Quote of the Day (Gillian Tett, on Investors and ‘Once-Unimaginable Disasters’)

“Investors need to get better at imagining — and pricing — once-unimaginable disasters. This is hard. No business school teaches students how to model something like a presidential threat to wipe out a civilisation. And the success of the recent TACO trade will undoubtedly make many even more reluctant to do this. But the grim reality is that even if a ceasefire holds in Iran—a big ‘if’—peace looks elusive.”—British columnist and editor Gillian Tett, “Finance: Six Lessons for Investors on Pricing Disaster,” The Financial Times, Apr. 11-12, 2025

Quote of the Day (Christopher Buckley, Defining ‘Wall Street’)

“Wall Street. Collective noun for the financial community in lower Manhattan, derived from the wall that early Dutch brokers erected in the seventeenth century to keep out angry, tomahawk-wielding clients.”—American humorist and novelist Christopher Buckley, “Shouts and Murmurs: A No-Bull Guide to Investment Terms,” The New Yorker, July 9, 2001

Those angry clients have been turning into quite a throng in the past week or so, what with watching the value of their stocks and bonds shriveling in the wake of President Trump’s tariff maneuvers. Question: they’d never descend on the Capitol or even the White House after this, would they?

Well, if they did, they wouldn’t be “angry, tomahawk-wielding clients.” Instead, to borrow the term used about certain overly excited Washington visitors on January 6, 2021 that were subsequently pardoned, they’d be merely “tourists.” 

Quote of the Day (Christopher Buckley, Defining a Wall Street Term Much in Vogue Recently)

“Downside. Term preferred by brokers to describe financial calamity. Considered less alarming to client’s ear than ‘loss,’ ‘crater,’ ‘nosedive,’ ‘tank,’ ‘flameout,’ ‘bankruptcy,’ ‘Chapter 11,’ or ‘destitution.’ Often used in conjunction with ‘potential,’ ‘risk’ and ‘exposure,’ all belonging to the client. Compare: Downturn—What a stock will experience as soon as you have bought it. Down—Direction of a human being after leaping out the window of an office building following a call from a broker.” —American humorist and novelist Christopher Buckley, “Shouts and Murmurs: A No-Bull Guide to Investment Terms,” The New Yorker, July 9, 2001

Quote of the Day (Calvin Trillin, on His ‘Long-Term Investment Strategy’)

“My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.”-- Calvin Trillin, Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff (2011)

(Photo of Calvin Trillin taken at a discussion at Dartmouth College, February 2011.)