12 April 2007

Anticipating trouble: dangerous phrases

An interesting post here on dangerous phrases in directors' announcements, which are often a warning sign that problems are being hidden from the stock market. The phrases include "international", "well positioned", and "firm/solid platform/foundation":

A firm/solid platform/foundation:
This roughly translates as rock bottom - what could be a more solid platform? Usually, by the time they resort to this phrase, you can take it as a hope expressed in sheer desperation, along the lines of "It surely can't get any worse than this.. can it? Either way, we're ****ed if we know what to do next and are resorting to prayer.

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