Business Channel 2007-05-19&21

The numbers are staggering, the Shanghai Composite, China's main stock exchange up more than 50% this year alone, on top of a 130% increase last year, the benchmark index passing a record 4000 last week. A buying frenzy¹ fueled by small-time investors² like retiree Yang Yongbiao. Every morning just as the market opens she checks her portfolio³. "This is a good stock"she tells me, "I've made quite a lot of money."

She is just one of almost a hundred million Chinese who now have their own stock trading account. "Chinese living standards are improving. We have extra money to invest now. Once we didn't even have enough to eat." She says.

Yang knows there are risks. The Shanghai Composite plummeted⁴ 9% in one day last February, the biggest fall in a decade, sending shockwave from New York to Mumbai. Officials here are worried there could be much worse to come, warning of a bubble, urging investors to be cautious.

It is almost purely⁵ a speculative⁶ market, and that means that volatility⁷ is going to be greater in China than in say the US or Europe or other developed markets.

Even so in dollar value, more shares are now being traded on the Chinese Stock Exchange each day than anywhere else in Asia including Japan.

For a growing number of Chinese with spare cash, it seems the lure⁸ of the booming stock market is hard to resist, especially when banks are offering low interest rates on savings⁹ and tough government regulations make it difficult to invest overseas.
And for now that means Chinese shares could continue to defy gravity.
John Vause, CNN, Beijing.

1 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

2 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

3 portfolio   

n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位

参考例句：

• He remembered her because she was carrying a large portfolio.他因为她带着一个大公文包而记住了她。
• He resigned his portfolio.他辞去了大臣职务。

4 plummeted   

v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Share prices plummeted to an all-time low. 股票价格暴跌到历史最低点。
• A plane plummeted to earth. 一架飞机一头栽向地面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

6 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

7 volatility   

n.挥发性，挥发度，轻快，（性格）反复无常

参考例句：

• That was one reason why volatility was so low last year.这也是去年波动性如此低的原因之一。
• Yet because volatility remained low for so long,disaster myopia prevailed.然而，由于相当长的时间里波动性小，灾难短视就获胜了。

8 lure   

n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
• He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。

9 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。