Vocabulary

To run up the white flag выбросить белый флаг

To halt остановить

Disaster бедствие

Deflation дефляция

Austerity строгая экономия

Fissure трещина

Exercise 17. Choose the correct explanation without using a glossary.

1. “to stop, especially temporarily” is …

a) to go forward

b) to halt

c) to hammer

d) to walk back

2. “any happening that causes great harm or damage; serious or sudden misfortune” is …

a) disaster

b) discomfort

c) disarray

d) obsession

3. “tightened economy, as because of shortages of consumer goods” is …

a) austerity

b) augmentation

c) misfortune

d) disregard

4. “a long, narrow, deep cleft or crack” is …

a) crushing

b) hole

c) fissure

d) fixation

5. “the act of gaining victory; frustration” is …

a) defeat

b) deficiency

c) defiance

d) defense

6. “…a sudden attack or forcible effort” is …

a) flow

b) crushing

c) defeat

d) blow

7. “the quality or state of being distinctly seen; the capability of being seen through; the quality of being easily recognized, obvious” is …

a) transparency

b) clearness

c) disaster

d) invisibility

8. “such a persistent idea, desire, emotion, etc., esp. one that cannot be gotten rid of by reasoning” is …

a) recession

b) obsession

c) conception

d) conclusion

9. “to lessen in any way, as in size, weight, amount, value, price etc. “is …

a) to reduce

b) to seduce

c) to harden

d) to worsen

10. “to bring to a close; to end; to finish” is …

a) to conclude

b) to exclude

c) to lessen

d) to fasten

Exercise 18. Reread the article of exercise 16 more carefully and complete the sentences given below using information from the article:

1. It was only Brazil that ran up the white flag last week when __________

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2. The defeat of Brazil was also a defeat for the International Monetary Fund, the Group of Seven and the ill-conceived set of policy recommendations which have ensured that ____________________________________________________

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3. The orthodox approach insisted on by the IMF in country after country has proved___________________________________________________________________

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4. There will doubtless be those who will say that there is no reason to reassess the policies which ___________________________________________________

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5. But last week’s events are a crushing blow to ___________________________

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6. The IMF deals with central banks and thinks of itself as __________________

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7. The IMF’s obsession with budget deficits, curbing inflation financial liberalization has engendered a damaging short-termism that has held back

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8. Reducing budget deficits through public-spending cuts while simultaneously freeing up domestic capital markets has simply had the effect of ____________________________________________________________________________

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9. There have been signs during the last 18 months of a growing fissure between ______________________________________________________________________

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10. The bank’s report on the Asian crisis concludes that ____________________

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Exercise 19. Single out the main facts of the article of exercise 16 and present them in a short review.

Exercise 20. Listen and retell the text. Write down 3-5 questions about the text. Say what you have learnt about the debt market in India.

The door is slowly opening on India’s debt markets. Foreign investors can now invest 100 % of their Indian portfolio in corporate debt as against the 30 % allowed previously. The market itself is booming in long-term debt worth Rs55 billion ($1.54 billion) raised by Indian corporates in the past few months and fixed-income returns overtaking those of equities, the market is ripe for reform.

The driving force of India’s debt market reforms is the need to raise capital of infrastructure projects. India needs about $300 billion the next ten years for infrastructure alone. Only half of this can be raised from the commercial banks, the equity market, the government and multilateral agencies like the World Bank. The other half must come from its domestic debt markets. But the Indian debt market is too small to meet this requirement at the moment.

So the market is moving in the right direction and bonds – not shares – are the hottest selling investments in India today. In the past, equity markets overshadowed debt markets in both size and returns. While India’s total stock market capitalization is still equal to $138.6 billion, analysts say that investors are increasingly choosing bonds for equity.

In spite of the government’s efforts, two major obstacles remain. The government bond market is still closed for investment banks. The other problem is liquidity.

Besides, secondary market trading in debt is limited in government securities and is done mainly on the wholesale debt market of the National Stock Exchange. Allowing market-making in government securities is the key to creating an active secondary debt market in India.

Having this in mind the Reserve Bank of India– the Indian central bank – set up a system of primary dealers or market markers in government securities. But for debt trading to be successful, several structural changes need to be put in place, including setting up a depository and establishing a REPO market.

Exercise 21. Translate the article into English. Pay attention to the use of tenses.

ЦБ опять весь в долларах

На минувшей неделе с возвращением ЦБ на валютном рынке установилось вынужденное спокойствие. Нацелившись на отметку 30 руб./$, «медведи» разогнались настолько, что чуть было не пропустили новый уровень поддержки ЦБ. Теперь он составляет 30,38 руб./$. На новом уровне Банк России активно покупает доллары, только за два дня он приобрел почти $700 млн. И не потому, что ему потребовалось срочно восстанавливать золотовалютные резервы. (На последнюю отчетную дату, 13 июня, они снизились на те же $700 млн., до $63,6 млрд.) Он довольно жестко отслеживает укрепление рубля относительно корзины валют. А в последнее время на мировом рынке доллар вновь начал поднимать голову. За последнюю неделю относительно евро он укрепился почти на 2%, поднявшись до уровня $1,163 за евро. Вот и вынужден российский ЦБ покупать доллары, чтобы избегать излишнего утяжеления рубля. Участники рынка терпеливо ждут очередного снижения планки и, вероятно, дождутся. Западные же дилеры веселят окружающих спекуляциями на тему «снизит или не снизит ставки ФРС». От этих ставок во многом зависит благополучие американской экономики. Российская же экономика зависит от цен на нефть. А последнюю неделю стали оправдываться пессимистичные прогнозы. За этот период котировки российской Urals потеряли более 10% и теперь находятся в районе отметки $23,5 за баррель.

