英国新闻听力 股市跌盘（在线收听）

这究竟是一次常规的调整还是股市大地震的先兆呢？银行和建筑资金融资合作社由于采取激进措施而受到公众的谴责；信用卡的使用限制了超支消费；打着"建筑资金融资合作社"的牌子卷土重来的投机分子声称如果有谁买下或接管房产，他就会大发横财；价值5英镑的乐透彩票可以卖到8英镑。

注释：

1.blip n. 暂时现象，尤指短时间偏离正常 2.carpetbagger 投机家，冒险家 3.windfall n. 横财 4.index n. [数学]指数 5.strategist n. 战略家 6.rebound v. 回弹 7.inflationary adj. 通货膨胀的 8.Federal Reserve Board 联邦储备委员会 9.speculation n. 投机买卖 10.hedge funds 对冲基金 11.derivative n. 衍生产品 12.variance swaps 方差掉期 13.underlie vt. 成为……的基础 14.leverage n. 举债经营 15.accelerate v. 加速，促进 16.volatility n. 挥发性 17.deficit n. 赤字 18.cautious adj. 谨慎的 19.Ecuador n. 厄瓜多尔 20.centric adj. 中心的 21.adjustment n. 调整，调节 22.bull market 牛市 23.criteria n. 标准 24.ripple n. 波动

Market Tumble

LEWIS: Hello. In today's programme markets tumble in their worst week for years. A routine blip or something more serious? Banks and building societies are accused of sharp practice; the plastic card that lets you spend but not overspend; return of the carpetbaggers as a building society says new customers can get windfalls if it's bought or taken over; the ￡5 lottery ticket that can cost ￡8. And some Standard Life members will get more than ￡100,000 if enough vote for change. But first, share prices have tumbled in London and New York in the worst week for stock markets for several years. Here was the news on Wednesday.

HEADLINES: In the city, the 100 share index closed down 171 points at 5675. That was its biggest drop for almost 4 years. Every single stock in the 100 share index … (fades)

LEWIS: Falling share prices means of course that our pensions and investments are worth less now than they were in April. Overall the price of shares in the UK is down 8 to 10% in a month. We'll come back to the UK in a moment, but live first to New York to talk to Barry Hyman, market strategist at investment boutique EKN Financial. Hi Barry, you're just waking up Saturday morning there. How did the US markets close for you Friday?

HYMAN: It was a mixed day. We did try to rebound off of the very poor performance we had earlier in the week and the week before that where the decline of the market totalled almost 5?% to 6% from top to bottom. And we're going to try to make an attempt, we think, over the next week or so to do some rebound, but the more important picture to us is the reason why the market went down, which was inflationary pressures.

LEWIS: Inflationary pressures? Fears that inflation in the US is rising?

HYMAN: Yes it is. And we saw the CPR report, which was the report that stoked the fears. It was up 0.6%, much higher than expected, and even on the core it was higher - that "exes" out food and energy. This tells us that the Federal Reserve Board that meets every month or so to raise interest rates possibly, we think they have further to go which would eventually slow the economy down.

LEWIS: Right, so prices rising. The CPR - that's some price report, I think, isn't it? So the prices are rising and interest rates will follow and that depresses share prices. Is that your analysis?

HYMAN: That is the analysis. Usually if interest rates are going higher, then stock prices usually don't do very well.

LEWIS: Sure. I've been reading a lot though about speculation, about all these complex products traders are now using, which effectively are just bets on the future level of the market - hedge funds, derivatives and something called variance swaps, which was a new one to me. To what extent is this fall caused by speculators as much as the real economic conditions that underlie the economy in America?

HYMAN: Well we think it's the underlying economic condition, which is inflation becoming a bit more of a problem. But whenever you have derivative products, which is what you're speaking about, which carries a lot of leverage, which means you borrow money to make money, there is the risk that when a market turns, there's people caught on the wrong side. And indeed that always stokes the fuel - the fire rather - and I think that that could be the case this time. It's accelerated the decline.

LEWIS: Yes, so it increases the volatility, the up and down, and at the moment down. Future prospects though. As you say, inflation rising, interest rates possibly rising. And the US deficit of course - the amount the government spends over what it actually brings in - is absolutely vast, isn't it?

HYMAN: It is and it's a tough task, and we're surprised that the market has actually done this well. We came into the year a bit cautious and we remained that way and it is an inflationary story, it is a deficit story. But we've seen news in the last week or so about trade partners - Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Russia - all causing concerns to our potential local companies here that might be a problem, so we think it's a bigger problem. We do not see much of a big rally for the rest of the year. Maybe over the summer time a normal summer rally, but after that we think the market's going to have trouble again.

