A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

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matjen
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A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by matjen »

Courtesy of Business Insider.
"If you follow stock-market punditry obsessively like we do, you'll quickly notice something.

A handful of analysts speak English. But the vast majority don't.

Rather, they speak a language unique to the investment business.

This language consists of market phrases that sound intelligent but don't mean anything.

The phrases don't sound like they don't mean anything, of course. On the contrary, they sound like they mean a lot. In fact, they make the speaker sound as wise as Warren Buffett (who, to his great credit, never speaks this way).

Most of these phrases have another key benefit, which is useful in the investment business: They never commit the speaker to any specific recommendation or prediction. In other words, no matter what happens, the analyst can always be "right" and never be "wrong" — because they didn't actually say anything.

So if you want to sound smart about investing without really saying anything, read on."

http://www.businessinsider.com/meaningl ... 14-12?op=1
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
sschullo
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by sschullo »

Here are a few more:
1. “My fees are paid by the company, not you.”

2. “I have a product that is right for you.”

3. “I guarantee X percent returns for X number of years.”

4. “I can double your money in ten years with guaranteed rates.”

5. “You have a death benefit.”

6. “Don’t worry about my costs. The returns will pay for them.”

7. “You don’t want to be average, you want to beat the averages.”

8. “We guarantee that you will not lose money from your principle.”

9. “My company has a new product and was wondering if you were interested in transferring
your money. It’s a great product that will do better than the one
you have now.”

10. “We use complicated quantitative analysis that will help predict
market downturns or bull markets and change your portfolio
in anticipation of major market fluctuations.”

11. “You get what you pay for because our service is superior to
those low-cost companies like Vanguard. All you get with Vanguard is an 800 number."
Never in the history of market day-traders’ has the obsession with so much massive, sophisticated, & powerful statistical machinery used by the brightest people on earth with such useless results.
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goingup
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by goingup »

I have a lot of respect for the genius of Warren Buffet, however I find this phrase of his detrimental for individual investors:

Rule #1 Never lose money
Rule #2 See Rule #1

It's ridiculous because it's not long-term thinking. There will be points in time when your portfolio value dips, or a fund purchase or 401K contribution is worth less than you paid for it. Such is investing.
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backpacker
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by backpacker »

^ Buffett is referring to "real losses" as opposed to "paper losses". You suffer a real loss if an asset loses value and there is no reasonable expectation of recovery. Whether there is a sensible distinction between paper losses and real losses is an interesting question.
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whatusername?
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by whatusername? »

"Our proprietary trading algorithms leverage market inversions for our investors to generate substantial above-market returns" was my favorite way of hearing someone say "we try to buy low."
livesoft
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by livesoft »

We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
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Grt2bOutdoors
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

"When EF Hutton speaks, everyone listens"

"It's a no-lose proposition"

"The market is selling off on the expectations of higher interest rates". The following day, "the market is rising on the expectations of higher interest rates".

"With us now on CNBC is Art Cashin from UBS on the floor of the NYSE to tell us all about the action" "The market is selling off on profit taking" "The market is rising on new funds flow" "The market is selling off as investors take profits and on expectations of higher interest rates". :oops:
"One should invest based on their need, ability and willingness to take risk - Larry Swedroe" Asking Portfolio Questions
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LazyNihilist
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by LazyNihilist »

livesoft wrote:We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
Brilliant.
The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must -Thucydides
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bertilak
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by bertilak »

Grt2bOutdoors wrote:"When EF Hutton speaks, everyone listens"

"It's a no-lose proposition"

"The market is selling off on the expectations of higher interest rates". The following day, "the market is rising on the expectations of higher interest rates".