Между тем при таких уровнях цен беспокойства можно не испытывать, по крайней мере в июне. И заодно подсчитать результаты работы в мае. Последние данные по промышленному производству в России превзошли даже самые смелые прогнозы аналитиков: в мае производство выросло на 8,5% по отношению к аналогичному периоду прошлого года. Правда, к апрелю этого года оно упало на 0,4%, но это легко объяснить крайне высокими результатами в предыдущем месяце. Одновременно порадовал и министр экономического развития Герман Греф. По его данным, за первые 5 месяцев ВВП страны вырос на 7,1%. Так что президентское удвоение ВВП можно провести гораздо быстрее, чем за отведенные на это десять лет.

Растет ударными темпами и российский фондовый рынок. И вот уже впереди замаячила отметка в 500 пунктов индекса РТС. Но будет ли она взята в ближайшие дни или это отложится до осени? Пока вопрос остается открытым.

«Коммерсант ДЕНЬГИ», 23–29 июня 2003

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LESSON 4

Финансовые рынки. Фондовый рынок

Exercise 1. Read and discuss the text that follows. Use the glossary given after it.

Stocks and markets

Stock Markets are the means through which securities are bought and sold. The origin of stock markets goes back to medieval Italy. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries Amsterdam was the principal centre for securities trading in the world. The appearance of formal stock markets and professional intermediation resulted from the supply of, demand for and turnover in transferable securities. The 19^th century saw a great expansion in issues of transferable securities.

The popularity of transferable instruments as a means of finance continued to grow and at the beginning of the 20^th century there was an increasing demand for the facilities provided by stock exchanges, with both new ones appearing around the world and old ones becoming larger, more organized and increasingly sophisticated.

The largest, most active and best organized markets were established in Western Europe and the United States. Despite their common European origins there was no single model which every country copied.

Members of stock exchanges drew up rules to protect their own interest and to facilitate the business to be done by creating an orderly and regulated marketplace.

Investors were interested in a far wider range of securities than those issued by local enterprises. Increasingly, these local exchanges were integrated into national markets.

The rapid development of communications allowed stock exchanges to attract orders more easily from all over the country and later the barriers that had preserved the independence and isolation of national exchanges were progressively removed, leading to the creation of a world market for securities. The 1980s saw the growing internationalization of the world securities markets, forcing stock exchanges to complete with each other. Cross-border trading of international equities expanded.

Although many securities were of interest to only a small and localized group, others came to attract investors throughout the world. Increasingly, arbitrage between different stock exchanges ensured that the same security commanded the same price on whatever market it was traded. London, Paris, New York became dominant stock exchanges.

Stock exchanges emerged as central elements in the financial systems of all advanced countries.

Potential investors, insurance companies, pension funds, governments and corporate enterprises see securities as a cheap and convenient means of finance.

An investor who purchases new securities is participating in a primary financial market. An investor who resells existing securities is participating in a secondary financial market.

There are two basic types of stock markets – (1) organized exchanges, like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and (2) the less formal over-the-counter markets.

The organized security exchanges are tangible physical entities, which have specifically designated members and elected governing bodies-boards of governors.

In contrast to the organized security exchanges, the over-the-counter market is an intangible organization. It is a network of security dealers who buy and sell securities from each other, either for their own account or for their retail clients. The over-the-counter market is normally conducted by telephone and computer reporting of price quotations between brokerage firms that “make a market”: that is, agree to buy and sell a particular security. Securities that are not listed on exchanges are traded “over-the-counter”. In general these include stocks, preferred stocks, corporate bonds, and other securities.

Investors need complete and reliable information about stocks and markets. In addition to the listings, the financial pages of newspapers in all countries contain price quotations and share indexes which give a broad indication of how the stock market, or a segment of the stock market, performed during a particular day.

NOTES

The origin of stock markets goes back to зарождение фондового

medieval Italy рынка относится к эпохе средневековой Италии

The 19^th century was a great expansion

in issues в 19 веке наблюдалось резкое увеличение выпуска ценных бумаг

were interested in a far wider range of проявляли интерес к

securities гораздо большему числу ценных бумаг

the same security commanded the same одни и те же ценные бумаги

price имели одинаковую стоимость

The organized security exchanges are организованные фондовые

tangible physical entities, which have биржи являются

specifically designated members… реально существующими экономическими субъектами, имеющими конкретных членов