I came across a word I had never heard of before, and from the context immediately guessed its meaning… uptick… If I had seen it on its own I don’t think I would have had any idea at all. I looked it up and found lots of simple definitions and then a more in-depth one on a site called Investopedia:
What’s an uptick? It’s a transaction for a financial instrument that occurs at a higher price than the previous transaction. It occurs if a stock’s price increases in relation to the last tick or trade. The significance in financial markets is largely related to the Uptick Rule, which used to dictate that a short sale could only be made on an uptick.
There is more if you’re interested!
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/uptick.asp#ixzz5B42Xqq5F
Apparently the so-called ‘Uptick Rule‘ came about in 1934 to try to prevent another stock market crash such as the Wall Street Crash which had massive global implications. This rule came from the U.S. and it was repealed in 2007. It had been brought in to keep stock markets stable, and what happened after its repeal? Another U.S. stock market crisis collapse the effect of which was felt massively, once again, world-wide, and over here in Britain it affected us all.
The word uptick no longer relates just to the world of finance; it can mean any small trend upwards – a slight increase in anything can be an uptick, in fact when I saw it, there was no reference to finance at all! I don’t think it’s a word I shall be using, I can think of plenty of synonyms for it.
While researching I came across a post from seven years ago and someone else was equally fascinated!
Lois Elsden 