担忧股市暴跌 中国政府极力护盘.

　　As the Chinese stock market slumps, the country’s government has stepped in boldly, unveilinga series of measures to prop up shares. But those forts have done little to stabilize themarket, with stocks continuing to slide on Wednesday.

　　上海——中国股市暴跌之际，该国政府积极介入，已经推出了一系列托市措施。但是这些努力几乎没有起到稳定市场的效果，周三，中国股市继续收跌。

　　The losses create a political and economic challenge for the nation’s leadership.

　　对于中国领导层来说，这种暴跌带来了政治和经济上的挑战。

　　Beijing could face social unrest if the sell-off accelerates, since tens of millions of ordinaryinvestors have plowed their savings into the market. The psychological toll on investors, inturn, could erode consumer confidence, dragging down growth in the already slowingeconomy.

　　如果抛售加速，北京可能会面临社会动荡，因为数以千万计的普通投资者把自己的储蓄投入了股市。投资者承受的心理压力，可能会削弱消费信心，拖累已经放缓的经济增长。

　　“The stock market is connected to the real economy,” says Fraser Howie, a longtime Asiabanker and co-author of “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’sExtraordinary Rise.” “When you see such violent moves, you don’t know what kinds of ripplesare going to come down.”

　　“股市与实体经济相连，”侯伟(Fraser Howie)说。“当你看到这种剧烈的动荡，就不知道会有何种影响蔓延开来。”侯伟长期在亚洲银行业工作，是《红色资本主义：中国非凡崛起之下的脆弱金融基础》(Red Capitalism:The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise)一书的合著者。

　　The Chinese government is moving swiftly to prevent any broader fallout.

　　中国政府正在迅速采取行动，防止产生影响更加广泛的后果。

　　The country’s central bank has made extra cash available to fund share purchases. Brokeragehouses have been ordered to pump billions of dollars into the market. And government-backedfunds have earmarked billions more to prop up the shares of flagging companies.

　　中国央行提供了额外的现金以供买入股票。经纪公司受命将数亿资金注入股市。由政府支撑的一个基金则另外拨付了巨额资金，为股价低迷的公司护盘。

　　The mess in China has not roiled global markets. That is partly because the “Chinese financialsystem is largely sealed off from the global financial system,” Derek Scissors, an analyst at theAmerican Enterprise Institute, said in a report.

　　全球市场并没有因为中国的混乱而陷入动荡。美国企业研究所(American Enterprise Institute)分析师史剑道(Derek Scissors)在一份报告中称，这在一定程度上是因为“中国的金融体系在很大程度上与全球金融体系相隔绝”。

　　For now, the action is domestically focused. China’s Communist Party leaders are trying torestore confidence and stabilize the market bore things get too ugly at home, introducingnew fixes nearly every day. On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Finance pledged to “adoptmeasures to safeguard the stability of capital markets,” and in particular protect state-owned financial enterprises. The move signals that this broad-based fort is being directedfrom the very top echelons of the state.

　　目前采取的行动主要集中在国内。中国共产党的领导人几乎每天都出台新的解决措施，试图在国内情况变得太不堪之前，恢复投资者的信心、稳定市场。周三，中国财政部甚至发誓要采取措施，以保障资本市场的稳定，特别是保护国有金融企业。这显示出，这场广泛的运动是由国家最高领导层指挥的。

　　“There are no buyers, only sellers,” said Francis Cheung, a market analyst at CLSA, thebrokerage house. “So the government is buying, and they’ll ramp up buying to stabilize themarket.”

　　“市场上没有买盘，只有卖盘，”里昂证券(CLSA)的分析师郑名凯(Francis Cheung)说。“因此政府正在买入，他们还会进一步买入股票，来稳定市场。”

　　Trouble is, they haven’t found the right formula. Despite the latest batch of moves, China’smarkets were battered on Wednesday. In Shanghai, prices plunged 5.9 percent. In Shenzhen,they fell 2.5 percent. The damage is also spreading regionally, to Hong Kong and Japan, whereshares also fell sharply.

