词汇大师-- The Long and Short of Cornering the Market

　　I'm Adam Phillips for WORDMASTER, sitting in for Roseanne Skirble and Avi Arditti. Today we look at the jargon¹ of international finance. With giant American corporations leading the drive toward the globalization of business, English has become the de facto international language of finance.

　　SALIH NEFTCI: "Financial market terminology² is only in English. If you don't speak English, you basically cannot do it."
That's financial economics professor Salih Neftci, who is designing a groundbreaking new program in Global Finance for the New School in New York City. Like English itself, Neftci is all over the globe, with teaching and other responsibilities in China, the United States and Europe.
SALIH NEFTCI: "Even if you speak French, Spanish, German or Mandarin³ - which are great languages! - finance is only English. It's actually very mundane⁴ English. It's not going to make you look like a very big intellectual. But it has its purpose and it works. The purpose is to make money the best way. The notion of hedging, for example."
Hedging, Neftci explains, is what banks and other businesses do to offset⁵ the risk that the price of their asset will rise or fall contrary to their wishes. Nefcti notes that financiers often take seemingly contrary positions to protect their assets.
SALIH NEFTCI: "A position is a bet. I bet that the oil price will go up. So I bought oil. Now I look at the conditions. It doesn't look that good. It's best to get out before your losses accumulate. Then you unwind the position. That's what means: unwind the position. Make the position reverse, and get out of your commitment."
It all depends on whether investors⁶ are facing a bull market or a bear market. A bull market is a sustained period in which investment prices rise higher than their historical average. A bear market means investment prices are lower. Of course one can diversify⁷ one's strategy -- that is, spread out one's risks. A bearish⁸ spread is one that bets that the price of a security will decline, and a bullish spread is a bet that the price will rise.
A butterfly spread mixes both bull and bear. Whichever strategy is adopted, Salih Nefcti says financial people don't usually engage in punting.
SALIH NEFTCI: "You think [for example that] oil prices are going up [and] you buy oil. That's punting. You just take pure speculation⁹. Usually they don't do that. They buy something; they sell something. For example, they're buying Indian stocks [and] they are selling Chinese stocks. They can either do it with cash, or they can do it just by positioning themselves, which is long-short. So I am long India, I am short China.'"
Long and short are specialized¹⁰ forms of buying and selling.
SALIH NEFTCI: "Suppose you think something is going up, some asset like stocks. There are two ways to do it. You put your hand in your pocket, and get the money. You give your money. You get the asset. Going long is not that.
"Going long is, I go to a broker¹¹ and say 'I will buy it in one month.' I sign the contract; I don't even put the deposit [down], but I committed myself. If during this one month the value goes up, I don't even have to buy it. I just sort of agree on getting the difference in the price. 'Long' and 'short,' these are very quick words, but that is why it is useful. Because it is very practical."
The future will always be an abstraction until it becomes the present. At the end of the day, world agricultural markets still deal with down-to-earth physical things that we depend on or enjoy. Finding that balance between future possibilities and present realities can help a financier to corner the market in some so-called soft commodities like sugar, salt, cotton or coffee.
SALIH NEFTCI: "Cornering the market means I went on the market, I got promises from people to deliver to me something, say coffee, at the same time I bought all the physical coffee. Notice I am buying the promise, but I am also buying the coffee. So when it the time comes to deliver, they're not going to be able to find it. And then coffee prices will go up and I am the one who is holding coffee, so I benefit. It's illegal in America. If the feds nail you [charge you] with that, well, it's going to be pretty bad."
Indeed, like international finance itself, the specialized English terms used by the men and women who trade in the international marketplace are complex. However, Nefcti says that finance people like to keep it all very simple:
SALIH NEFTCI: "Unfortunately, financial markets have one dimension. They are not interested in losers. They are only interested in winners!"
Those are terms almost anyone can understand. For WORDMASTER, I'm Adam Phillips reporting from New York.

1 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

2 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

3 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

4 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

5 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

6 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

7 diversify   

v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化

参考例句：

• Our company is trying to diversify.我们公司正力图往多样化方面发展。
• Hills and woods diversify the landscape.山陵和树木点缀景色。

8 bearish   

adj.(行情)看跌的，卖空的

参考例句：

• It is foolish not to invest in stocks,so I will show her how to be bearish without them too,if she chooses.不投资股票是愚蠢的，因此如果她选择股票，我会向她展示怎样在没有长期潜力的情况下进行卖空。
• I think a bearish market must be a good time for bargain-hunters to invest.我觉得熊市对于想买低的人可是个投资的大好机会。

9 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

10 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

11 broker   

n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排

参考例句：

• He baited the broker by promises of higher commissions.他答应给更高的佣金来引诱那位经纪人。
• I'm a real estate broker.我是不动产经纪人。