Back in New York, this week and just in time for a landmark,

紐約股市在這週剛創了新的里程碑，

it looks as though Google has taken over from Apple as the world's largest company by market cap.

看樣子Google擠下Apple，成爲全球市值最高的企業。

This is how those two companies stood at the end of trading today and turn to their market cap.

這是兩大公司今日交易收盤的結果，我們來看他們的市值，

Then Google announced their earnings which were considerably better than expected,

Google發布了他們優於市場預期的盈利，

so were their revenues and judging by after-hours trading,

同樣高漲的還有他們的營收。從盤後交易的情形來看，

Their share prices up some 5%, that would be more than enough to take them ahead of Apple.

Google的股價漲了百分之五，光是這樣就足以超越Apple的股價

Now, that's an exciting development,

這真是令人振奮的發展，

but in general earnings haven't been better than expected here, in the US.

但總體而言，美國股市的盈利並沒有比預期的好，

And in general, stock markets today haven't been exciting at all.

股市大致來看並沒有太大的波動。

And yes, it was almost exactly flat for the day.

的確，整天下來股市幾乎走勢平平，

That's followed (by) continued gains in Japan on

接著，由於日銀於週五祭出了破天荒的負利率政策，

the back of Japan's shocking decision to go to negative interest rates on Friday,

日經指數持續攀升，

but falls in European stocks.

卻在歐洲股市下跌。

Now, a lot of that could be due to ISM surveys, which we always get in the beginning of the month,

這些結果大部分是來自每個月初ISM指數的調查，

looking at manufacturing date.

可從製造日期觀看。

Try if we take a look at this next chart, you can see here in the US,

如果我們觀看下一個圖表，你可以發現美國

the manufacturing ISM continues to signal contraction.

ISM生產指數一直呈現下跌的情況。

Yes, manufacturing accounts for a much smaller chunk of the economy than it used to do.

確實，製造業對經濟體系的貢獻比起以往縮水許多，

But as you can see, going back to 1980, it really,

但正如您所看到，在1980年

this survey really does seem to map very well onto the absent flows of the economy itself.

這份調查似乎忠實呈現了經濟體本身流動停滯的情形。

You can see why this is contributing to growing nervousness about whether

可以想見為什麼這個現象造成越來越多人擔心

the US economy really is as strong as many people have assumed.

美國的經濟實力其實沒有大家想像般的強盛。

Now that leads into one final big issue which is going to begin to bulk larger,

這就要談到另一個最終會越演越烈的重大議題，

which is that over the next few hours, we will have the Iowa caucuses and

那就是在接下來的幾個小時內，我們將會由愛荷華州黨團會議初選

the process for deciding who the next US president is going to be.

來得知美國總統選舉的走勢。

We'll finally move into action.

我們最終會付諸行動。

Now if we take a look at the Iowa Electronic Markets, has no direct connection to the Iowa caucuses.

我們來看看愛荷華州電子股市，這和愛荷華州黨團會議沒有直接相關。

This is an electronic futures market run by the University Of Iowa,

這是由愛荷華大學創立的電子期貨市場，

which allows people to bet on who they think is going to be president.

可以讓民眾來下注總統大選的結果。

You can see it's been much less volatile and exciting than the campaign has been so far,

可以看出市場走勢並不如競選來的浮動和振奮，

and there is a general sense that the Democrats are more likely to prevail,

而且普遍呈現往民主黨一面倒的情況，

better two in three shots at this point.

有三分之二的機率民主黨會獲勝。

That really says little more than the electoral map at this moment tends to favor the Democrats

這其實跟選舉地圖上呈現的民主黨支持度相差無幾，

if there's no other particular reasons of votes,

除非有什麼特別的投票原因，

otherwise you would tend to think that the Democrats are more likely to win the presidency.

不然人們大都會認為民主黨會贏得總統大選。

Well, I doubt very much that this level of calmness about the presidential process can last much longer.

我不認為現在選戰的平穩程度能再持續多久，

The chances are that we're going to see more volatility there,

我們很可能會觀察到越來越多的波動，

and that will be reflected in markets.

而這些將會反映在股市上。