Words and Their Stories: In the Red
09 October 2010
Now, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, a VOA Special English program about American expressions.
I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with some financial words and expressions used in business and the stock market.
Our first expression is "
in the red
." It is another way of saying that a business is losing money. In the past, numbers in the financial records of a company were written in red ink to show a loss.
A business magazine recently published a report about a television company. The report said the company was still in the red, but was able to cut its loss from the year before.
A profit by a business is written in black numbers. So a company that is "
in the black
" is making money. An international news service reported that a private health insurer in Australia announced it was "back in the black with its first profit in three years."
Another financial expression is "
run on the bank
." That is what happens when many people try to withdraw all their money from a bank. A "run on the bank" usually happens when people believe there is danger a bank may fail or close.
Newspaper reports about a banking crisis in Russia used that expression. They said the government acted because of fears that the crisis would cause a run on the banks. "When a run on the banks was starting, there was not much they could do," said a banking expert.
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