾，“精明的投资者”就能准确地评估市场动态，从而做出更明智的投资决策。这并不一定意味着他们总能做出明智的决定——事实上，很多人有时会做出糟糕的交易。他们只是能够接触到有价值的信息，从而做出一个受教育程度更高的选择。

On the other hand, the average investor generally does not have the time, experience, or patience to methodically analyze corporate reports or the global economy. Because these investors don’t have access to teams of analysts or carefully compiled data, they often make trades based on instinct or a gut feeling. Consequently, the “dumb money” group tends to buy and sell investments at the worst possible time. They buy stocks when prices are on the rise and sell those stocks when prices start to decline. For the average investor, the stocks they buy go on to underperform, and the stocks they sell go on to perform very well. Perhaps this is why average investors' portfolios typically earn 1% to 2% less than the average mutual fund.

另一方面，普通投资者通常没有时间、经验或耐心来系统地分析公司报告或全球经济。由于这些投资者无法联系到分析师团队或经过仔细编辑的数据，他们往往凭本能或直觉进行交易。因此，“笨钱”群体倾向于在最坏的情况下买卖投资。他们在股价上涨时买入股票，在股价开始下跌时卖出。对普通投资者来说，他们买入的股票会一直表现不佳，卖出的股票会一直表现得非常好。也许这就是为什么普通投资者的投资组合的回报率通常比普通共同基金低1%到2%。

英文来源：Investopedia