短短几周内的三个重大变化，令全球金融市场天翻地覆。第一个变化是股市迅速下滑。在过去9个交易日里，标普500指数有8天下跌，期间跌幅接近十分之一。欧洲看上去也同样糟糕：自本月初以来，富时100指数下跌近7%，而德国DAX指数则下跌了11%北京翻译公司。

International financial markets have been upended by three sweeping shifts in just a few weeks. The first is in stock markets, which have been sliding fast. The S&P500 has fallen on eight of the past nine trading days, losing almost one-10th of its value in the process. Europe looks no better: the FTSE100 is down by almost seven and the DAX by 11 per cent since the beginning of the month.

第三，银行融资市场摇摇欲坠，尤其是在欧洲。随着意大利和西班牙政府债券价格不断下跌，这些国家的银行发现自己很难在私人债券市场融资，同时这些银行的股价也直线下跌。欧洲央行(ECB)的隔夜存款在不到一周时间内增长了一倍：各家银行对银行间市场同行的过度拆借感到不安深圳英语翻译。

Third, markets for bank funding are sputtering, particularly in Europe. With falling prices for Italian and Spanish government debt, those countries’ banks find it hard to finance themselves in private debt markets, and their share values have sunk like stones. Overnight deposits at the European Central Bank have doubled in less than a week: banks are nervous about lending excess funds to their peers in the interbank market.

如果这些变化像一些人所说的那样，是8月份市场流动性不足所引起的，那么人们或许会指望情况将很快恢复正常。但这似乎不太可能。在某些市场——比如，美国大盘股——交易量随着价格下降而增长。而在另一些市场——特别是主权债务市场——则很难获得有关交易量的信息。在所有市场中，外汇市场的流动性最强。

If these swings were due to shallow liquidity of August markets, as some say, one might expect things soon to return to normal. But this seems unlikely. In some markets – for big American stocks, for instance – volumes have grown in step with prices falling. In others – notably sovereign debt markets – information on volumes is hard to get. And foreign exchange markets are the most liquid of all.