热钱（hot money），又称游资（refugee capital），通常定义为追求最高报酬和最低风险，在国际金融市场上迅速流动的短期投机性（speculative）资金。在我国，由于存在资本项目管制，所谓“热钱”则指那些纯粹以投机套利为目的、无真实贸易或投资背景的国际收支交易及跨境资金流动。请看Wikipedia里对此的解释：

In economics, hot money refers to funds which flow into a country to take advantage of a favorable interest rate, and therefore obtain higher returns. They influence the balance of payments and strengthen the exchange rate of the recipient country while weakening the currency of the country losing the money. These funds are held in currency markets by speculators as opposed to national banks or domestic investors. As such, they are highly volatile and will be shifted to another foreign exchange market when relative interest rates make this more profitable.

       自2010年2月起，国家外汇管理局（State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE)）在外汇流入量较大的13个省市，排查累计金额4400多亿美元的跨境交易，现已查实73.5亿美元属于违规流入的“热钱”。

       对于“热钱”的流向，国家外汇管理局副局长邓先宏表示，从专项行动看，“热钱”进入的重要目标就是进入股市（equity market, stock market）、楼市（property market）获取资产价格上涨收益，这符合“热钱”的投机套利本性。

       请看新华社的报道：

An investigation into this year's speculative "hot money" inflows uncovered 190 cases involving 7.35 billion U.S. dollars of funds, a senior official of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said.

In an undated interview with The People's Daily posted on the newspaper's website Monday, Deng Xianhong, deputy director of the SAFE, said the foreign exchange regulator did not find evidence of large amounts of hot money flowing into China.

The SAFE investigation began in February.

The latest figure was unchanged from the May 25 figure.

Most of the speculative and arbitrage capital from overseas wound up in the equity and property markets, Deng told the newspaper without giving further details.

——Excerpt from China uncovers US$7.35 bln of hot money inflows

       （来源：中国网学英语频道）