Everyone needs a decoder, whether it’s about QE2, technical analysis, or “net, net.” Herewith, from fund manager Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture:
These days, the spectrum of market commentary is broad, ranging from permabulls to recessionistas to gold bugs to dollar bears.
More recently, a special group of folks have been out in full force — the PermaBears — and their jargon can be a bit . . . confusing . . . to the uninitiated.
For those you who have been having difficulty understanding their idiosyncratic language, The Big Picture, in conjunction with Google Translate, offers you this handy service.
Enjoy:
The PermaBear to English Translation Guide
Apple: A fictitious company that does not exist.
BLS: A secret society of mathematicians and statistical wonks conspiring to falsify economic data, formerly known as the the sect of Opus Dei; See also Birth Death Adjustment.
Bernanke, Ben: Beelzebub
Bonds: An asset class that will eventually be worthless paper as its value is inflated away, but in the meantime, are a good alternative to equities.
Bubble: A catchall phrase used to describe any market not in freefall.
China: The centrally planned communist economy that is the model for Free Market Economies in the West. alt. An idealized form of Capitalism;
Death Cross: The most reliable and certain technical formation known to man. See also Golden Cross: An old wives’ tale, not to paid attention to or taken seriously at all.
Depression: The current state of economic affairs; See also Pornography.
European Union (EU): A soon to be dissolved association of Socialist states, whose sole purpose is to mislead investors into believing the United States is (comparatively) fiscally responsible. See also EuroFASB: A criminal legal enterprise of accountants whose members help banks hide massive losses;
Fiat Currency: The root of all evil
FOMC: Fertilizer for the root of all evil
Gold: A shiny yellow metal used primarily as an excuse for missing a generational rally in equities.
Google: See Apple
Greece: A nation of tax cheats that will lead to the dissolution of the EU;
Greenspan, Alan: Lucifer
Housing Bottom: A theoretical but mathematically impossible construct.
Hindenburg Omen: A common pick up line at permabear cocktail parties, good for for attracting sexual partners but of little use for anything else.
Vernacular: “Did you see another Hindenburg Omen signal was given today?”
Hyper-Inflation: The eventual fate of all humanity due to the existence of central banks.
Inflation: The precursor condition to Hyper-Inflation.
Japan: A large manufacturing island in the Pacific, whose decades-long recession is the inevitable model for the United States
Money Supply: ∞, an imaginary number.
New Normal: A combination of contracting credit availability, stubborn unemployment and US consumer de-leveraging; See also 1930s, 1950s, 1970s (aka Old Normal).
Overbought: The normal state of equity markets;
Oversold: A theoretical market condition last seen in 1982.
P&L: We don’t talk about that.
POMO: [Permanent Open Market Operations by the Fed] An acronym used by rookie traders in failed attempts to explain the “mysterious” impact of massive liquidity on equities.
QE 2: A code word or shorthand for the event that has been prophesied to bring about the End of the World. Interchangeable with “Apocalypse” as Perma-bears regard both its coming and its destructive power as a quasi-religious inevitability. See also POMO
Recession: See Depression
Risk On: Any Bull market
Rosenberg, David: A minor deity amongst the Perma-bear faithful. The very mention of his name causes a reverential hush to fall over the gathered masses as they hungrily devour his latest proclamations of death and dismemberment. See also Roubini, Faber, Rogers, Cassandra, et. al.
Stress Test: Hoax or Conspiracy
Subprime: The state of all credit in the US
Tony Robbins: The newest economic sage to warn of the coming economic apocalypse, most recently during August 2010; See also Paul Tudor Jones.
Unemployment: An irreversible condition, symptomatic of declining empires. Hence the reason no one in Great Britain ever found a job again after the 1830′s.
Uptrend: Not found.
ZIRP: See QE2
Well, there you have it — unless the trading Gods have terrific senses of humor, the top is now in.