Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
My name is Catherine and today we've got an upper intermediate level lesson for you all about money.
That's right, we are going to talk about the stock market.
So a very interesting topic, very current as well because well throughout the world stock markets are not doing very well.
That's right and you may have seen on the television a lot of information about this.
So today we're going to hopefully explain some of the things and phrases and words that you've been hearing.
But first we've got a couple of important indicators, a couple of acronyms actually that you're going to hear about.
So let's look at those in today's vocabulary preview.
Vocabulary preview.
Alright so the first word that we have on vocabulary preview is the NASDAQ.
NASDAQ.
NASDAQ.
N-A-S-D-A-Q.
So this is basically the American stock market.
Right.
It's an acronym.
Now it's a really really long acronym so we're not going to get into it but it is basically the American stock market where all these companies are trading stock, publicly traded companies.
Right, so publicly traded companies, you're basically trading their stocks through NASDAQ.
Right and now the next one that we have is an indicator which tells us how well some companies or some stock are doing and that's the Dow Jones indicator.
So maybe if the Dow Jones is really low for something we think, man it's not doing so well.
If it goes up things are improving.
Right so usually the Dow Jones has the, it's based upon the 50 biggest companies in the United States, the 50 biggest publicly traded companies.
Now you can divide it into like industrial companies or pharmaceutical companies etc.
but in general that's the indicator and how it works.
Great.
So let's take a listen to today's dialogue and find out how these companies are doing in context and we'll be back in a moment to talk about what's going on.
Alright we're back so a lot of interesting words there.
I think a lot of them were very specific to the stock market and very, maybe a little bit difficult so why don't we take a look at a couple of those and language takeaway.
Language takeaway.
Okay so this first word is a very important word in banking and finance.
We talk about portfolios a lot.
So portfolio.
Right so basically a portfolio is the variety of things that you own.
For example in the stock market it could be stocks, it could be bonds, it can be mutual funds etc.
or for example if you're a company your product portfolio could be all the products that your company owns.
That's right so in this case our portfolio is worth half what it was a week ago and so this is a sentence that means we've lost half of the money we invested.
Right.
All of our investments are in a portfolio.
We talk about them as a portfolio and when we lose money we mean our portfolio is worth less now than it was before.
Exactly.
And well moving on he starts to talk about the bull market and the bear market.
So what is this all about?
Well a bull is an animal with horns.
Right.
And a bear is another animal so we're not talking about animals here.
Right.
We're talking about special finance phrases.
Right.
So the bull market would be a again talking about companies and trading it would be maybe a market that's growing very rapidly that's very very strong.
That's a bull market.
So people often talk about China's bull market right?
How China continues to grow and grow and grow and grow.
But a market that slows down like the United States last year would be a bear market.
Right.
So think of a bear maybe it's sleeping it goes into hibernation.
That's a bear market so a slow market it's not really growing.
Very good.
But talking about a portfolio again we might have stocks but in this case the two people are talking about their bonds.
Right.
So he says you still have some high yield to trash bonds and government bonds.
What's a high yield bond and what's a trash bond?
Okay so when we think about the word yield is how much it gives right?
So how much we are getting from it.
So something that is high yield means that you're getting a lot from it.
For example this orange tree yields 300 oranges per year.
Okay so.
That's how much we get from it.
Exactly so we're getting 300 oranges that's how much it's yielding.
And so basically that's what yield means.
So when we talk about trash bonds this on the other hand it's a word that's maybe a little bit tricky.
But a bond is a promise that you get from the seller that he's going to pay you back the money that you give him with interest.
Right.
But a trash bond is a very risky bond.
It means that the seller might not pay you back because you know he's still trying to get all the money.
Alright but a high yield trash bond means that you might make a lot of money from this bond unless of course it's not very dependable.
Exactly so.
It's risky.
Of course since it's riskier it has more yield.
Great.
So high yields trash bond.
And then what about this.
They will give us liquidity to cut our losses.
Liquidity.
We hear all about liquidity in finance.
Exactly.
Maybe in your company the accountant will talk about this.
And that's basically just to have money cash in hand.
So you have money to pay things or to buy things.
Right.
Not.
So it's available.
Available.
Yeah.
Not with credit.
The opposite of credit.
OK.
Liquidity.
And finally instead what are we going to do.
Let's think outside the box.
We could reinvest in emerging markets.
And this is a very hot topic lately talking about emerging markets.
So to emerge means to come up right to rise.
