【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障22系列】【22-11】经管

风随心动01

大家好，周五经管来了~
今天的速度：Time 1、2是一篇， Time 3是一篇，Time 4、5是一篇。另外，Time 4、5文章涉及到了一些金融和法律名词，有一定的难度。建议读起来有困难的同学去原帖里看一看中文翻译，也许对理解文章有帮助。但是整篇文章讲述的事情并不难，还是希望大家挑战一下。
PS. 感谢yingjie版主和我换岗，yingjie是好人

[PART I: SPEED]

Article 1: check the title later
American Wine Producers Target China

[Time 1]
American wine producers are hoping to increase their sales in China, where the country's growing middle class is drinking wine. The United States exported just $74 million in wine to China last year, but exports are growing at a rate of nearly 20 percent a year.

Two years ago, former basketball star Yao Ming launched a wine company called Yao Family Wines. It is based in California's Napa Valley, one of the top wine producing areas in the world. Tom Hinde is with Yao Family Wines.

"We've made five vintages together. Actually, we're working on the 2013 right here. You can see that these grapes will be ripe sometime this fall, and we get to do it all over again."

Yao Family Wines is a small winery that produces a costly product. Tom Hinde says the vineyard grows only Cabernet Sauvignon grapes because many people in China like red wine. The winery's top cabernet sells for $625 a bottle.

Many moderately priced wines are exported to China, they including some from the San Antonio Winery in Los Angeles. Fifteen percent of its production goes to China.

The Wine Institute represents more than 1,000 wineries and allied businesses through California. Linsey Gallagher of The Wine Institute says her group is always receiving request from China. But she says the country is a problem for marketing.
(224)


[Time 2]

"They know a lot of the aspirational, iconic things about California, whether that's Hollywood in Southern California or the Golden Gate Bridge in Northern California or our previous governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. By and large, they have no idea that California is the fourth largest wine producing region in the world and makes great quality wines at all price points."

Winemakers hope to expand the market for fine dry wines, including white wines, which are now a small part of the Chinese market.

Adam Beak of Bank of the West works with California winemakers. He knows they are competing with European companies, some of which entered the Chinese market many years ago.

"And they've developed a brand there. They've developed a name, especially for the French companies on the fine wine side, they're developed a real strong market presence. The U.S. is still in its infancy. "

But China's middle class is growing fast, Tom Hinde of Yao Family Wines is hopeful that more Chinese will develop a taste for imported wine.

"They'll want to drive certain cars, and they'll want to live in certain types of apartments and houses, and they'll want to wear certain clothes and enjoy certain types of wines."

And he hopes many of those wines will come from California.

Source: VOA
http://www.51voa.com/VOA_Special_English/american-wine-producers-target-china-51936.html

Article 2: check the title later
Why big bank revenue is at risk  By Althea Chang |

[Time 3]

Some of the biggest consumer banks are most in danger of losing customers, and that could mean losing billions in revenue, according to a recent survey.

Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One and Chase are among the top banks at risk of losing accounts to competing banks, according to the 2013 Retail Banking Brand Vulnerability Report from consulting firm cg42, which surveyed more than 3,600 primary bank account holders.

Overall, nearly 10 percent of account holders are planning to switch banks, according to the survey.

"It is a big number and it’s certainly higher than historical rates, yet a little bit lower than what we saw in 2011," said cg42 Managing Partner Stephen Beck. "So there has been a cooling or dampening effect in terms of those folks that are ready to really make the move," Beck said.
In total, banks stand to lose $627 billion in deposits and ultimately $34 billion in revenue, according to the firm's estimates.


The top 10 banks together are expected to lose $92 billion in deposits and $5 billion in revenue, according to the survey.

Citibank ranks as the bank most vulnerable to losing customers, according to the cg42 report. It is expected to lose 11.4 percent of its customers to competitors in the next 12 months, which could lead to $1.5 billion in lost revenue, according to the report.

Chase is expected to lose 9.6 percent of its consumer banking customers, resulting in a loss of $3.2 billion in potential banking revenue in the next 12 months, according to cg42's estimates. And Bank of America stands to lose $2.5 billion in revenue as 10.5 percent of its customers defect.

