PBS高端访问:华尔街股市上涨的背后是什么?

 　　HARI SREENIVASAN: Stock prices just keep going up and up. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high yesterday, and so did a closely watched broader index, the S&P 500.

　　To help explain what's behind the latest surge on Wall Street, we are joined now via Skype from Richmond, Virginia by Roben Farzad. He is the host of the radio program "Full Disclosure."

　　So, a lot of people on Wall Street are talking about the latest buying events in Japan. Their stock index, the Nikkei, was up nearly 5 percent just yesterday after their government there announced a new stimulus¹ program. So what did it do, and why does that matter here?

　　ROBEN FARZAD, HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": Because we're so connected at this point. All these central banks across the globe are flooding the plane with money to get people to go out and take risks, take chances. The Bank of Japan actually goes out and buys equities² in the Japanese stock market, which has been moribund³ for so long.

　　Here in the United States, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates near zero for the better part of six years now. And on top of that, they have $3.5 trillion of emergency bond buying measures. So, there's a lot of cheap money going around stoking people to get into real estate and riskier⁴ bonds and riskier assets like stocks.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: So, this week we learned our own economy grew 3.5 percent during the third quarter of 2014. So, how much of a factor is that in the market's recent rise?

　　ROBEN FARZAD: The markets really right now are looking at the big intervening variable, which is the Federal Reserve's largesse⁵. Like I said, six years of emergency low interest rates – can anybody remember when it cost 6 percent or 7 percent to take out a mortgage or when you could get a little over four pointd on a government bond or a treasury⁶ bond? It's just not really in the institutional memory.

　　So, when you get not too hot but not too cold economic indicators⁷, and by extension the Federal Reserve is telegraphing that it's going to sit on its hands, maybe well into 2015, there's this perception there's– that there's more room to run for the market.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: October was a pretty wild ride on Wall Street. Earlier last month, the Dow had the biggest weekly decline in more than two years. Then it came roaring back. What's behind all this volatility⁸?

　　ROBEN FARZAD: Again, what's behind the lack of volatility over the past three or four years? We have dodged⁹ so many bullets from 2008 and 2009 where there was an outright¹⁰ collapse¹¹. I believe the market peak to trough fell 55 – 57 percent. And then Greece collapses¹². And then we have the debt showdown and debt debacle here, and the fiscal¹³ cliff. And now you have worries about electoral uncertainty¹⁴, and there are whispers of global deflation.

　　There are lots of things at play, and I think investors¹⁵ have developed a person amount of scar tissue, the ones that are still in the market realize that it's — when you see something approaching a correction– and we didn't even hit a full correction — that there are people that are going to step in and buy.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: All right. Speaking of participation¹⁶, we came across some interesting numbers showing a specifically lower percentage of Americans own stock now than they did a dozen years ago. So who dropped out, and what are the bigger repercussions¹⁷?

　　ROBEN FARZAD: You worry about the solvency¹⁸ of Social Security and people's retirements²⁰ in general in an era where government debts maybe are not sustainable. People really en masse looked at what happened in 2000 with Y2K. They got their hearts broken with the tech crash.

　　And then again in 2007, when they hesitatingly came back to the market, we get the mother of all economic collapses with the Great Recession and the market getting cut in half. And so, it's kind of a like a case of fool me thrice; I'm not going to be that sucker.

　　And so even with the numbers being as spectacular as they are in this five-plus-year bull market, you're getting a lot of people that are saying no, I'm not going back to that asset class.

　　You're going to have to show me much more security and much better risk reward for me to get my money back. And that's not helping²¹ their case. They're going to need the market to help them into retirement¹⁹.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Roben Farzad, the host of the radio program "Full Disclosure." Thanks so much.

　　ROBEN FARZAD: My pleasure.

1 stimulus   

n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物

参考例句：

• Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
• Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。

2 equities   

普通股，股票

参考例句：

• These are invested mainly in the OECD bonds and equities. 这些资产主要投资于经济合作及发展组织的债券与股票市场。
• They are also advantage of the global rebound in equities. 它们还在利用全球股市反弹的机会。

3 moribund   

adj.即将结束的，垂死的

参考例句：

• The moribund Post Office Advisory Board was replaced.这个不起作用的邮局顾问委员会已被替换。
• Imperialism is monopolistic,parasitic and moribund capitalism.帝国主义是垄断的、寄生的、垂死的资本主义。

4 riskier   

冒险的，危险的( risky的比较级 )

参考例句：

• Now they are starting to demand higher returns on riskier assets. 而今他们开始在风险更高的资产上要求更高的回报。
• The problem with that: RIM's business is getting riskier every quarter. 不过问题也随之而来：RIM面临的业务风险正逐季增大。

5 largesse   

n.慷慨援助，施舍

参考例句：

• She is not noted for her largesse.没人听说过她出手大方。
• Our people are in no need of richer nations' largesse.我国人民不需要富国的施舍。

6 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

7 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

8 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。

9 dodged   

v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He dodged cleverly when she threw her sabot at him. 她用木底鞋砸向他时，他机敏地闪开了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He dodged the book that I threw at him. 他躲开了我扔向他的书。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

11 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

12 collapses   

折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下

参考例句：

• This bridge table collapses. 这张桥牌桌子能折叠。
• Once Russia collapses, the last chance to stop Hitler will be gone. 一旦俄国垮台，抑止希特勒的最后机会就没有了。

13 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

14 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

15 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

16 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

17 repercussions   

n.后果，反响( repercussion的名词复数 )；余波

参考例句：

• The collapse of the company will have repercussions for the whole industry. 这家公司的垮台将会给整个行业造成间接的负面影响。
• Human acts have repercussions far beyond the frontiers of the human world. 人类行为所产生的影响远远超出人类世界的范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 solvency   

n.偿付能力，溶解力

参考例句：

• Fears about the solvency of the banks precipitated the great economic crash.对银行偿付能力出现恐慌更加速了经济的崩溃。
• Their targets,including profitability ratios,solvency ratios,asset management ratios.其指标包括盈利比率、偿债能力比率、资产管理比率。

19 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

20 retirements   

退休( retirement的名词复数 )； 退职； 退役； 退休的实例

参考例句：

• We've had two retirements in our office this year. 今年我们办公室已有二人退休。
• Those may take the form of sackings redundancies, temporary layoffs or retirements. 这些形式有开除，作为编余人员，暂时解雇或退休。

21 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。