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Now, Words and Their Stories, |
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a VOA Special English program |
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about American expressions. |
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I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with some financial words |
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and expressions used in business and the stock market. |
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Our first expression is "in the red." |
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It is another way of saying |
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that a business is losing money. |
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In the past, |
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numbers in the financial records of a company |
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were written in red ink to show a loss. |
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A business magazine recently published a report |
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about a television company. |
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The report said the company was still in the red, |
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but was able to cut its loss from the year before. |
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A profit by a business is written in black numbers. |
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So a company that is "in the black" is making money. |
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An international news service reported |
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that a private health insurer in Australia |
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announced it was "back in the black |
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with its first profit in three years." |
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Another financial expression is "run on the bank." |
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That is what happens when many people |
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try to withdraw all their money from a bank. |
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A "run on the bank" usually happens |
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when people believe there is danger a bank may fail or close. |
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Newspaper reports about a banking crisis |
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in Russia used that expression. |
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They said the government acted because of fears |
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that the crisis would cause a run on the banks. |
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"When a run on the banks was starting, |
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there was not much they could do," said a banking expert. |
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"Day trading" is a new expression about a system |
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that lets investors trade directly |
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on an electronic market system. |
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The system is known as NASDAQ, |
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short for The National Association |
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of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation. |
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It was the first completely computerized stock market. |
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It sells stocks of companies not listed on any stock exchange. |
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Many high technology companies are listed on it. |
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Day trading companies provide a desk and a computer system |
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to an investor who wants to trade. |
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Individuals must provide fifty thousand dollars or more |
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to the trading company to pay for the stocks they buy. |
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Thousands of other investors do day trading |
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from computers in their homes. |
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A day trader watches stock prices carefully. |
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When he sees a stock rise in price, |
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he uses the computer to buy shares of the stock. |
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If the stock continues to rise in price in the next few minutes, |
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the day trader sells the shares quickly to make a small profit. |
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Then he looks for another stock to buy. |
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If a stock goes down instead of up, |
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he sells it and accepts the loss. |
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The idea is to make a small profit many times during the day. |
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Day traders may buy and sell stocks hundreds of times each day. |
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Many day traders lose all their money in a week or so. |
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Only about thirty percent succeed in earning enough |
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from their efforts to continue day trading. |
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(Music) |
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This VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories, |
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was written by Frank Beardsley. |
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This is Rich Kleinfeldt. |