"With us now on CNBC is Art Cashin from UBS on the floor of the NYSE to tell us all about the action" "The market is selling off on profit taking" "The market is rising on new funds flow" "The market is selling off as investors take profits and on expectations of higher interest rates". :oops:
There is a whole BOOK of these things: The Maxims of Wall Street by Mark Skousen. I have autographed copy number 2 of the first edition! Many of the "maxims" are actually pretty good:
  • The stock market has forecast nine of the last five recessions. -- Paul A. Samuelson
  • Bubbles are invisible to those inside the bubble -- Jim Dines
  • Obscene Profits: something you have heard about but never experienced yourself. -- anon
  • Fear sells better than greed. -- anon
  • The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth. -- Warren Buffett
  • Stockbrokers make money the old-fashioned way: they churn it. -- Dan Dorfman
  • All bull markets end badly. --Ben Graham
  • History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. -- Mark Twain
  • I realized technical analysis didn't work when I turned the chart upside down and didn't get a different answer. -- Warren Buffett
Seeing hundreds of these in one place, back-to-back, many contradicting the others, is entertaining.

Available at Amazon.
May neither drought nor rain nor blizzard disturb the joy juice in your gizzard. -- Squire Omar Barker (aka S.O.B.), the Cowboy Poet
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fourwedge
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by fourwedge »

livesoft wrote:We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
This has to be the line of the year!!!!
Max out your tax sheltered retirement accounts with inexpensive, well diversified, index funds and you will beat 90% of all investors.
sschullo
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by sschullo »

fourwedge wrote:
livesoft wrote:We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
This has to be the line of the year!!!!
+2
Never in the history of market day-traders’ has the obsession with so much massive, sophisticated, & powerful statistical machinery used by the brightest people on earth with such useless results.
Fallible
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Fallible »

In his The Little Book of Safe Money, Jason Zweig includes "words and phrases that shysters are fond of and that financially legitimate people are very unlikely to use:

Secret.
Can't lose.
Earn $XXXX per week.
Free money.
I'm on your side.
Limited-time offer.
Offshore.
I would never lie to you.
Confidential proposal.
Guaranteed.
What are you afraid of?
Request for business relationship.
The opportunity of a lifetime.
I need some account information.
Double your money.
A sure thing.
You'll be sorry if you don't.
You have to hurry.
Don't you want to be rich?
Trust me."

There are more, but I'll end here.

Edit to add: Should probably also note Zweig pointed out that such phrases don't always mean one is dealing with a dishonest person, but they are a "sure sign that you should be very suspicious and proceed with extreme caution."
Last edited by Fallible on Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Yes, investing is simple. But it is not easy, for it requires discipline, patience, steadfastness, and that most uncommon of all gifts, common sense." ~Jack Bogle
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bertilak
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by bertilak »

Fallible wrote:There are more, but I'll end here.
That's all I need! Where do I sign?
May neither drought nor rain nor blizzard disturb the joy juice in your gizzard. -- Squire Omar Barker (aka S.O.B.), the Cowboy Poet
Fallible
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Fallible »

bertilak wrote:
Fallible wrote:There are more, but I'll end here.
That's all I need! Where do I sign?
:)

Here's another from Zweig's list that I probably should've included: "Low risk, high return."
"Yes, investing is simple. But it is not easy, for it requires discipline, patience, steadfastness, and that most uncommon of all gifts, common sense." ~Jack Bogle
HenryPorter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by HenryPorter »

Talk to Chuck
Jim180
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Jim180 »

I have to laugh when I hear someone say something like " I'm cautious in the short term, but long term I'm bullish".
Translation: " We could have a correction anytime but 20 years from now I think the market will be higher."
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seeshells
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by seeshells »

Heres one:: This investment product has all the markets "upside" with little of its "downside" is a expression i've found very telling evaluating someones motives. The upside rarely includes dividends, and is usually capped in low single digits, the downside is usually obscured in complex formulas and can decimate ones funds. That was classic Livesoft posting.... :D
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by kolea »

Investing for the Twitter age - advice that can be (sort of) given in 150 characters or less.
Kolea (pron. ko-lay-uh). Golden plover.
renter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by renter »

"You have $1 million saved but the the computer says your Magic Number is $4 million. You can't afford not to use me."
renter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by renter »

From a cold call I got at work (my bad for accepting a call from an anonymous number):

"Hi, this is [so and so] from [such and such long and ambiguous company name]. How are things going?"
"Are you calling to sell me something?"
"No, no. Nothing like that... So are you in the market these days?
[click]
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by TradingPlaces »

livesoft wrote:We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
Golden.

