This isn't the biggest deal in the world, but as language obsessives, we found it at least mildly interesting.
Late yesterday, after the close of trading, we received one of the Wall Street Journal's periodic Market Alerts. Under the headline "Dow Industrials Surge 330 Points as Oil Drops, Fed Stands Pat," we saw this (emphasis added in bold):
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 330 points as oil prices continued to fall and the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged. Gains were widespread, with 20 of the average's 30 components advancing on the day.
Like many terms of art, "widespread" is in the eye of the beholder, and yesterday's move higher was clearly substantial. But 20 of 30 Dow stocks moving higher on a day when the index jumped 330 points, doesn't seem especially widespread to us. It just doesn't.
This may seem like quibbling, and to an extent...it is. But language matters, and media characterizations of market developments have consequences for the way rank-and-file investors understand what's happening around them. For what it's worth, we tend to favor precision and nuance over spin and superlatives.