The PermaBear to English Translation Guide

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: 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.

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Previously: The Modern Kudlow To Standard English Translation Guide

Coming Soon: The Gold Bug to English Translation Guide