What financial jargon really means

This financial prediction is guaranteed to be on target

By Nury Vittachi

*

Like many people, I have watched the world’s stock markets bounce up and down over the past few months. But unlike the rest of you I KNOW WHY.

                The answer was given to me by a financial analyst, a person who can best be described as “a man who carries a printout of a wobbly line”. He pointed to it. “You’ll notice that every few years, there’s a wobbly bit. Well, we’ve hit another wobbly bit.” (He gets paid the GDP of a small country for saying things like this.)

I showed him a prediction in the newspaper about Asian financial markets over the summer: “While we may see the markets advance, further corrections remain a real risk, as does the possibility of the indexes being trapped in a narrow trading range.”

                Hmm. “Advance” means climbs up, “correction” means falls down, and “narrow trading range” means stuck at one level. In other words, he is saying it may go up, it may go down, or it may stay the same.

                In OTHER other words, it is really saying, “I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on.”

Does this mean brokers are stupid? No, it means they are very clever. It means I am stupid because I nod admiringly while they are telling me they have no idea what is going on.

In one newspaper recently, an investment banker said: “The markets may recover, or it may be the end of the world.” That’s what is called “hedging bets”. He gets paid the GDP of a medium-sized country for saying things like that.

But I did learn one useful thing. Financial people are often highly creative individuals (I use the phrase in the journalistic sense of “crooks”). The many guides to new financial terminology on the market get thicker every year, as indeed, do sad people like me who attempt to read them.

But these books only tell you what financial people say – they don’t tell you what they mean. So here’s a guide to what bits of financial jargon actually mean.

Short-term buy: Probably a bad investment.

Medium-term buy: Definitely a bad investment.

Long-term buy: Definitely a really, really bad investment.

Ultra-long term buy: Guaranteed to make no money at all for at least seven generations or until the sun implodes, whichever takes longer.

Standard and Poor: A description of the typical investor.

Market Crash: A major price adjustment that the financial community arranges to happen the day after you put your savings into shares.

Cash Flow: Movement of money, which always happens in one direction: away from you and towards the brokers.

Institutional Investor: People who lose money in such vast quantities that they should really be locked up in institutions.

Bull Market: A normal part of the cycle which causes financial professionals to mistake themselves for geniuses.

                Correction: God having the last laugh on the people in the item above.

                Some people have found a way to guarantee they will not lose money in the financial markets. This cunning scheme is called “Not Having Any in the First Place” and is widely used by teachers, journalists, social workers, nurses, priests and so on.

                My financial analyst friend has more money than I do—but it comes with a new wobbly line chart. It’s his stress level, and I wouldn’t have it for all the tea in my grandmother.

Comments

[C. Tang]

This is definitely true. In fact, if you look at how commodities are traded, you may find out that the fat paychecks the I-bankers in the "world" get are likely coming out of our pockets through "artificial" inflation via commodity exchange platform in this new world. With the money they get, how can the poor compete for the essential commodities? Does that mean there is shortage of food or other essential commodities? Perhaps the bankers will know better than the UN economists.

[Lisa]

One of my husband's best mates is a Swedish guy (Swedes are renowned for bullshitting) who always manages to say a lot of things but you have no idea what he really means. In fact, I once made the mistake of asking how his day was and he replied, "Well, it depends on whether you are referring to the first part of my day when I started...."
Anyway, shortly after working for his company, they were reviewing his performance and trying to figure out whether he was planning to stay with them. His reply was "Well, the market is neutral."
At which point, they gave him a raise.

[Soutiman]

Very well written my friend. Echoes my feelings about financial analysts and their similarity with weather forecasters.

Your writing style is excellent. Keep it up

[Jane]

Nury, pls contact me! jc

[Nury]

Dear Soutiman, thanks for your kind words, and for having a good sense of humor - send me some funny true stories from your part of the world if you hear any!

[Cally]

What C Tang says is definitely true. These people profit from the rest of us

[Andrew]

Nury! You broke the financial da vinci code! No wonder the markets the world over is in a big correction!

[Sarah L.]

clever, funny, addictive writing. Like Dave Barry on ice,

Can I get a job writing the blurbs on the backs of your books?!!

[Lawton Lai]

You Sir, are witty :)

[Chin]

Don't know if you're familiar or have read Alan Alanson's column in the Sunday Morning Post Money section, but it usually reads something along these lines. Think you'll like him. :)

[bartkid]

>Some people have found a way to guarantee they will not lose money in the financial markets. This cunning scheme is called “Not Having Any in the First Place”

Ha, that used to be true; not anymore.
Thank you, Mr. Paulson.

[Commodity brokers]

this is real life of trading so true.every time i get a email from a newsletter or a trader with a new softwer that promises to make u millions in one year he goes in the delete trash.