Financial crisis : central banks rescue plans

Lots of good vocab.  I wonder what other countries are saying about the U.S. financial system now?  美国的银行有怎么多的问题，我还是不懂为什么美国的政治家和中央银行怪卖空者。其实今天的货尔街日报说现在的卖空活动比前三个月的少。

Hey what do you all think of this youtube channel for learning Chinese news like what we have in this group:  http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnChineseNews

Well, I can say that my tiny country, Singapore, is absolutely terrified now. When the crisis was building up, we were frightened enough to want to commit substantial national reserves to the possibility of buying stakes in some vulnerable institutions in the US financial system. To try and prop them up. No country the size of Singapore (population 4.5million) has any interest in "taking over the world". We couldn't do it, even if we wanted to.

Believe me, it was not a popular decision in my tiny country, where every lousy dollar in our "reserve" was hard-earned and most of us are only one generation away from a third-world situation. To many of us, it is a case of "throwing good money after bad".

But when our sovereign wealth funds (ie Temasek and GIC) made serious enquiries, the emotional backlash from Americans (especially Democrats) was very hostile, even shocking and xenophobic.

Their point of view was that we were trying to profit from some kind of "fire sale". Whereas, on the other hand, our own people were unhappy because it seemed like our hard-earned reserves were about to be thrown into some bottomless pit which had nothing to do with OUR spending habits or any lack of financial regulation or oversight on our part. 

So now hard-working Singaporeans are like a helpless passenger in a car whose brakes have failed. I don't know where we will all be in 6 months time. My so-called "family business" is a fairly international business, no close family members involved in day-to-day management since 1947 (!), but still, the business is shockingly vulnerable to stupid decisions and xenophobia in the country which leads the world in financial matters. It's all very frightening...

I don't get the following headline - not even the broad meaning:

英国：临时禁止投资者建立新的做空金融类股的头寸

Immedeatly stop investors create new cash of (的头寸??) sort of empty financial stock?

Any ideas?

Hi henning. I'm no native speaker (no way, and you know it!), but I think the headline refers to the recent news that some traders are no longer allowed to deal in futures (or take "positions") which bet on the market going down; for ordinary people like me, this is a sign of real trouble:

http://baike.baidu.com/view/64756.htm

Sorry to sow panic, that's simply my understanding of the developing situation. 

P/s:I am far from any of my usual dictionaries, but 金融类股 may possibly refer to gold bullion securities. Sorry to be so unhelpful!

Historically, being in a position of trying to restrict investors from trying to find shelter in gold bullion securities is not a happy situation...

P/P/s: I've always believed that 做空 means "short selling"/ taking a "short" position. The headline makes even less sense to me now. I hope that somebody from CPOD, or changye perhaps, will step up to the plate and put us out of our misery! Thanks!

tvan, this report is from 'other countries',  Radio France Int'l in this case :-)

Eyux, thanks for the info.  Sounds like the Chinese don't know what to do either.

Auntie68, the above article generally uses 卖空 for short selling. 卖空者 would be a short seller.  However, I believe that you are right, 做空 means short seller here.  金融类股 here seems to mean financial institutions.

On the headline, "英国：临时禁止投资者建立新的做空金融类股的头寸", I would translate it literally as:  temporarily (临时) prohibit (禁止) investors (投资者) creating (建立) new short sale short sale (新的做空) financial institution (金融类股) cash/money supply (头寸).  My translation would be roughly, "Great Britain temporarily bans investors from short-selling financial institutions' stocks."  That also makes sense in the context of the article content and current financial news.

Like Henning, I'm a little bit stumped on the function of 头寸 in this context.  My dictionary lists the definition as "money supply" (i.e. in the monetary system-sense) or "cash".  However, the article seems to use it in the sense of a financial instrument.

Dear tvan, thank GOODNESS 金融类股 doesn't mean "gold bullion securities"! If they were clamping down on those kinds of trades, we would be looking Armageddon in the face at this moment! Phew.

My understanding of 头寸 is what I got from that 百科 article mentioned in my earlier post. I still think it means "position", not an easy thing to describe in any language. Let's see what CPOD has to say...

Auntie68, your definition of 头寸 makes perfect sense, since a short sale is a position.  Used in that sense, 做空 would mean create a short sale position in financial institutions, which is just another way of saying 賣空.

Hi guys,

Wow, 金融词汇 is very difficult. I didn't know at all the words 头寸 and 做空. Hehe, such words never appear in Science news articles! In Japanese, 卖空 is "空売り (kara-uri)", so 做空 makes sense very well for me.

As for 金融类股, I think you guys are too serious. 金融类股 only means 金融类股票. There are also 工业类股，农业类股，通讯类股，不动产类股，食品类股，航空类股 and so on. So, I guess tvan's translation is right.

sorry, can't help much there, I have trouble understanding most of these financial concepts anyway (damn lies and speculation to me) ...

Thanks a lot guys. Seems harder than I initially thought...  :-o

People's Daily (official CCP newspaper) comments on impending "Financial Tsunami".

As promised, Eyux won't say anything, I'm just a messenger:

Reuters reports an article in People's Daily, 17SEP2008:

Excerpts:

"The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."

but

"The Chinese government is well aware of the fact that the United States, which is the world's largest developed country, and China, which is the world's largest developing country, should have constructive and cooperative economic and trade relations"