商业报道:亚洲股市，险象环生

Nervous week for Asia traders

It was a tense week for traders in the Asia Pacific region. As CNN's Eunice Yoon reports, all eyes are on the U.S.

It was a head-pounding, nerve-racking week in Asian markets as fears of a US recession triggered a stock market meltdown.

This is a real crisis of confidence.

Investors¹ have been hoping Asia could weather a US slowdown. With many of the economies here booming people argue the region’s growth is decoupling from the US. And Asia's rising middle-class could help cushion a global slump². But this week’s sell-off shattered that theory.

I think that's, er, you know, today is the end of the decoupling story. And people are gonna look at the US and say it's the end driver of global demand. Without the US, and Asia has to slow.

Asia sells much of its goods to America. Paniced investors unloaded exporters and other stocks, driving markets like Tokyo, Seoul, Taiwan and Hong Kong to some of their biggest declines in years. Financial shares also tanked as investors worried the credit crisis in the US could spill over into the global banking³ system including China’s. The Bank Of China has the biggest exposure to American sub-prime related securities of any Chinese lender.

Bank Of China will probably report a 30% decline in 2007 profit if they were to make sufficient provision. They have to bear down and cut some costs, and maybe sell some assets to make up for the shortfall.

The panic selling forced the US Federal Reserve to take a dramatic emergency step, its deepest interest rate cut in 23 years.

Hong Kong’s markets saw some of the wildest swings. After the Fed’s move the monetary⁴ authorities here followed suit by cutting interest rates of 0.75%. That helped to restore optimism to this market.

The Fed’s rate cut helped calm investors for now, but most expect tomorrow volatility⁵ ahead and are watching the US to see what comes next.

Eunice Yoon , CNN, Hong Kong.

Notes:

Nerve-racking: Intensely distressing⁶ or irritating to the nerves

Decoupling: In physics, decoupling is the general phenomenon in which the interactions between some physical objects (such as elementary particles) disappear.

1 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

2 slump   

n.暴跌，意气消沉，（土地）下沉；vi.猛然掉落，坍塌，大幅度下跌

参考例句：

• She is in a slump in her career.她处在事业的低谷。
• Economists are forecasting a slump.经济学家们预言将发生经济衰退。

3 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

4 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

5 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。

6 distressing   

a.使人痛苦的

参考例句：

• All who saw the distressing scene revolted against it. 所有看到这种悲惨景象的人都对此感到难过。
• It is distressing to see food being wasted like this. 这样浪费粮食令人痛心。