商业报道:美股走势展望

This was yesterday after stocks looked like they were ganna rally at the beginning, there was some barginning hunting... at the begining and then those sub-prime mortgage worries kicked in once again, we seem to be in, in a bit of a perfect storm here a downward spiral, don’t we.

We do. I mean these markets are looking a little oversold at the moment, so you know hopefully we will see some stability set in, but there is an issue here that is troubling the markets and it really relates to the... you know the size of the write-offs that these banks might have to undertake, and the numbers are growing daily you know and I think that the concern in the market place is that they're very very large, it looks like they could be, that that would diminish the capacity of banks to lend, and if that happens they won’t be able to finance economic growth, and if that’s the case, then companies won’t make the money they have been making, and the stock market will weaken, and I think that's, to some extent where the stock market is really eh beginning to discount.

And there are a number of other factors playing into this, we got the high price of oil at the moment, a low, despite an easing of oil. Yesterday that didn’t come on wall street we've got the extremely weak dollars as well playing into this thing.

Well, the oil prices is a bother, you know but it was a bother everybody thought at 50 dollars and 60 dollars, I mean the pain threshold must be somewhere and what we had thought were fairly close. The dollar however... the weak dollar I think is a good thing, because the weak dollar enhances the competitive position of us companies in the global market place. And after all there're large areas of the global economy that are still quite strong like Asia. And here in Europe, it’s not as if we're, the background here is all that weak. Things are slowing but there still is a good deal of growth here, so the weakness of the dollar enhances the competitive position of the US economy and US companies, and so that in a sense is one of the plus factors at the moment.

But there is no doubt that the weak dollar is hurting particularly exporters here in Europe, I mean how long before international trade if you like begin to slow down because of the weak dollar.

Well I think that the key thing really is, certainly they are over here, it’s having the opposite impact that should be having in the US, but the important thing is that the American economy is still a big economy, and if it does slow or if we do enter a recession. Although, I am not sure that is yet on the cards, ok, ah, then a washback clearly will be felt here in Europe and the UK, but what that means is that the central banks will then have to respond to all of that. They will have to cut interest rates.I mean they just can’t stand by and watch the economy moving to a recession. We will see interest rates cut. And that will be good.

Yeah, you've got Ben Bernaky though, in a tricky² position at the moment, I mean he knows that he’s got a ...perhaps one more rate-cut up his sleeve that he can play, but by his own admission, inflationary pressures haven't gone away,have they. The underlying³ US economy is still pretty sound at the moment.

It is, there is a certain sturdiness there, and I think that there is a balancing act, but I think the other point is that if the bank really do have the sort of problems that the market senses they have, then what the central bank will want to avert⁴ is the kind of situation we saw in Japan where you know the banks went from difficulty into more difficulty they had lots of bad debts, they couldn’t finance economic activity and the central bank responded very slowly to all of this. And here we are ,17 years later still on the secular⁵ bear market in Japan and the economy is not performing all that well. So I think what the federal reserve will want to do is it will act fairly assertively⁶, and I think it's already given an indication of how it will respond after all it has cut interest rates by 75 basis points so far, and I think what it will say to us is that, look we may have a short-term problem here with inflation, but the longer-term problem is potentially disinflationary or even ultimately deflationary and therefore we are gonna have respond to it and deal with that more than the short-term prospect⁷ of inflation which in fact could be utimately disinflationary too, high inflation squeezes real disposable incomes, which in turn reduce spending powers. So you know it’s all pointing in the same direction, it's all pointing as if the... the way the central banks will have to respond to this is by cutting interest rates and I think that will eventually limit the downside to the stock markets.

Notes:

Something up one's sleeve: ften used in the forms the card up your sleeve or the ace¹ up your sleeve, meaning a secret advantage you can use.

1 ace   

n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的

参考例句：

• A good negotiator always has more than one ace in the hole.谈判高手总有数张王牌在手。
• He is an ace mechanic.He can repair any cars.他是一流的机械师,什么车都会修。

2 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

3 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

4 avert   

v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等)

参考例句：

• He managed to avert suspicion.他设法避嫌。
• I would do what I could to avert it.我会尽力去避免发生这种情况。

5 secular   

n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的

参考例句：

• We live in an increasingly secular society.我们生活在一个日益非宗教的社会。
• Britain is a plural society in which the secular predominates.英国是个世俗主导的多元社会。

6 assertively   

断言地，独断地

参考例句：

• Using the right body language helps you communicate more assertively. 使用正确的肢体语言会帮助你更有主张力的交流。
• Learning to communicate assertively involves learning to be honest, open and direct. 果敢自信的交往方式的学习包括做到为人诚实、坦率和直言不讳。

7 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。