I am tempted to make 1000 fancy cards showing this exact phrase, and sharing with every boglehead.

When financial advisors contact the said bogleheads, the bogleheads can give this to financial advisors, telling them it summarizes their motto.

Not a bad way to get rid of a financial advisor.
yukon50
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by yukon50 »

On the CNBC Halftime Report:

"Today is the Fed announcement...how should we play this? How should we trade it?"
"What is your gameplan for the 2nd half of the trading day? How are you going to play it?"
Fallible
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Fallible »

TradingPlaces wrote:
livesoft wrote:We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience.
Golden.

I am tempted to make 1000 fancy cards showing this exact phrase, and sharing with every boglehead. ...
Agree with "golden," but a true Boglehead card would be not fancy but plain, e.g., livesoft's line in simple black type on white cardstock. I would love to share something like that not with Bogleheads, but with Wall Street money managers. :P
"Yes, investing is simple. But it is not easy, for it requires discipline, patience, steadfastness, and that most uncommon of all gifts, common sense." ~Jack Bogle
Hank Moody
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Hank Moody »

Love the article. Especially quotes like, "There's lots of cash on the sidelines" and "More buyers than sellers."
-HM
renter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by renter »

"If you don't listen to me, you deserve to be broke." - Tom Vu

shawcroft
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A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by shawcroft »

Let me add another gem I heard recently from some JP Morgan folks ..

"These are our high-conviction recommendations"

Shawcroft
pkcrafter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by pkcrafter »

How about creating a few new ones. Like....

We know, you benefit.
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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hoppy08520
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by hoppy08520 »

"downside protection"

A retired relative of mine, who is otherwise a very intelligent man with a Ph.D. in a STEM field, nevertheless invests at Ameriprise or something like that. He pays an AUM of around 0.75% and has the usual barf buffet of actively managed funds with ER of around 1.5%.

Anyways, he seems to have bought the illusion that Ameriprise gives his portfolio "upside downside" benefits. He thinks he makes money when the market goes up and also when the market goes down, or at least he loses less than the what the market drop is. So if the market goes down 5%, then maybe he goes down only 3%. And I suppose if the market goes up 7%, he thinks his portfolio goes up 9%. Etc. etc.

Meanwhile, he frets that he is withdrawing too much above the 4% SWR that he does seem to recognize. I've told him that he's giving around ~2.25% of his SWR -- more than half of it -- to Ameriprise, compared to what he could pay for a simple 3-fund portfolio at Vanguard. But he seems to believe that Ameriprise "beats the market."

:oops:

I highly doubt he achieves this "upside downside" alchemy but he seems to think he does.
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by Sconie »

"Earnings were positive before one-time charges." The financial equivalent of, "Well, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

And, "earnings failed to meet forecasts." Or, so much for assuming responsibility for crappy forecasting.
I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Alan Greenspan
pkcrafter
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by pkcrafter »

And, "earnings failed to meet forecasts." Or, so much for assuming responsibility for crappy forecasting.
No, no. The forecast was right, the earnings were wrong. :happy

Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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Re: A Great List of Useless Financial Porn Phrases

Post by anakinskywalker »

Hank Moody wrote:Love the article. Especially quotes like, "There's lots of cash on the sidelines" and "More buyers than sellers."
"More buyers than sellers" or vice versa actually makes sense. "Buyer" and "seller" here stands for people intending to buy and sell respectively, i.e. supply and demand respectively. And we all know that determines prices.

Anakin
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