　　麻烦的是，他们还没有找到正确的办法。尽管采取了这批新的措施，周三中国股市还是遭受重挫。沪市跌5.9%，深市跌2.5%。影响还蔓延到了周边地区，香港和日本股市也大幅下跌。

　　While the markets are up over all for the year, the recent downward spiral is creatingsubstantial pain. Both major exchanges are off between 30 percent to 40 percent in six weeks,putting them in bear market territory.

　　虽然从一年的周期来看，股市仍然有涨幅，但近期的下跌行情造成了巨大打击。在过去六周里，这两大交易所暴跌30%至40%，进入了熊市。

　　The numbers don’t give the complete picture either. In recent days, many stocks have beenhalted because of exchange rules that are supposed to guard against too much misery in asingle trading session. At least a third of the companies listed on the major stock exchangeshad trading in their shares suspended on Wednesday.

　　但这些数字也没有勾勒出完整的画面。近日来，不少个股已经跌停。中国股市有跌停机制，是为了防止在单一交易日内产生太惨烈的冲击。在沪深两市上市的公司，至少有三分之一在周三停牌。

　　Those market dynamics can create a chain reaction of selling. China’s major exchangesprevent a stock from falling more than 10 percent on any given day. When that happens,analysts say, many investors opt for selling other shares, broadening the sell-off. Then whenthe market opens the next day, they continue selling down the stock that was previouslyhalted, fectively prolonging the turmoil.

　　这种规则可能会造成连锁抛售状况。沪深两市不允许股价在同一天跌幅超过10%。分析师说，当一只股票跌停，很多投资者就选择卖出其他股票，让更多股票遭到抛售。而当股市第二天开盘的时候，投资者会继续抛售前一天跌停的股票，实际上延长了动荡的时间。

　　“It just delays the correction, so it delays the downturn,” said Mr. Cheung at CLSA.

　　“这只是推迟了调整，因此延长了低迷时间，”里昂证券的郑名凯说。

　　While China’s stock markets have a long history of volatility, the environment is differentnow. The country’s economy has been sluggish. The stock market is far bigger than it hasever been, second in size only to that of the United States.

　　虽然中国股市长期以来都有较强的波动性，但现在已经不同于过去。目前该国经济形势不景气。股市规模也远远大于以往任何时候，在全球仅次于美国。

　　And aggressive investors, many of them first-time buyers of equities, have been playing adifferent game. They were buying stocks with borrowed funds, using leverage as if they were“barbarians at the gate.”

　　而激进型投资者也在玩一个不同的游戏，他们中不乏首次炒股的新手。这些人使用杠杆，借钱来炒股，就像“门口的野蛮人”一样。

　　The panic, in part, is being driven by concerns about the huge amount of borrowing. Someanalysts estimated that margin buying reached about $550 billion, or as much as 15 percent ofthe value of all tradable shares on the two major exchanges.

　　人们对负债炒股的金额巨大感到担忧，这在部分上推动了市场的恐慌情绪。一些分析师估计，目前保证金交易达到约5500亿美元，相当于沪深两市所有流通股价值的15%。

　　Fear is gripping the market after a phenomenal bull run in which mainland China’s major stockindexes doubled, tripled and even quintupled over the past few years. By the time the marketpeaked, in early June, share prices in China were among the most expensive in the world, vastlycostlier than in the United States, Europe or Hong Kong.

　　在过去几年里，内地主要股指涨了一倍、两倍甚至三倍。在大牛市之后，市场陷入了恐惧。行情在6月初达到最高点时，中国的股价堪称是全世界最昂贵的，远超美国、欧洲和香港的水平。

　　Investors in mainland China, in other words, had to pay a huge premium to buy domesticshares, a sign the country’s stock market was frothy. Some analysts have noted that theprice-to-earnings ratio of companies listed on China’s start-up index, called ChiNext, were farhigher than those listed on the Nasdaq stock market in 2000, when the Internet bubble burst.

