【正文】 old, real estate, or collectibles. Valuation is the method for assessing whether a potential investment is worth its price. Returns on investments will follow the riskreturn spectrum. Text : Types of financial investments include shares, other equity investment, and bonds (including bonds denominated in foreign currencies). These financial assets are then expected to provide ine or positive future cash flows, and may increase or decrease in value giving the investor capital gains or losses. Text : Text : Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as banks, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance panies, collective investment schemes, and investment clubs. Though their legal and procedural details differ, an intermediary generally makes an investment using money from many individuals, each of whom receives a claim on the intermediary. Text : Financial Intermediaries Most people do not enter financial markets directly but use intermediaries or middlemen. Commercial banks are the financial intermediary we meet most often in macroeconomics, but mutual funds, pension funds, credit unions, savings and loan associations, and to some extent insurance panies are also important financial intermediaries. Text : When people deposit money in a bank, the bank uses the funds to make loans to home buyers for mortgages, to students so they can pay for their education, to business to finance inventories, and to anyone else who needs to borrow. A person who has extra money could, of course, seek out borrowers himself and bypass the intermediary. By eliminating the middleman, the saver could get a higher return. Why, then, do so many people use financial intermediaries? Text : TWO ADVANTAGES PROVIDED TO THE SAVERS Financial intermediaries provide TWO important advantages to savers. Text : First, lending through an intermediary is usually less risky than lending directly. The major reason for reduced risk is that a financial intermediary can diversify. It makes a great many loans, and even though some of those loans will be mistakes, the losses will be largely offset by loans that are sound. In contrast, an average saver could directly make only a few loans, and any bad loans would substantially affect his wealth. Because an intermediary can put its eggs in many baskets, it insures its depositors from substantial losses. Text : Another reason financial intermediaries reduce risk is that by making many loans, they learn how to better predict which of the people who want to borrow money will be able to repay. Someone who does not specialize in this lending may be a poor judge of which loans are worth making and which are not, though even a specialist will make some mistakes. Text : A second advantage financial intermediaries give savers is liquidity. Liquidity is the ability to convert assets into a spendable form—money—quickly. A house is an illiquid asset。 媒介 (物 ) eg. Conducts of intermediary institutions are being standardized to better serve foreign invested enterprises. 規(guī)范中介機(jī)構(gòu)的行為，引導(dǎo)中介機(jī)構(gòu)更好地為外商投資企業(yè)服務(wù)。 Text : Language Points diversity n. a point or respect in which things differ. 差異 , 多樣性 eg. A diversity leads to prosperity. 窮則變，變則通 。 Text : Language Points bad loan 呆帳 , 過期未還的貸款 convert v. to exchange (a security, for example) by substituting an equivalent of another form. 更換：將 （ 如一種證券 ） 兌換成另一形式的等價(jià)物 eg. The pany converted its assets into cash. 公司將資產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)化成現(xiàn)金 。 Text : Language Points speculator n. one that speculates投機(jī)者 eg. He is a speculator who hold up customers. 他是個(gè)向顧客索取高價(jià)的投機(jī)商人。 conditional因事而定的：取決于尚未確定的條件或事件的；依條件而定的 eg. Such risks are contingent to the trade . 這種風(fēng)險(xiǎn)在經(jīng)商中是可能發(fā)生的。 investment as of a specified ：一個(gè)公司或機(jī)構(gòu)在指定日期的資產(chǎn)、負(fù)債和所有者投資的列表說明 Exercises Fill in the blanks with the proper words investment classes scales merged capable markets single difference specialization capital Exercises In the not so distant past, there was little ________ between financial and strategic investors. Investors of all colors sought to safeguard their ________ by taking over as many management functions as they could. Additionally, investments were small and shareholders few. A firm resembled a household and the number of people involved – in ownership and in management – was correspondingly limited. People invested in industries they were acquainted with first hand. Checkup Exercises As ________ grew, the ________ of industrial production (and of service provision) expanded. A ________investor (or a small group of investors) could no longer acmodate the needs even of a single firm. As knowledge increased and ________ ensued – it was no longer feasible or possible to micromanage a firm one invested in. Checkup Exercises Actually, separate businesses of money making and business management ________. An investor was expected to excel in obtaining high yields on his ________ – not in industrial management or in marketing. A manager was expected to manage, not to be ________ of personally tackling the various and varying tasks of the business that he managed. Checkup Exercises Thus, two ________ of investors emerged. One type supplied firms with capital. The other type supplied them with knowhow, technology, management skills, marketing techniques,。 媒介 (物 ) 2. offset: an agent, an element, or a thing that balances, counteracts, or pensates for something else. 抵消 。 Text : Language Points b