Vocabulary:

unrealized profit	нереализованная прибыль
paper profit	см. unrealized profit
to realize profit	зд. получить реальную прибыль
stock-market crash	кризис на фондовом рынке; резкое падение цен на акции
correction	обратное движение цен (обычно снижение)
to book profits	зд. реализовать прибыль
advances	зд. рост цен на акции
to promote share ownership	содействовать расширению числа держателей акций
«liquidity-driven»	ориентированы на высоколиквидные инструменты
beneficiary	извлекающий прибыль, выгодоприобретатель
bank deposit	банковский депозит (вклад)
rally (ies)	значительное повышение курсов ценных бумаг
secondary stocks (secondaries)	«второстепенные» акции, т.е. акции небольших компаний, инвестиции в которые связаны со значительным риском
share-ramping	искусственное взвинчивание цен
mutual funds	совместные фонды
blue chips	популярные акции крупных и надежных компаний
capitalisation	капитализация, т.е. суммарная рыночная стоимость выпушенных акций компаний, а также стоимость всех акций на данной бирже.
market indices	биржевые индексы
company disclosure	отчетность компаний, предоставление сведений о своей деятельности
insider-dealing	незаконные операции с ценными бумагами на основе полученной закрытой («внутренней») информации о деятельности компании-эмитета.
bull market	конъюнктура рынка, характеризующаяся ростом котировок.
Price/earnings ratio (s) (P/E ratio; PER)	индекс доходности, т.е. отношение рыночной цены акции компании к ее чистой прибыли в расчете на одну акцию
corporate earnings	корпоративные доходы
ruckus	зд. биржевой кризис, паника

Text D

1. Read the text and outline the key points.

2. Translate the part “Do you want to be in my band?” from English into Russian.

3. Make a précis and an annotation on the text. Fixed and floating voters

Every time one of the world’s curren­cies plunges, policy-makers start to wonder aloud whether anything can be done to prevent a repeat performance. The recent fall in the dollar has proved no exception. The president of the European Commission, and various French politicians are among those who have called for a revival of in­ternational exchange-rate agreements. Such calls have rekindled a long-running debate among economists about the rela­tive merits of fixed and floating exchange-rate systems.

The beauty of a floating-rate system is that it allows a country to adjust monetary policy without worrying about the ex­change rate. Provided that domestic wages and prices do not immediately ad­just to offset any exchange-rate move, it also allows them to respond to an external shock, such as an oil-price rise, through a change in the exchange rate rather than a more painful domestic adjustment.

There are two snags, however. Float­ing exchange rates can be highly volatile. This can cause price instability that harms prospects for trade and investment. Un­der a floating-rate system a government may also be tempted to pursue an exces­sively loose monetary policy, which re­sults in higher inflation. Fixed-exchange regimes avoid both of these problems; but at the cost of making it harder for coun­tries to adjust to external shocks.

Ideally, governments would like the best of both worlds - currency stability, but also the ability to adjust exchange rates if absolutely necessary. Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the success of any managed exchange-rate regime that seeks to deliver this combination will depend on three tests. It must be flexible enough to cope with economic shocks. It must be robust enough to convince the markets that gov­ernments are committed to defending their pegged rates in all but the most ex­ceptional circumstances. And it must be able to see off speculators who decide to put this commitment to the test.

Some previous managed exchange-rate systems have more or less done all this. Under the classic gold standard, for instance, countries suspended convert­ibility if their economies ran into serious trouble. Under the Bretton Woods system of fixed-but-adjustable exchange rates, winch ended in 1971, the International Monetary Fund provided liquidity to help countries maintain their exchange-rate peg. In circumstances or “fundamental disequilibrium”, however, they were allowed to devalue. The early years of the European exchange-rate mecha­nism (ERM) also passed the tests.

But in future similar regimes will find it harder. He reckons that political pressure to use the exchange rate to cope with economic shocks will undermine a pegged system’s credibility, tempting speculators to attack it. And he suggests that greater capital mo­bility will make it increasingly difficult for countries to defend target parities against speculators.

That may not stop politicians from trying. Among other things, they can raise interest rates, reimpose capital controls or call for foreign support to prop up their currencies. But this will not be enough. Financial in­novations such as derivatives and in­creased cross-border investment will make capital controls all but impossible to enforce. Raising interest rates to defend a currency is often politically unpopu­lar - and, in debt-laden countries, may be counter-productive because it increases debt-interest costs. Nor can any country count on unlimited intervention by oth­ers to support its currency.

Any sys­tem based on explicit exchange-rate tar­geting is doomed. The only options are a floating-rate system or mone­tary unification. This does not mean that countries cannot manage their floating rates by intervening in currency markets; but it does mean that they should not tar­get specific rates. There is evidence to sup­port this view: fewer countries now peg their exchange rates than a decade ago and the ERM, having shed both the pound sterling and the Italian lira, has had to broaden its target ranges.

Do you want to be in my band?

Other economists disagree. They think that exchange-rate systems can be designed to cope with market pressures, and still provide more stability than floating rates. One much-discussed proposal has been put forward by John Williamson of the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC. He suggests that countries could pre-­announce bands for their real exchange rates, specifying a central rate with a 10% margin on either side. Governments would try to keep their nominal exchange rates within this zone. If necessary, rates could be realigned before the limits were reached. Faced with an “unwarranted” speculative attack, a country could tem­porarily suspend its commitment.

Such a system would retain some flexibility, white being more stable than man­aged floating. However if the bands were always moved before they were tested, target zones would be little different from man­aged floating. If they were not, the system would suffer from the same problems as fixed-rate regimes. At the margin, the practical difference between the two sys­tems may be small. But the success of ei­ther will depend, as any exchange-rate system must, on whether governments will allow the exchange rate to be a big fac­tor in setting domestic policies.