You can’t get through an episode of the hit HBO series Industry, set in and around a London investment bank, without someone talking about a “yard,” or going “long,” or “short”—loads of measurements, all of them! It might as well be a different language with hardcoded subtitles.
Not that the exotic words are necessarily a bad thing. Industry‘s milieu may be sort of difficult to grasp unless you’re a Bloomberg-pilled trader in a Patagonia vest, but it feels specific, lived-in and real. Crazy shit happens throughout the show that we only vaguely understand, but we believe it because of the specificity of the world, which makes it all feel authentic (so it should, given that it’s written by a pair of ex-investment bankers). The show’s assault of acronyms and rhyming slang only contributes to that authenticity, and you can go along with it all well enough without having to do your homework.
But what if you, like, don’t just want to go along with it? We’re up to season three, after all. We’ve cleared RIF (the day unsuccessful finance grads are axed; see season one). The FX (foreign exchange) and CPS (cross-product sales) desks loom. To that end, with season three just around the corner, we’ve put together this helpful guide. We’ll make a savvy trader of you yet!
(Going) Short
If operating in the financial market is essentially making bets, then going short is betting against the success of a “security” (an investment, essentially, like a stock or bond). You borrow said security, then sell it, with the aim to buy it back later at a lower price. The difference represents your profit. Such is why, in season two, Harper instructs tech billionaire Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass) to borrow a shit-ton of shares in pharma firm FastAide, anticipating that its price will plummet after the government assembles an anti-trust committee that will probably prevent FastAide’s acquisition by Amazon (negatively affecting its value).
Long (Position)
So, going short is betting against the economy; in brief a long position, then, is putting money down in the belief that the value of a security will improve over time. This is the more conventional method of investing: you buy a security and hold onto it (hence going long) in the hope that its value appreciates. In the season two finale, Jesse also goes long on Rican, a rival pharma firm whose value is bumped when he goes on CNN and “speaks into existence” the government’s anti-trust investigation into FastAide—so he wins both bets, with a little savvy, er, insider trading.
Yard
Frequently heard on the fast-paced trading floor—often in the background chatter that’s sort of Industry‘s backing track—“yard” refers to a billion pounds (or dollars, contextually). The term is derived from “milliard,” an outdated word for billion that has been largely superseded by it. This is an example of how the etymology of jargon used in London’s finance world often comes wrapped up with cockney rhyming slang, hence “yard” for “milliard,” which is pronounced as “mill-yard.” It is not, to be clear, a measurement for the average length of lines snorted by the Pierpoint grads.
