Stock Market Expressions

I'm Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, a program in Special English on the Voice of America.

Today we tell about some American expressions that are commonly used in business.

Bells sound. Lighted messages appear. Men and women work at computers. They talk on the telephone. At times they shout and run around.

铃声响了。在这个明显的信息出现后，那些在电脑前工作和打电话的人们，立刻开始大叫并且到处奔跑。

This noisy place is a stock exchange. Here expert salespeople called brokers buy and sell shares of companies. The shares are known as stocks. People who own stock in a company, own part of that company.

这个嘈杂的地方叫做证券交易所。这里的专业售货员叫做股票经纪人，他们的工作是买卖公司的股份。股份也就是通常所说的股票。拥有一个公司的股票，就相当于拥有这个公司的一部分。

People pay brokers to buy and sell stocks for them. If a company earns money, its stock increases in value. If the company does not earn money, the stock decreases in value.

人们通过付钱给股票经纪人去买卖股票。如果一个公司赚了钱，那么他的股票就会升值。反之则会贬值。

Brokers and investors carefully watch for any changes on the Big Board. That is the name given to a list of stocks sold on the New York Stock Exchange.

股票经纪人和投资者都非常注意通过行情版发现每一个机会。行情版也就是显示纽约股票交易所所交易的股票的电子显示板。

The first written use of the word with that meaning was in a newspaper in Illinois in eighteen thirty-seven. It said: "The sales on the board were one thousand seven hundred dollars in American gold."

第一个使用这个词是在一张1837年的伊利诺斯州报纸上。它写道:“在板上显示的成交额达1700美金（硬币）。”

Investors and brokers watch the Big Board to see if the stock market is a bull market or a bear market. In a bear market, prices go down. In a bull market, prices go up.

投资者和股票经纪人通过观察行情版来判断现在的股票是熊市还是牛市。在熊市，股票的价值就会降低，反之，在牛市股票的价值就会升高。

Investors in a bear market promise to sell a stock in the future at a set price. But the investor does not own the stock yet. He or she waits to buy it when the price drops.

投资者在熊市时会打算在将来的某个时间出售他的股票。但是投资者无法控制股票，所以他们只能等到股票价值下降的时候再去购买。

The meaning of a bear market is thought to come from an old story about a man who sold the skin of a bear before he caught the bear. An English dictionary of the sixteen hundreds said, "To sell a bear is to sell what one has not."

熊市这个词的是来自于一个古老的故事。它讲了一个人在逮到熊之前就开始卖熊皮的故事。英国词典第1600页写道：“卖熊的意思就是卖这个人所没有的东西。”

Word experts dispute the beginnings of the word bull in the stock market. But some say it came from the long connection of the two animals -- bulls and bears -- in sports that were popular years ago in England.

然而词汇专家一直都在争辩牛市这个词的来历。但是有人说这只是因为两种动物的某种联系。牛和熊，在英国的体育历史上非常流行。

Investors are always concerned about the possibility of a company failing. In the modern world, a company that does not earn enough profit is said to go belly up. A company that goes belly up dies like a fish. Fish turn over on their backs when they die. So they are stomach, or belly, up.

投资者一直关注一个公司是否有可能倒闭。在现在这个社会，一个公司如果不能得到足够的利润就意味着事业破产。一个公司事业破产的话就像一条鱼的死亡：鱼死时会把肚子朝上。所以他们要么赚钱要么亏空。

Stock market investors do not want that to happen to a company. They want a company whose stock they own to earn more profit than expected. This would sharply increase the value of the stock. Investors are hoping for a windfall.

股票市场的投资者不希望看到这种情况。他们想要看到他们所拥有公司的股票比预期赚的更多。这需要他们股票的价值极剧增加。投资者希望能发一笔横财。

The word windfall comes from England of centuries ago. There, poor people were banned from cutting trees in forests owned by rich land owners. But, if the wind blew down a tree, a poor person could take the wood for fuel. So a windfall is something wonderful that happens unexpectedly.

横财这个词来自于几百年前的英国。那个时候穷人是禁止砍地主树林里的树的。但是，如果是大风吹倒了一棵树，穷人就可用那棵树作柴火了。所以说，横财的意思是得到预期想不到的好东西。

This Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jeri Watson. This is Phil Murray.