　　换句话说，内地投资者购买国内股票时不得不支付溢价。这个迹象表明，中国股市存在泡沫。一些分析人士指出，中国创业板上市公司目前的市盈率，远高于2000年互联网泡沫破灭时，纳斯达克(Nasdaq)上市公司的水平。

　　Just a few weeks ago, the pipeline of initial public stock offerings was robust. There was thepromise of innovative companies that could use the capital markets, rather than the banks, asa source of cash, and the prospect of new bourses being set up for China’s technology start-ups.

　　就在几周前，新股发行的势头还颇为强劲。创新公司有望通过资本市场而非银行募集资金，并且中国还有望设立新交易所，面向科技初创企业。

　　China’s state-run news media, including The People’s Daily, helped hype the rip-roaring market.As recently as April, news media said that the bull market had “just begun,” only to warn someweeks later of the risks.

　　包括《人民日报》在内的中国官方新闻媒体，也帮助了对热火朝天的股市的炒作。最近一幕发生在4月。新闻媒体当时称牛市“才刚刚开始”，但仅过了几周，就转而发出了危险警告。

　　Since then, sentiment has soured, and investors have lost confidence. The worry, analystssaid, is that it could be a prolonged downturn, like the one that began in 2007 and lasted aboutseven years.

　　在那之后，情绪发生了变化，投资者失去信心。分析人士称，人们担心的是，它可能会成为一场旷日持久的低迷，就像之前那次一样。那次下跌始于2007年，持续了大约七年。

　　The sharp decline in prices wiped out trillions of dollars in value from a market that at one pointtopped $10 trillion. Still, the decline has not yet erased all, or even most, of the gains. China’smajor exchanges remain up about 75 percent from a year ago, in part because big state-ownedcompanies have fared better.

　　股价的大幅下跌导致数万亿美元的市值从股市蒸发，中国股市的总市值一度达到了10万亿美元。然而，下跌尚未抵消掉全部甚至大部分的涨幅。中国两大交易所的指数仍比一年前高出大约75%。这在一定程度上是因为大型国企表现得比其他公司好。

　　In late June, the government cut interest rates, which is ordinarily a good sign for stocks, sinceit makes them more attractive relative to bank deposits. But share prices fell anyway.

　　6月末，政府调低了利率。对股票来说，这通常是一个利好，因为这样会让它们比银行存款更具吸引力。但股价还是在下跌。

　　Since then, the authorities have introduced a wave of additional measures meant to prop upprices. Stock trading transactions were slashed. I.P.O.s were suspended. Huge stabilizationfunds were set up to purchase shares. Brokerage houses promised to buy more. And China’sinsurance regulator eased rules so that insurers could more easily invest in stocks.

　　那之后，当局又出台了一波旨在稳定股价的措施。下调交易费率、暂停新股发行、设立巨额救市基金买进股票、证券公司承诺增购股票。此外，中国的保险监管机构也放宽了规定，这样保险公司就更容易投资股市了。

　　In the face of further selling, the government continued to introduce new measures onWednesday.

　　周三当天，面对进一步的抛售，政府继续出台新举措。管理大型国企的国有资产监督管理委员会对很多大型国有上市企业下令，不得减持自己的股票。

　　China’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which oversees thecountry’s big state corporations, ordered many such companies with public listings not toreduce holdings of their own stock.

　　证监会甚至发布通知，鼓励大股东和企业高管增持自己公司的股票。证监会在通知中还强调，为防止内幕交易而对交易时机实施的规则，当下并不适用。

　　The China Securities Regulatory Commission even issued a notice encouraging majorshareholders, directors and executives of companies to increase their holdings of theircompanies’ stock. The commission emphasized that rules about the timing of insider stocktransactions that might deter such purchases would not apply.

　　瑞银(UBS)驻香港市场分析师何伟华(Patrick Ho)称，这是一种“试错”的办法。而且鉴于当局希望刺激经济，并试图阻止市场过快跌落，可能还会有更多举措。