如何利用科学来防止经济泡沫

商业训练营 > 金融英语速读 > 如何利用科学来防止经济泡沫

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预警金融市场泡沫是不可能的任务吗？

为什么要每天阅读《金融时报》？
- 对于全球的金融业从业人员来说，阅读《金融时报》是每天必须进行的修炼。要想把握金融业的趋势，提高自己的“金融智慧”，和全球的金融业者站在同一高度，《金融时报》是你的首选。
为什么要训练阅读速度？
- 在信息爆炸的今天，能够迅速地阅读和理解大量资料，已成为金融业者必不可少的技能。著名的投资家股神巴菲特曾表示，他每天都会阅读大量报刊和年报，这也是他多年来始终能做出正确的投资决策的基础。
训练阅读速度的小工具
- 自动滚屏助你提高速度。点击该按钮后，屏幕就开始滚动，迫使你改掉向回看的习惯，加快速度。默认为每分钟140字（朗读速度）。随着你的技能提升，你可以挑战更高的速度，直到达到1000。

速度：+ -

阅读以下文章

<b>How science can prevent the next bubble</b>

By Richard Olsen and Clive Cookson

Published: February 12 2009 19:58 | Last updated: February 12 2009 19:58

Since the world became aware in the summer of 2007 of an imminent financial crisis, people have asked why so few experts saw it coming. There have been many calls for an early warning system for the world economy – but little has been said about how to build one.

To construct a global early warning system we have to overcome the predicament Alan Greenspan, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, highlighted 12 years ago. “How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?” he asked. “We should not underestimate ... the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy.”

Macroeconomic data alone cannot provide sufficient information to determine whether asset prices are inflated. We need to dig deeper and track the complexity of interactions in financial markets and the economy.

We can do this by collecting and analysing the tick-by-tick data that markets spew out. More than 1m financial ins-truments are traded; for the most liquid, 100,000 price quotes are generated each day. They can offer an early warning of dangerous misalignments between prices and risk premiums. Price changes are not just noise; their seq-uence is driven by the flow of buy and sell orders, second by second. The bigger the order the larger the price change.

By tracking tick-by-tick prices we can infer how market participants build and close positions. The next step is to map the size of positions and infer what positions have been established at the various price levels – and what profits and losses different groups of traders and investors are incurring.

The position information indicates which groups of traders and investors are most likely to run into losses so big that they face margin calls and are forced to close out their positions. Margin calls can cause a dangerous acceleration of price moves.

We can then create “weather maps” of the positions that traders have established and the circumstances that would force them to close their positions, causing a cascade of further margin calls. The recent violent sell-offs in currency, commodity, equity and bond markets were because of whole groups of traders being hit by margin calls, adding momentum to the price moves.

Building a financial forecasting service to uncover this information is no small task. We have to collect tick-by-tick data from all the main financial markets and add auxiliary information. While there have been some private initiatives to collect tick-by-tick data, the job has hardly started. Once the data have been collected they must be “cleaned and scrubbed”, and we have to generate synthetic information, for example about volatility and liquidity.

No bank or government agency has access to such a comprehensive data repository today. The study of economics and finance has only recently started to analyse the statistical properties of tick-by-tick data. For too long, academia has followed the classical economic model, assuming that financial markets follow a random walk and that second-by-second market data are unworthy of further scrutiny. Banks have focused on daily profit-making not on creating a tradition of research.

In natural sciences, we take it for granted that researchers have to be well equipped to do experiments. Governments spend billions of dollars on huge particle accelerators to understand the inner workings of atoms. In economics and finance, however, universities struggle to get even a small budget to buy tick-by-tick data for one or two financial market instruments.

To build up the resources and tools to model the intricate flow of capital in financial markets and predict the likely fallout will not be cheap, though the spending is small compared with the turnover of the banking and financial services industry – or the $1,000bn lost by the banking system in the crisis. A sum of $2bn over five years would go a long way to building a huge data repository, launching a research initiative and developing a comprehensive predictive service for the global economy.

The proposal is to set up an independent agency to raise money from banks, other financial institutions, governments and international organisations. All the work would be collaborative, making full use of the internet and grid computing. Some of the money might fund prizes. The aim is to provide governments, regulators and the private sector with enough warning when the next financial storm is brewing for them to take avoiding action.

