Dead Cat Bounce

"Dead cat bounce" is an obnoxious phrase to a cat lover. The phrase has nothing to do with cats really. It has everything to do with finance.

In finance, a dead cat bounce refers to a temporary recovery in the price or value of the declining stock of a company or stock market. The stock of a company refers to its value with respect to shareholder's interests. That, in any case, is my understanding of the meaning of the word “stock".

The phrase was apparently made up by a couple of journalists - Horace Brag and Wong Sulong - working for the Financial Times. The Singaporean and Malaysia stock markets fell rapidly and then bounced back. In a report on this event these journalists concocted the phrase, “dead cat bounce".

To this couple of journalists the phrase was appropriate because to them even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height and the stock market, I presume, had fallen from a great height and then bounced back a little bit.

Of course, they could have picked any number of inanimate objects to use in their concocted phrase but chose the domestic cat above everything else, which, to me, indicates a rather unpleasant attitude towards the domestic cat. Although, no doubt I'm being overly sensitive but I've always disliked this phrase as it appeared to me to have come from insensitive people.

What about these alternatives:

“Squash Ball Bounce"
“Dead Person Bounce"
“Smart Phone Bounce"

None of them sound as good as the original partly because we are used to the original but they are all more decent and respectful of the domestic cat than the original.