A Quick Lesson In Wall Street Lingo

January 11, 2007 By Jonathan Ping 9 Comments
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It can be tough watching CNBC and reading stock market articles without knowing the proper terms. Here are some helpful pointers:

  • Profit-taking: All-purpose explanation for why the market went down.
  • Correction: A major market crash made to sound like a minor mistake.
  • Momentum investor: Buyer of stuff that’s already gone up.
  • Value investor: Buyer of stuff that looks like it’ll never go up.
  • Broker: What you’ll be, if you follow their advice.
  • Financial consultant: Broker trying to appear respectable.
  • Financial planner: Financial consultant who might actually be respectable.
  • The smart money: Owners of whatever has lately performed well. No permanent members.
  • Federal Reserve: Extremely powerful, like God, and also moves in strange and mysterious ways.
  • Warren Buffett: Widely admired investor who is often quoted by lesser mortals seeking to buttress their arguments.
  • Futures: Trade these too much, and you won’t have one.
  • Collectibles: Justification for buying things that will never appreciate in value, but you really, really want.
  • Stock options: A way for senior executives to get rich.
  • Hedge funds: Like mutual funds, except with much higher fees. But the bragging rights are priceless.
  • Cash-value life insurance: Great strategy for retirement, assuming you’re an insurance agent and you can sell enough of these policies.
  • Variable annuities: Chance for ordinary investors to pay hedge-fund-like fees.
  • Commodities: Pigs with lipstick.

Excerpted from Jonathan Clements in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), found via No Money In Poetry.

Filed Under: Investing
Last updated: April 29, 2014
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Comments

  1. a says
    January 11, 2007 at 5:13 am

    These are stupid. This post had a chance to be legitimately helpful, but you killed it by trying to be funny. Reread that last sentence if you need to, but I said “TRYING.” Way to go.

    Reply
  2. Jason says
    January 11, 2007 at 9:13 am

    Good list….Had to look them up the hard way over a year ago
    Maybe also include Fed Speak.

    Reply
  3. Jonathan says
    January 11, 2007 at 11:55 am

    I don’t know what you’re talking about, a. These definitions are the most accurate I’ve seen in a long time.

    Reply
  4. Brian says
    January 11, 2007 at 12:01 pm

    Awesome post. I particularly like the definition of Broker. “a”, these definitions are more accurate than what you will find in a dictionary or investing guide.

    Reply
  5. Dean says
    January 11, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    hilarious!

    Reply
  6. CreditShack says
    January 11, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    Great! Maybe in a future edition you can add an entry for ‘technical analysis’.

    Reply
  7. ProfessorB says
    January 12, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Funny.

    Reply
  8. Allen.H says
    January 15, 2007 at 9:38 am

    Hehe, actually i’ve started reading the post and thought it was serious until i reached “broker”. It was pretty amusing, but care to explain what these terms literally mean?

    Regards and keep it up!
    Allen.H

    Reply

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