Mr Olsen is co-founder of Oanda, an internet-based currency trading company. Mr Cookson is FT science editor

选择正确答案

The author quoted Alan Greenspan to:

check out: "To construct a global early warning system we have to overcome the predicament Alan Greenspan, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, highlighted 12 years ago. "

Criticize his policy for the current financial crisis.
Surport the view that science can prevent the next bubble.
Explain the obstacles of using science to prevent the next bubble.
Shed light to the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy.

选择正确答案

The author suggested which of the following can be achived by tracking tick-bytick prices EXCEPT?

Right.

Identify who are losing money.
Identify who might be forced to close out their positions.
Create "weather maps" of the trading positions to send alarms early.
Identify profit opportunities by attacking traders hit by margin calls.

选择正确答案

Why is it worth doing to build up the resources and tolls to model the flow of capital in financial markets, according to the author?

Check out: "To build up the resources and tools to model the intricate flow of capital in financial markets and predict the likely fallout will not be cheap, though the spending is small compared with the turnover of the banking and financial services industry – or the $1,000bn lost by the banking system in the crisis. "

The cost is much cheaper now that information technology is so advanced.
It is easier to convince governments and the public to do it, during a financial crisis.
If it's not built, the next financial crisis would be inevitable.
The potential benefit of avoiding another banking meltdown is huge.

选择正确答案

Which of the following would be an appropriate candidate to build up the "weather map" system proposed by the authors?

Check out: "The proposal is to set up an independent agency to raise money from banks, other financial institutions, governments and international organisations. All the work would be collaborative, making full use of the internet and grid computing. "

US government
Goldman Sachs
IMF
None of the above

放松与总结

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您的正确率太低，在目前这个阶段，对你来说最重要的是提高英文水平和金融专业水平，而不是速度。请您点击后退仔细查看您答错的题目，并和原文对照。对原文中所有不懂的句子和知识点，也请一一查明。建议您：
1. 在进行下一次训练的时候，将滚屏速度保持在100以下。
2. 您可以找一些有声读物，如《经济学人》的audio edition，帮助你提高英文水平。

看得出你是非常认真来进行这次训练的，如果你坚持的话，你会获得非常大的提高。目前你的阅读速度偏低，可能是因为英文不是你的母语。不过，请不要放慢阅读速度。研究表明，阅读速度越快的人，其理解的正确率反而越高。因此，您可以同时提高您的阅读速度和理解能力。给你一点建议：
1. 一定要改掉默念的习惯
2. 不要一个词一个词的看，要学会把一个语义群当作一个整体来看。比如“an emergency $180bn injection of dollar”这个语义群，你要学会把他当作一个整体来看。
3. 看DVD的时候，切换到英文字幕。

用正常语速来朗读一篇文章，平均速度是每分钟140词。这说明你的阅读速度比朗读还要慢。建议您：1. 每一段的第一句话往往是最重要的。
2. “速读”最忌讳的就是“读”，不要一边看一边默念。
3. 在下一个训练中将滚屏速度设为140，迫使自己不能回头去看已经读过的部分。

您的阅读速度已经超过了正常语速，说明你已经开始有些速读的感觉了。美国大学生的最低阅读速度为每分钟250词，加把劲你就可以赶上了。建议您：
1. 养成习惯，读过的部分不要回头去看，这样会影响速读。
2. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目一行”。

您的阅读速度已经达到了美国大学生的水平，可喜可贺。不过作为金融从业人员，每天需要阅读数不清的中英文研究报告、公司年报、报刊杂志等，您还需要向每分钟350字进军。建议您：
1. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目两行”。
2. 对中英文的数字，尤其是大数字(million, billion)的转换进行总结和练习。

厉害，您的阅读速度已经超过了美国大学生的水平。不过，要成为巴菲特那样的金融专家，您需要锻炼出“一目十行”的火眼金睛。建议您在每次的训练中注意三个要点：
1. 您已经学会了将文章分成语义群，而非词来阅读，现在，你需要扩大每一个语义群中的词数。
2. 加快阅读每个语义群的速度。
3. 看过的内容尽量不要回看。

这就是传说中的“一目十行”吗？难以置信！

世界纪录才每分钟416,250字，居然被你破了！无语...