these data suggesting that new equity capital is only a minor source of financing to american
business are consistent with recent evidence showing that in an average year only about 5 percent of publicly traded companies in the united states sell additional common stock
前面的这些数据表明 美国每年只有5% 新增资本流入 公开的股票证卷市场。并不属于主要融资手法。
this means that a typical publicly traded company raises new equity capital only once
every 20 years?
难道这意味着, 一家上市公司需要20年才能在市场上 引资 1倍（中文叫融资）
like the statistician who drowned crossing a stream because he had heard it was only five
feet deep on average （这句话特别点出 average字眼，是联系上面那个每年average 5%融资比例）像一个统计学家 过一条小溪 时溺水，因为他统计过这条小溪 “平均只有5尺深”
we need to remember that the equity figures presented are the net result of new issues and
retirements 请记住 股票流动资金数据 是由2个方面组合成的：新发行和 （退休基金 或 企业自己回购股票比例，该翻译要看这段文章是学术性还是金融机构的研究分析）
figure 4-5 shows the gross proceeds from new common stock sales for U.S. companies from
1970 to 1998
图4 - 5 ，表明 1970-1998年间的新股净销售 的净收益值
the 28-year average was 48.5$ billion,and the high was $126.8 billion in 1998
28年的平均值 为485亿美元, 而单一年（1998) 最高值1268亿美元
to put these numbers in perspective,gross 《不是perceeds》《proceeds》 from new stock issues equaled 10 percent of total corporate sources of capital in 1997
分析以上 数据 得出 ：在1997年 企业 由新股发行融资 所得的净收益 等同企业总资金流的10%