Internet allowed people to pay lower prices for books but also encouraged them to pay high prices for shares in lossmaking dotco

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问题     Internet allowed people to pay lower prices for books but also encouraged them to pay high prices for shares in lossmaking dotcom companies. During the subprime boom Americans believed the illusion that they could get rich by buying each other’s houses. Those dreams may have been shattered. But there is still one great hope left for investors: emerging markets. Fund managers have been making the case for e-merging markets on a regular basis over the past 20 years. Developing countries offer higher economic-growth rates, have younger, more dynamic populations and are under-represented in the global stockmar-ket. Buying a stake in emerging markets is like buying a stake in the future.
    But experience should teach investors to be suspicious of no-brainer decisions. They also need to be vigilant about the growth case. Using a variety of tests, Elroy Dimson and other experts found virtually no correlation between an individual country’s GDP growth rate per head and the returns to investors.
    What is the explanation for this rather counter-intuitive result? One answer is that a stock market cannot reflect an economy perfectly. Many companies are unquoted. Those businesses that have floated on the market may be mature, or slower-growing, or simply overweight in one sector. In 1900 Wall Street was dominated by railroad stocks, for example. A second answer is that growth countries may behave like growth stocks. A period of strong performance leads to overvaluation, from which subsequent returns are inevitably disappointing.
    Has that stage arrived? The old rule of thumb was that emerging markets were pricey when they traded at a higher multiple of profits than their developed counterparts, as they did in 1999 and 2007 just before sharp falls in prices. At the moment they trade at a modest discount.
    But emerging markets are prone to boom-and-bust cycles. They have suffered three 25%-plus losses in the past 20 calendar years, and five years in which annual returns have exceeded 50% . International investors have probably been behind much of the liability, pushing the markets this way and that as they switch between enthusiasm and risk aversion.
    It is quite possible that another boom is on its way. Bubbles, as described by Charles Kindleberger, a financial historian, usually involve an initial displacement, followed by rapid credit creation and then a phase of ecstasy.
    Investors probably have no option but to ride the wave, if only because the outlook for developed markets looks so flat. There is, at least, more solidity to emerging markets than there was to dotcom stocks.
Judging from the context, the word "vigilant"(Line 2, Para. 2)most probably means______.

选项 A、alert
B、indifferent
C、convinced
D、aware

答案A

解析 本题考查vigilant的词义,这一类题目需要考生很好地理解该词所在句子的上下文语境;其次要注意抓衔接前后句子的标志性词,如表转折的but,however,表递进的and,thus,more一over等能够表明句子之问关系的连接词。该词所在句出现在文章第二段第二句,而且出现了标志性词also,明显该句是对第一句意思的进一步肯定,而第一句是说投资者应该对这种轻而易举的决定有所怀疑,所以这里vigilant的语义应与“怀疑的,警惕的”接近,故可得出正确答案。
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