Spanish investor slang: from 'bolsillotieso' to 'karlillo'

The dictionary that translates the jargon of everyday investors

An investor with less than 100 euros in their portfolio has a nickname: bolsillotieso. The label is part of a glossary that a proposal launched in the Stock Market and investments section aimed to create so that newcomers could finally understand the jargon circulating among small savers. The plan included a section for famous quotes with text, author and date, and three rules: copy the previous list, add each term in alphabetical order and accept new meanings for what was already defined. On paper, order. In practice, a dictionary under construction.

What does 'bolsillotieso' miccionan and what else does the glossary include?

The definition is literal: a person whose investments do not exceed 100 euros. Alongside it lives the pakillo, a 100-peseta silver coin that gives its name to an entire way of investing in metals. There is also room for karlillos, 12, 20 and 30 euro coins nicknamed k12, k20 and k30, although an initial version grouped them all under the same abbreviation and had to be corrected. The basic block is closed by the classic troll: someone who makes up stories to pass the time.

The rivalry between metaleros and oreros

Two schools. Metaleros invest in precious metals and oreros specialise only in gold. The rivalry has its own vocabulary: the former call banknotes papelines de colores (coloured paper), with a manifestly derogatory intent towards fiat money. The list thus captures a real division in the way of understanding savings. Physical metal versus paper. Distrust versus convention.

From 'percutir' to 'repercutir': humour as method

Not all the glossary is financial. Percutir is defined bluntly as having sensual relations, and from there comes the variant repercutir, reserved according to the same logic for doing it twice. The joke works as glue for the group and explains why half the dictionary rests on puns. The pole also appears, the word with which, according to its own definition, one should open the first reply to any topic. Here the joke is the norm.

Pepitos, yennis and labels that come from finance

Over time the dictionary drifts towards social archetypes. A pepito would be the man who took a stable job for granted for 40 years and signed a mortgage on that trust; his female version gets another name. Another entry describes a young woman fond of reggaeton, tracksuits and tattoos and reduces her to a stereotype about motherhood and life expectations. Some defend that portrait as trench humour and others read it as a derogatory caricature of young women. The list itself admits that some definitions are born from a sketch, not from data.

Duplicates, labels and a glossary that already existed in 2010

The order-loving impulse soon clashed with reality. An equivalent glossary had been open since 2010, so the new one was born duplicated. Reproaches came for the scant contribution and demands to correct the accumulated errors instead of asking others to do it. Then, cross-accusations: that someone was manipulating the labels on messages, that the same person was signing with several aliases, that the blame for the saturation of content about bitcoin fell on whoever peine threads. None of the fruta was clarified. The attempt to close the dispute with a pole y fin de polémica (pole and end of controversy) did not help much either.

The last entry in the list, SIMONEAR, appears without a definition. A dictionary born to translate investor jargon that has not yet translated its own last word.