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
前面的這些數據表明 美國每年只有5% 新增資本流入 公開的股票證卷市場。並不屬於主要融資手法。
this means that a typical publicly traded company raises new equity capital only once
every 20 years?
難道這意味著, 壹家上市公司需要20年才能在市場上 引資 1倍（中文叫融資）
like the statistician who drowned crossing a stream because he had heard it was only five
feet deep on average （這句話特別點出 average字眼，是聯系上面那個每年average 5%融資比例）像壹個統計學家 過壹條小溪 時溺水，因為他統計過這條小溪 “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 請記住 股票流動資金數據 是由2個方面組合成的：新發行和 （退休基金 或 企業自己回購股票比例，該翻譯要看這段文章是學術性還是金融機構的研究分析）
figure 4-5 shows the gross proceeds from new common stock sales for U.S. companies from
1970 to 1998
圖4 - 5 ，表明 1970-1998年間的新股凈銷售 的凈收益值
the 28-year average was 48.5$ billion,and the high was $126.8 billion in 1998
28年的平均值 為485億美元, 而單壹年（1998) 最高值1268億美元
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 數據 得出 ：在1997年 企業 由新股發行融資 所得的凈收益 等同企業總資金流的10%