English Quiz 128

(English Quiz 128)

1. Although he's 63 years old, Beijing retiree Du Shuzhan is not afraid to try new things. He has just discovered the stock market. A few weeks ago, Du deposited $1,500 in his first share-trading account, and on a recent January afternoon, visited his local broker to buy shares of seven Chinese companies. "All my friends started to invest in the stock market last year," Du says. "My wife and I decided to join the trend." Du admits that, when it comes to deciding which stocks to buy, he lacks expertise. "I don't know much about it. I just picked the ones with low prices." But he figures he'll do fine. "With all the money in the market, I don't see how it could go down."

2. Ah, such heady optimism. That unquestioning faith in the ability of China's soaring stock market to defy gravity has become worryingly common among Chinese investors -- so common that market observers and government officials are warning that a market correction might be on the way. Emboldened by a 130% rise in the Shanghai Composite Index last year -- which made Shanghai one of the best-performing exchanges in the world -- starry-eyed speculators and first-time punters like Du have been storming into Chinese stocks, ending the market's five-year slump and in recent weeks pushing daily trading volumes to all-time records. Last year, some 2.4 million investors began trading stocks through the Shanghai exchange, a 250% increase in new accounts. That's an average of about 7,000 per day, a flood of fresh blood from san hu (as the Chinese call small investors) that is making seasoned traders nervous. "When you see shop assistants and taxi drivers racing out to borrow money to buy stocks, you've got trouble," says commodities guru Jim Rogers. "That's the market sucking in a whole lot of neophytes priming to get slaughtered."
Q: 試翻 "That's the market sucking in a whole lot of neophytes priming to get slaughtered."

3. Plenty of stock analysts and fund managers disagree, arguing that prices are simply keeping pace with China's remarkable economic rise. The country's GDP grew 10.7% last year, the highest rate since 1995. But the bulls are increasingly being drowned out by those who see the kind of reckless speculation that often occurs in overheated markets. Beijing officials, worried there could be another Chinese market meltdown like one in 2001 that soured the public on stocks for years, are sounding the alarm. On Dec. 30, Cheng Siwei, a vice chairman of the National People's Congress, cautioned investors against "blind optimism" in the country's relatively underdeveloped capital markets. Last week, China Central Television, the government TV network, broadcast a show warning citizens not to use their homes as collateral for loans to buy stock. Authorities are doing more than jawbone -- bank lending for stock purchases was barred last month. Regulators also temporarily halted the sale of new mutual funds.
Q: 試翻 "Beijing officials, ... are sounding the alarm."
Q: 試翻 "Authorities are doing ... last month."