 :: Un corredor is a runner, a runner in a race or someone with an aptitude for running but after discarding the obvious translations, this word also describes a person who acts as an intermediary in the purchase and sale of property, shares and other commercial transactions.
It is now more usual to go to un agente inmobiliario when buying a house but the person who sold you property was once described as un corredor de fincas although an insurance broker is still un corredor de seguros. Likewise a stockbroker is un corredor de Bolsa, which sounds suspiciously like a bagman because a bag is una bolsa, derived from the Latin bursa. By the late 13th century commodity traders in Bruges had begun to do business on the premises of a banking family named Van der Burse and what became known as the Bourse soon spread throughout Flanders to neighbouring countries.
Spain therefore trades through its Stock Exchange or Bolsa de Valores, since stocks, shares and securities in general are known as valores. The Bolsa has a specific adjective, so that a stock index becomes un índice bursátil and a day’s stockmarket activity is una jornada bursátil. Strangely enough, the Spanish word for an exchange - una lonja - does not appear in this context and instead it is where wholesalers sell, vend and auction their merchandise or mercancías – usually fish, fruit, vegetables or other foodstuffs - to retailers.
Stocks and shares are frequently encountered with the same translation of acciones or, although the word is less used, participaciones. Acciones are undeniably actions and participaciones are participations but although strictly speaking stocks and shares are not the same thing, the term acciones is commonly used for stock as well. If you want or need to emphasise the difference this can also be translated as capital, capital social or bonos del estado when referring to government securities. Another translation for un bono is a voucher or certificate and it is also the type of season ticket bought by regular users of buses or trains.
A stock certificate is un título de acciones as well as un certificado de acciones – reverting to catch-all acciones so that un accionista is as likely to be a shareholder as a stockholder. A rights’ issue is una emisión gratuíta de acciones while a flotation is una emisión de valores and the dividend which is what an investor - un inversor - hopes to receive is un dividendo.
Spain’s equivalent of Britain’s Footsie is the Ibex 35 which, as its name implies, is a list of 35 companies selected amongst all those quoted by the Spanish Bolsa. Any kind of portfolio is una carpeta but the term also applies to an investment portfolio or una cartera de inversiónes. And because the same things go on the world over whether we’re referring to Bolsa, Bourse or Stock Exchange, that definitely-not-cricket activity of insider trading is una transacción con información privilegiada – not quite such a snappy phrase but it is just as much of a temptation.
By Linda Hall de González. :: |
