Financial derivatives: Thy name is mud.

金融衍生工具：你的名字叫泥潭。

Hong Kong's investors are in a panic over the damage that sophisticated investment products might cause to the companies using them to manage exposure to foreign currency.

香港投资者对这些复杂投资产品可能会给用其管理外汇头寸的公司造成的损失感到恐慌。

It isn't entirely unwarranted, but it does highlight just how little faith investors have in governance at companies that may have a perfectly reasonable need for these contracts.

这种恐慌并非毫无根据，但这却凸显出：对有充分理由从事此类交易的企业，投资者对其公司治理的信心已脆弱到了何种程度。

The panic comes after Hong Kong-listed Citic Pacific disclosed a possible $2 billion loss from bad bets on the Australian dollar.

恐慌的始作俑者是，在香港上市的中信泰富(Citic Pacific)披露因错误判断澳元走势可能亏损20亿美元。

That has shattered confidence in many of Citic Pacific's peers. One Hong Kong fund manager described the reaction by citing the cockroach theory: 'Where you see one, there's likely to be others.'

这摧毁了投资者对中信泰富的许多同行的信心。一位香港的基金经理引用“蟑螂理论”描述了这种反应：在你看到一只蟑螂的地方，可能还会有其它蟑螂。

Indeed there are. On Thursday, Hong Kong-listed China Railway Group and China Railway Construction separately disclosed losses on foreign-currency positions. These aren't small amounts -- $284 million and nearly $47 million, respectively. Shares of both fell.

的确如此。周四，在香港上市的中国中铁(China Railway Group)和中国铁建(China Railway Construction)先后披露持有的外汇头寸出现了亏损，而且数额不小，分别是2.84亿美元和近4,700万美元。这两家公司的股票都出现了下跌。

As anyone familiar with the term 'collateralized debt obligation' knows, the mere notion that a company has entered into confusing derivative transactions is enough to spook investors.

任何熟悉债权抵押证券(collateralized debt obligation)一词的人都清楚，仅仅是公司达成晦涩难懂的衍生交易的消息就足以令投资者感到恐慌。