English Lessons

DIRECTIONS: Read the following and answer all the questions?
http://www.americanenglishconversation.com/
http://www.freeenglishconversation.blogspot.com/
http://www.grammar-help.blogspot.com/  
http://freeenglishlessons-denise.blogspot.com/  
Careful, Moody’s, don’t wear out your downgrade stick! Moody’s is shaking it for the second time this morning, this time at regional and local Portuguese governments.
Moody’s said it had cut the cities of Lisbon and Sintra by four notches each, into junk territory, with negative outlooks. The agency also cut the regions of the Azores and Madeira, also well into junk, and put their outlooks under review for further downgrades.
This follows the Moody’s downgrade of several Portuguese government-related companies this morning and its downgrade to junk of the Portuguese government yesterday.
It also comes amid widespread wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among European officials about how dastardly rating agencies are ruining everything.
Goldman Sachs has been a halfway decent barometer for commodities this year, turning bearish in April just before a big selloff and getting bullish in May ahead of a little pop, though that turned out to be short-lived.
Now the Vampire Squid is getting even bullish-er, with a note today calling for “further upside momentum” in commodities, especially the Brent crude, UK natural gas, copper, zinc and soybeans for which Goldman has a special soft spot:

We believe that the Greek situation, ongoing tension between the inflation/growth tradeoff in China, and still mixed economic data from several key economies will continue to drive near-term volatility in the commodity markets.
However, we maintain that commodity prices and returns will rise further later this year and into 2012. Underlying this view are Goldman Sachs economists’ expectations for reacceleration in global economic growth during 2H2011 as temporary drags from the Japanese earthquake and the April oil price spike diminish.
On net, while growth is expected to slow in 2011 from 2010’s above-trend pace, it is expected to remain substantially positive and generally supportive of rising commodity demand. We expect this demand growth will be sufficient to tighten key commodity markets over the next six to twelve months, particularly for those markets where supply constraints will become binding even on slower economic growth.

They recommend getting long December 2012 Brent crude contracts. Brent has long been a favorite of theirs and is up nearly 3% today to $116.62 a barrel.
They recommend getting long fourth-quarter UK natural-gas contracts.
They recommend going long on copper, zinc and gold, though they think gold’s run will be short-lived, based on an expectation that US interest rates will start to rise in 2012.
They recommend going long on soybeans, while expecting falling corn and wheat prices.