Yeah to come out.
So it's almost like new or growing markets.
So in this case a market an emerging market would be for example the Southeast Asian market which is growing quickly or even you could say West African market.
We're talking about places in the world that aren't established.
They're not old and dependable.
They're new and exciting.
Right.
So they're coming up.
So that's an emerging market.
So a lot of very interesting words and phrases they're very related to our topic.
And so why don't we move on now.
Let's take a look at two key phrases on fluency builder.
Fluency builder.
This first phrase is something we've heard a lot about in the last year or two with things not going so well in the world of finance.
The first one here we go to cut our losses.
OK.
So let's cut our losses.
So when you talk about cutting your losses that means to try and stop losing money somehow maybe sell early.
That's right.
So in this case we're losing money.
Let's stop now.
Let's stop everything.
Cut our losses.
That means cut them away.
Forget about them throw them away and start again.
OK.
So we could say my business is failing.
I'm going to cut my losses sell the business and start again.
That's exactly it.
So to cut your losses means to stop doing something maybe sell it and stop losing money.
Basically you accept the fact that you lost it.
You can't get it back.
Right.
Start again.
So when they were talking about investing in emerging markets he said well maybe we could do this and that would force us to think outside the box.
OK.
This is a great phrase and you might hear this in meetings a lot or from your manager.
What's going on here is these two people are talking about how they lost a lot of money.
The economy is bad and they've been doing things in a normal way for a long time.
It's not working.
Let's think outside the box.
That means let's be creative.
Let's try and discover new ways of doing things that will yield positive results.
That's right.
This is a very very common phrase very widely used in business or when you're talking about ideas is people tell you to think outside the box to maybe break some of the rules.
Right.
Right.
Don't just think the way that you always do.
Don't do the same thing over and over.
Do something new.
Be creative.
Come up with something great.
So that's thinking outside the box.
Right.
Very good.
So a lot of great phrases there.
I think we've learned quite a bit.
Why don't we listen to the dialogue one last time and we'll be back to talk a little bit more about this very interesting topic.
Sorry to bother you sir but I have some bad news.
What is it?
Well the stock market just took a huge plunge and we've lost a lot of money.
What do you mean?
What happened?
There are many factors that weigh in but Nasdaq is down 200 points.
The Dow Jones indicator also suffered.
Our portfolio is worth half of what it was worth one week ago.
How is this possible?
You are supposed to be talking to our stockbrokers and making sure that our securities and investments are safe and making a profitable return.
I know sir.
We didn't expect a bull market to become a bear market all of a sudden.
On the other hand you still have some high yield trash bonds and government bonds that will give us enough liquidity to cut our losses and reinvest in emerging markets.
We could potentially make this tragedy work for us and make us think outside the box.
Do what you have to do.
One other thing.
Don't tell the rest of the stockholders about this.
If they find out it's the end of this company.
So I remember being a little kid and watching TV with my parents and on the news there was always the business segment and you'd always hear the Nasdaq is down 10 points.
The Dow Jones Industrial today is down 10 points.
Yesterday was up 2.
That's an average of H.
It's very complicated.
Especially if you take a look also in the newspaper sometimes.
It shows you different publicly traded companies and it has a bunch of numbers.
It's a very interesting topic.
It's almost a science I think.
Very much a science and some people have made a lot of money playing the stock market and trying to buy stocks when they're low, wait until they're high, sell them off and make tons.
It's pretty much analyzing risk.
So making calculated decisions and that's why they use all these formulas and all these different ratios and ways to ponder how much they should invest or what would they gain.
So it's very very interesting.
Many people compare it to gambling but it's kind of like gambling but not really because you don't really depend on luck.
You kind of make calculated decisions.
And sometimes you're trading for big big companies or even parts of big markets like parts of entire countries.
A lot of people for example stockbrokers will invest a group of workers retirement funds.
They will take those funds and be like hey you're maybe getting 5% from the bank for keeping your money there.
Give me the money and I'll give you 25% yield on your investment.
So obviously they're playing not only their reputation but also with other people's life savings.
And that's why a lot of people lost money when two years ago the bubble really burst in a lot of areas like real estate.
Stock prices went down, the United States went into a recession and all these people's retirement funds, their savings, they lost it.
So you got to be careful with this kind of stuff and do your homework.
But that's about it for us today.
Hope that you've enjoyed this lesson.
If you have questions or comments please do visit us on our website EnglishPod.com.
Alright we'll see everyone there.
Bye.