A Translation of Business Insider Stock Market Verbs

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Business Insider is the Internet's undisputed king of breathless stock market analysis. But with the site's frequent deployment of superlative diction (for example, "DEMOLISHED," "DESTROYED," "EXPLODES"), it's sometimes difficult to differentiate bad news from really bad news or good news from great news. Thus, we offer the Business Insider Verb Translator: A breakdown of our favorite BI market-moving verbs alongside their statistical corollaries in the market world. Here's what we've gathered based on analysis from the last two years:

If the stock is performing poorly

• 2.64 percent drop to 7.2 percent drop = Stock is "Demolished"
• 3.7 percent drop to 6 percent drop = Stock is "Tanking"
• 5 percent drop to  12.5 percent drop = Stock "Collapses"
• 6 percent drop = Stock "Implodes"
• 7 percent drop to 10.5 percent drop = Stock is "Getting Creamed"
• 9 percent drop = Stock is "Breaking Down"

• 9 percent drop to 11 percent drop = Stock "Plunges"

• 12 percent drop to 59 percent drop = Stock is "Getting Destroyed"

• 13 percent drop = Stock is "Getting Crushed"
• 15 percent drop to 18 percent drop = Stock "Plummets"

The stock is performing well

• 4 percent increase = Stock "Takes Off" 

• 6 percent increase to 12 percent increase = Stock "Skyrockets"
• 6 percent increase to 16 percent increase = Stock "Explodes"
• 9 percent increase to 14 percent increase = Stock is "Soaring"

In sum, while verbs like "EXPLODES" and "GETTING DESTROYED" are a fairly accurate indicator that a large market swing is in the works, if you're using this market news for business purposes (and really, if you're not, why are you reading about stock prices?), you're probably going to need to click through to the article given the vast range of spikes and slumps. In the meantime, we welcome a tighter Business Insider house style guide for "GETTING CREAMED" vs. "DEMOLISHED."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.