Consumers reported being frustrated with their banks because they don't think they're offering competitive rates or pricing and they're hitting customers with hefty overdraft charges, the survey found. And about 63 percent of consumers surveyed said they believe that banks care only about their own interests and not the interest of their customers, according to the report.

Yet 57 percent of consumers say it's too much of a hassle to switch banks, according to the survey.
(352)

Source: Finance Yahoo  
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/big-data-download/why-big-bank-revenue-risk-153520692.html

Article 3: check the title later
Not so fabulous: A symbolic prosecution beginsJul 20th 2013 | NEW YORK |From the print edition|

[Time 4]

1 THE list of individuals brought to trial for their part in the financial crisis is short. The list of big shots is non-existent. So it is the odd fate of Fabrice Tourre, once a mid-level employee at Goldman Sachs and now known as “the fabulous Fab”, to be a symbol of Wall Street greed.

2 Mr Tourre’s civil trial on charges of defrauding investors began on July 15th. There is no dispute that, in exchange for a $15m fee to Goldman, Mr Tourre helped Paulson & Co, a hedge fund, create a complex security named Abacus out of mortgage-backed bonds in order for the fund to profit from an anticipated collapse in the housing market. For Paulson it was a spectacular success; for those on the other side of the trade, not so much.

3 The legal issue at the heart of the case, which is being brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is whether the three investors that suffered losses—two banks and a mortgage-evaluation firm—understood the role Paulson played in the construction of a security it hoped would implode. The nine jurors will not be told that Goldman paid $550m to settle all charges related to Abacus in 2010. Their task is to judge whether fault lies with Mr Tourre.
(216)


[Time 5]
4 Mr Tourre’s attorney, Pamela Chepiga, quickly tried to set aside the infamous e-mail that gave Mr Tourre his nickname. The message, written in English and French to a girlfriend, referred to the fragility of financial markets, and to the “seul survivant potentiel, the fabulous Fab…standing in the middle of all these complex, highly levered, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all the implications of those monstruosities [sic]!!!” That e-mail had no direct connection to the Abacus transaction, argued Ms Chepiga. Its redacted form leaves out several disclaimers, notably the parenthetical phrase “even though there is nothing fabulous [about] me”.

5 The early testimony contained few surprises. A former Paulson employee, Paolo Pellegrini, testified that even getting a meeting with a firm willing to take the other side of a bearish trade on the housing market was hard. Paulson failed to enlist several banks before Goldman was able to line up clients. Even then an independent “portfolio selection agent” had to be included in the deal to reassure buyers about the value of the securities being used. Ultimately a company named ACA agreed not only to vet the selection of securities but to invest in Abacus as well. The SEC contends that ACA was misled about Paulson’s involvement. Nonsense, says Ms Chepiga.

6 Watching on is Mr Tourre, now a graduate student in economics at the University of Chicago. Having seen first-hand how markets work in practice, he presumably now wants to know how they work in theory.
(256)

Source: The Economist
http://www.ecocn.org/thread-194706-1-1.html

[PART II: OBSTACLE]

Article 4: check the title later
The triumph of low expectations: A world of low growth, risk aversion and regulatory uncertainty
Jul 20th 2013 | NEW YORK |From the print edition

“IT COULD have been worse” was the common refrain as American banks began reporting their second-quarter earnings. Indeed, the striking characteristic of the returns was their consistency. Big and small, local and national, lenders across the country have been benefiting from some common tailwinds. Legal settlements are becoming sparser; the economy is expanding, albeit feebly, and the housing market is recovering; auditors are pushing banks to keep releasing loan-loss reserves; and actual losses are trivial.

But avoiding disaster is not really cause for celebration. Consumers continue to shed debt; companies carry ever more cash. Banks’ pre-provision revenue growth is muted (see chart 1), and there has been no recovery in loan growth of the sort seen after previous recessions (see chart 2). This is so unusual that it may be unprecedented, says Michael Mayo, an analyst at CSLA, a securities firm, and it hardly suggests a good prognosis for the banking system. He predicts that the current decade will show the worst revenue growth for banks since the 1930s. Pricing and margins will inevitably tighten as a result.

