2024全國醫學博士英語作文預測：新冠病毒和市場動蕩

Start with the first, volatility. Equity market instability might feed on itself.
　　The VIX, which measures the expected volatility implied by the price of options on the S&P 500 index,
　　vaulted from around 15 to above 27 in a matter of days. Some investment strategies are particularly sensitive to it.
　　For example when volatility is low, they allow for a bigger weighting of equities in portfolios.
　　But when it rises and stays high, some investors are forced to unload some of their holdings—creating yet more volatility.
　　Some exchange-traded funds whose value is linked to the VIX saw outflows.
　　It is likely that at least some investors have been betting on continued near-dormant volatility.
　　The resilience of such strategies could be tested.
　　A bigger worry is credit markets and in particular corporate debt, which has soared over the past decade.
　　A sharp rise in borrowing costs would hurt firms that need to roll-over maturing bonds
　　and would also rattle America's huge private-credit markets.
　　The last big global growth scare, in late 2018, caused a panicky sell-off that briefly threatened to become a credit-crunch.
　　So far the interest-rate spread over Treasuries demanded by investors to hold high-yield corporate paper
　　has widened to 4.3 percentage points, with much of the impact felt by energy-sector bonds. That is cause for concern, not alarm.
　　But new issuance has halted—by February 26th Wall Street had gone three days without any high-grade offerings, according to Bloomberg.
　　If that continues there will be a corporate liquidity squeeze.
　　Interest-rate cuts cannot do much to remedy the disruption. But they can help to soothe credit markets.
　　Easier policy from the Federal Reserve has in the past—notably in 1998—
　　been fuel for a late-cycle rally in risk assets in the face of formidable headwinds.
　　A fortnight ago, just a single interest-rate cut from the Fed was priced in by the markets,
　　says Kit Juckes of Societe Generale, a French bank. Now two are.
　　"We may be pricing in a third, if not a fourth, within a few weeks unless there's a dramatic change in the covid-19 news."
　　首先是波動性。股市的不穩定可能會自食其果。
　　衡量標準普爾500指數期權價格隱含預期波動率的VIX指數