A Quick Lesson In Wall Street Lingo

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.

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