In as much as borrowing activity has shifted from banks’ balance-sheets to the capital markets, some have benefited. The investment-banking arm of perpetually troubled Citigroup did well in the second quarter, as did the investment-banking arm of infrequently troubled Goldman Sachs. Underwriting and advisory revenues rose at both firms. Goldman reaped large gains from its own investments.

But Goldman’s return on equity was still barely in double digits. Its headcount is shrinking, not expanding. That is typically the single best indicator of an investment firm’s perspective on its prospects. Citi’s return on equity was well below Goldman’s, at 6.5%. Investors will not tolerate that sort of performance for ever. A major source of Citi’s revenue is in emerging markets, where conditions are deteriorating.

The likelihood that the overall banking environment will improve in the near future is low. Recent rises in interest rates, prompted by expectations that the Federal Reserve will start slowing the pace of asset purchases, will take a toll on mortgage refinancing, a source of revenue that has produced great gobs of money for banks in recent years. It is probably no coincidence that share prices for most financial institutions have flattened in recent weeks.

Regulators and politicians are still trying to suppress banks’ risk appetite, not whet it. American financial institutions are already expecting to hold more risk-weighted capital in order to conform with the international Basel 3 standards. Worried by the potential for banks to game the calculations that underpin these same risk weightings, regulators this month proposed a higher “leverage ratio”, a blunter measure of capital that reflects the overall size of a bank’s balance-sheet as well as its riskiness. The proposal calls for a 5% leverage ratio at the holding-company level, and 6% at the level of the bank, for the eight largest banks: Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo.

The new numbers will require institutions to fund themselves with more equity, further diluting returns (at least in the short term). Although the notion of a strict capital ratio has its detractors, it has a good chance of being instituted, says Michael Poulos of Oliver Wyman, a consultancy, if only because it is simple. But by increasing the cost of funding for the big institutions, he warns, the rule may push them away from safer, low-priced products and towards riskier, higher-margin ones.

Bankers have not reacted vocally to the leverage-ratio proposal. That may be because they feared even harsher limits, or because they are keeping their powder dry for other fights. Lawmakers continue to circle the industry. In April two senators, Sherrod Brown and David Vitter, introduced a bill that would require the largest banks to increase their equity capital to 15% of assets. It was loudly applauded, and subsequently quietly ignored. On July 11th four senators proposed bringing back a version of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933 that separated commercial banking from investment banking. This idea has also garnered lots of praise and is also likely to be ignored, if only because of the practical difficulties involved.

Even if these legislative proposals go nowhere, the regulatory environment is poised to become tougher with the Senate’s approval on July 16th of Tom Perez as secretary of labour and Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In his prior position at the Department of Justice Mr Perez was an influential advocate of the principle of “disparate impact”—the idea that lending policies can be discriminatory because of their outcomes, even if there is no intent to discriminate. His approval is a congressional endorsement of uneconomic lending.

Mr Cordray’s appointment unlocks broad powers for the newly established CFPB, including the ability to investigate and regulate the price and scope of financial products under a new and undefined “abusive” standard. Senate Republicans had vowed to refrain from approving Mr Cordray until changes were made to the CFPB’s underlying structure, so that less power was concentrated in a single director and its budget was made subject to congressional approval. Whatever concerns they had were abruptly waived. Perhaps, like many of America’s banks, they concluded that however bad things are, they could always be worse
(891)


Source: The Economist
http://www.ecocn.org/thread-193994-1-1.html

小鱼上树

迅速抢占沙发！！！！！！！

22-11

1 224 1min05

The export rise 20% per year. Yao opened awine company in Cali to target the rich people. The producers get orders fromChina all the time but they have some concerns.

2 213 56s

Most people in China have no idea about thewine from California since a lot of French companies already earn a fame fortheir wine. The producers hope to target the mid-class group and open the Chinesewine market.