LEWIS: And more uncertainty ahead then. Barry Hyman in New York, thanks very much for talking to us that early in your morning. What about investors here though? Brian Dennehy of independent financial advisers Dennehy Weller is listening to that. Brian, two weeks of pretty steady falls here. Are we just following America down?

DENNEHY: No, I think it's more a global problem anyway. It's not really a US centric problem. This all began with Japan putting interest rates up a month or so ago, China symbolically putting rates up about a month ago, coupled with the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve suggesting that rates had gone far enough and no one believed him. So actually the seeds of what's happening now have been laid for some time.

LEWIS: And you've been predicting some kind of correction or adjustment, haven't you?

DENNEHY: Absolutely, over the last couple of months I mean we've been very clear on what we expected to happen both in the UK, which wasn't something we were worrying about although we were expecting, but we were probably more worried about the risks in commodities and emerging markets.

LEWIS: Yes, I mean certainly commodities, the price of copper and metal, we can't have missed the news on that. They've been rocketing up and then coming down rather sharply. But the UK economy itself is supposed to be fairly healthy, isn't it, and the earnings on shares, the return you get for buying shares is high. Now that implies to me share prices are too low and not due for further falls.

DENNEHY: Yeah, the most interesting thing about the last 3 years, perhaps until the last 2 weeks, is that there'd almost been a bull market by stealth because actually earnings have been rising faster than the stock market. So what that means is that the stock market on one criteria, one measure, is actually cheaper now than it was at the stock market bottom in March 2003.

LEWIS: And what should that tell us though? I mean should we really care? Is this going to affect our pensions and our savings?

DENNEHY: As a long-term feature, this is actually largely irrelevant to what's happened in the last couple of weeks. The falls we've seen so far are a little more than a ripple on the stock market pond and in fact we should expect something a little worse than this much more regularly. The last 3 years have been unusually calm.

LEWIS: And what should investors do? What have your investors been asking you about?

DENNEHY: In the last week, I think we've had a few calls. We did say to people look do expect this, so they weren't surprised, and one or two people rang and had some comfort from what we had to say. One or two clients undoubtedly did take profits because they saw that or they were aware that they needed to buy a house or retire in the next 6, 12 months, so took the opportunity to take their money out of the market. But on the whole there was no panicking at all.

LEWIS: Brian Dennehy from Dennehy Weller, thanks very much for talking to us.

股 市 跌 盘

路易斯：大家好。本期节目我们要讨论的是这周的股市跌盘情况，这次跌盘是近几年来最为严重的一次。这究竟是一次常规的调整还是股市大地震的先兆呢？银行和建筑资金融资合作社由于采取激进措施而受到公众的谴责；信用卡的使用限制了超支消费；打着"建筑资金融资合作社"的牌子卷土重来的投机分子声称如果有谁买下或接管房产，他就会大发横财；价值5英镑的乐透彩票可以卖到8英镑。而一些"标准人寿"公司的成员只要争取到足够的选票支持改革就能获得至少10万英镑的经费。但当务之急的是，本周伦敦和纽约的股票市场遭遇了几年以来最为严重的股价下跌。以下是周三的新闻。

新闻摘要：今天，这个城市有100种股票指数收盘于5675点，下跌171点。这是近4年来最严重的一次下跌。100种股票指数中的每支股票……（渐弱）

路易斯：下跌的股票价格当然意味着我们的退休金和各种投资比起4月份来都缩水了。总体上，英联邦的股票在1个月内下跌了8％至10％。我们随后再回到英联邦，现在让我们先接到纽约的现场，听听EKN金融的股市交易策略专家巴里·海曼的看法。你好，巴里，现在你那里是周六早晨，你应该才刚刚起床。周五美国股市的收盘情况怎么样？

海曼：应该说悲喜交加。从上周开始到本周早些时候，股市从最高点到最低点几乎跌去了5.5%到6%，所以周五我们努力让疲软的市场反弹。我们将在下周或未来一段时间内采取措施令股市反弹，但对我们而言，更重要的是股市下跌的原因――通货膨胀压力。

路易斯：通货膨胀压力？害怕美国的通货膨胀率上升吗？

海曼：是的。而且我们读到的CPR报告加剧了市场的恐慌。通货膨胀率高达0.6%，这远远超出我们的预计，而且在除去了食品和能源消费以后，核心部分的数字更高。这提示我们，联邦储备局在每月提出的报告中有可能加息。我们认为他们还要进一步努力以减缓经济发展的势头。

