Commodities multiply the world's wealthy

Latin America, the Middle East and Africa saw the greatest growth in the number of rich people last year as surging commodities prices and booming local stock exchanges increased the wealth of entrepreneurs and investors in emerging markets.

The number of people with liquid assets of at least $1m grew by 10 per cent or more in those three regions, according to a report by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, and Cap Gemini, the consultancy.

The report estimates last year there were 8.7m millionaires on the planet, an increase of 6.5 per cent upon 2004. What's more, these people are becoming richer, with their total assets rising 8.5 per cent last year to an estimated $33,300bn.

Wealthy people in North America, Europe and Asia continue to account for the vast majority of the world''s millionaires. These three regions account for 8m of the global total, and 82 per cent of total wealth.

The figures reflect the effects of economic growth and rising stock markets worldwide last year, particularly growing demand for commodities. Some of these gains are likely to have been reversed in recent months after a sharp sell-off in some emerging markets as some investors switched back to less risky asset classes.

Swelling ranks of the rich have led to a scramble among the world's largest banks to capture them as clients. Growing complexity of wealth management has encouraged rich people to shift assets to large financial institutions in recent years, though even the largest players still have only a very small share of the market.

The world's rich continue to shift their money into alternative asset classes, with the proportion of wealth allocated to private equity and hedge funds rising to 20 per cent on average last year. That reflects a strong inflow into private equity, Merrill Lynch found. Lacklustre returns meant investors were less enthusiastic about hedge funds than in previous years.

一、参考译文：

大宗商品令世界富人财富激增

拉美、中东和非洲富人的数量去年出现最大幅度的增长，原因在于大宗商品价格飚升和当地证交所交易繁荣，增加了新兴市场企业主和投资者的财富。

据投资银行美林（Merrill Lynch）和咨询机构凯捷（Cap Gemini）报告，上述三地流动资产至少100万美元的人数增加了10%或更多。

报告估计，去年全球共有870万百万富翁，比2004年增加了6.5%.并且这些人正变得更为富有，他们的总资产去年增加了8.5%，估计达到33.3万亿美元。

在世界百万富翁中，北美、欧洲和亚洲的富人仍占绝大多数。上述三地的富人在全球总数中占800万，拥有总财富的82%.

这些数字反映了去年世界范围经济增长和股市上涨的效应，尤其是大宗商品需求不断上升产生的后果。其中部分涨幅或许在最近几个月有所回调，因为在一些新兴市场，部分投资者重新转向风险较小的资产类别，导致急剧抛售。

日益扩大的富人阶级已导致全球最大银行之间激烈竞争，这些银行都想招揽他们成为自己的客户。财富管理复杂性的增大已促使富人在近些年把资产转入大型金融机构，而一个现实是，即使是规模最大的选手，也只在财富管理市场上拥有很小的一块份额。

全球的富人继续把资金转投向另类资产类别。去年，配置在私人股本和对冲基金上的财富比例平均上升到了20%.美林发现，这反映出财富强劲流入私人股本。由于对冲基金的回报乏善可陈，投资者对它们不像前几年那样热情。

二、重点词汇：

commodity n.日用品

entrepreneur n.企业家，主办人

consultancy n.顾问（工作）

estimate v.估计，估价，评估；n.估计，估价，评估

millionaire n.百万富翁，大富豪

sell-off n.证券的跌价switch n.开关，电闸，转换；vt.转换， 转变

scramble n.爬行，攀缘，抢夺，混乱；vi.攀缘，杂乱蔓延，争夺，拼凑，匆忙；vt.攀登，搅乱，使混杂

inflow n.流入，流入物

lackluster adj.无光泽的

enthusiastic adj.热心的，热情的