3 352 1min35

According to a survey, the top big banks likeCiti bank and Chase are at the risk to lose costumers and avenue because theythink the banks are not offering competitive interest rate and don’t care aboutthem.  

4 216 1min13

5 256 1min28

奇怪的文章，不懂，貌似是说一个金融案子的律师啊证据啊过程嗒？

Obstacle 891 4min03

Data for the second quarter- the economy is gettingbetter-the growth of bank profit is still low-companies tend to hold morecapitals and invest consciously-the strict regulations are not released

Lynsey玲

TIME1 01:24
American wine producers are planing to increase marke share in China.Yaoming also produced wines.

TIME2 01:11
There is a competion for wine market in China and The Wine Group shows the problem it is facing.

TIME3 02:00
American banks are losing customers and its impact
on banks;Severalexamples are offered.

Obstacle 06:20
1.Release of Amercan banks second quarter earning,showing some recovery.
2.However,the problems still exist.
3.Banks show large gains from its investments,but low ROE.(Several examples)
4.It is not likely that the overall banking environment will improve.
5.Regulators take action to supress banks' activities.
5.The impact of these regulations on bank.
6.Bankers do not respond to the regulator's proposal & reasons.
7.Critism of Mr Cordray’s appointment

晓野的野

前排！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！1

bejamin1111

lap1,1:24; lap2,1:07;
America wine producers are targeting at chinese market and are competing with their French counterparts.
lap3,1:45;
consumer banks are losing revenue because of decline in customers;
lap4,1:10; lap5,1:26;
很奇怪的文章，没看懂；
obstacle，5:06；
banks revenues are growing at a low pace. regulators have been discussing legislation to solve the problem. It is not that easy.

diweiwang

哈哈，又占到首页了~~~

0:54

0:55

1:00

1:02

0:58

5:11

vicnan

00 50 06
01 03 67
01 26 58
？
？
04 53 70

nannanfeng

占位  首页有没有了？ 晚上来交作业

gyb192483

谢谢 风随心动01
Obstacle: 05‘09’‘
MI: the status of the bank in US and the prosposal to lower the bank risk
ATT: neutral
Structure:
==> the economy of US gets better, as a result the bank gets better
==> some banks can even boost their profit in some certain fields
==> but the US bank system is still not secured
==> some proposals are made to lower the risk of the bank bankruptcy
==> the leverage ration proposal is issued
==> although the banks do not like the proposals, but they don't reject considering the potential tougher regulations
==> somebody propose that the investment bank and the commecial bank be combined again, but it can not be carried out in view of the operational difficulity. And others also propose another solution, but it is also in vain
==> Mr Cordray’s appointment will limits the bank's power. Although the publican try to reject the appointment, they can not prevent it from happing. His appointment makes something bad even worse for the bank


Structure:

lxskyfly

好久不见心动~thank you so much!
TIME1  1:06
American has planned to increase the moderate costly wine sales in China formed as ally.(example:Yao Family Wines)
TIME2  0:56
Although faced with competition from europen wine corporations, those in US,especially in California can still expect a fine market foresight based on the growing wine mkt in China.
TIME3  1:34
- according to a recent survey, many banks are confronting a trendy of losing accounts from consumers, thus losing revenue seriously.
- the author points out what situation some of the banks who are involved, including Citibank, Chase, are facing by citing statistical data from the survey.
- why some many consumers refuse to account in such banks?-they are not paid enough attention compared with the banks' own interests.
TIME4  1:32
- the Wall Street new symbol of greed-the fabulous T
- T helps a hege fund to create a secrutiy to raise money, which makes him fabulous but not so much for the other side of the trade.
- the key issue lies in the law part-whether the sides of the trade know what role the hege fund(P) played in the trade.
TIME5  1:32
- an infamous email has been revealed, but it is taken as unconected to the case directly.
- the testimony is not processed at the early time.it's hard to get exact evidence except for a company called ACA, which is considered nonsense by the attourney.
- T is wathcing what progress the case investigation, expecting some practical application of the economica theories.