路易斯：是的，也同时减缓价格上涨的势头。CPR――我的理解是个价格报告，是吗？所以价格上涨，银行利率也随之上涨，导致股价下跌。这就是你的分析吗？

海曼：这就是我的分析。一般来说，如果利率上涨，股价就会不太尽如人意。

路易斯：当然。我读了大量的有关投机贸易的文章，了解到当前所有的复杂商品交易商所用的术语，如套头资金，衍生产品和一个我不知道的新名词――变异对冲，它们的有效运作全部依赖于股市将来的水平。你认为在这次股市下跌中，是投机商们造成的原因居多，还是由奠定美国经济基础的真实经济情况造成的原因居多呢？

海曼：嗯，我们认为是美国真正的经济条件造成的，其中通货膨胀已经成为比较严重的问题。但只要你有刚才提到的衍生产品，就是通过杠杆原理，用借来的钱去赚钱，这样在市场转向的时候，肯定会有风险存在，也就会有人被套牢。实际上，它常起到火上浇油的作用。我认为这次也是这种情况，它加速了市场的下跌。

路易斯：是的，所以它加剧了市场的上下波动，特别是在市场下跌的时候。但这只能是对未来的预测。据你所说，通货膨胀率上升，利率可能也随之上涨。当然美国的财政赤字，也就是政府支出超过政府所得的数目，肯定是非常巨大的，是吗？

海曼：是的，这是一个非常艰巨的任务，而令我们惊讶的是，市场将它处理的非常好。我们今年的操作比较小心，保持了原来的做法。这是关乎到通货膨胀的问题，关乎财政赤字的问题。但我们在上周的新闻中看到，我们的贸易伙伴厄瓜多尔、委内瑞拉、玻利维亚，以及俄罗斯都对我们本地颇有潜力的公司产生了影响。这可能会成为一个问题，所以我们认为这是个大问题。到今年年底我们认为有大反弹的可能性不大，可能到明年夏天会有一个正常的夏季反弹，但之后，我们认为市场将重新陷入低谷。

路易斯：而在那之前，还有许多不确定性。以上是来自纽约的巴里·海曼，非常感谢您在清早与我们通话。现在让我们来看看本地投资者的看法。独立财政顾问丹内利·韦勒公司的布赖恩·丹内利正在线。布赖恩，本地股市已连续两周下挫。这是紧跟美国股市的下滑吗？

丹内利：不，我认为这更是个全球化的问题，而不仅仅是以美国为中心的问题。所有的问题都源于日本在大约一个月前提高银行利率，中国也在一个月前象征性地提高利率，而联邦储备局的新局长认为利率已降至足够低的水平，但没有人相信他。所以实际上现在发生的一切早已埋下了种子。

路易斯：而你曾预测过市场将会有一定程度的修正或调整，是吗？

丹内利：当然，在过去的几个月里，我们已经非常清楚地预测到在英国将发生这些事，但它们并不是我们所关心的――我们可能更为关注日用品市场和新兴市场的风险。

路易斯：是的，当然我是指日用品，我们决不会错过像铜和金属价格这类消息的。它们会在暴涨之后狂跌。但英联邦自身的经济还是比较健康的，是吗？在股票上的获利，买股票所获得的回报是相当高的。我认为股票价格还是太低，所以不会有进一步的下跌空间。

丹内利：是的，过去3年里，可能一直到2周前最有趣的事就是股市一直秘密地持续着牛市，因为我们的实际收入增长已超过了股市。所以它意味着在某种标准，某种测算下，现在的股市市值实际上比2003年3月的股市低迷时还低。

路易斯：这告诉了我们什么呢？我是说我们真应该关心这些问题吗？这会影响到我们的退休金和储蓄吗？

丹内利：从长远来看，这其实与过去两周内发生的事情毫无关系。我们至今看到的下跌只不过是股市这个大池塘中的一点小风浪，实际上我们应该期待比这次下跌更严重、更有规律的整理。过去的3年平静得太不正常了。

路易斯：那么投资者们应该怎么做呢？你的投资者们都向你提了什么问题呢？

丹内利：过去一周内，我们接受了一些咨询。我们告诉投资者们，确实有迹象表明将会有下跌，所以他们并不惊讶，有一两个人打来电话并从我们的回答中得到些安慰。有一两个客户从中绝对获利，因为他们要在未来的6到12个月内买房子或者退休，所以将资金撤出股市。但从整体来看，并没有任何恐慌。

路易斯：以上是丹内利·韦勒公司的布赖恩·丹内利。非常感谢您的谈话。