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The business idioms and expressions for this week are:

TO GET SOMETHING MOVING = to cause something to become active
CONUNDRUM = a mystery, challenge, puzzle
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION = the output of factories, manufactured goods
CONSUMER SPENDING = the amount of spending done by consumers (a measure of how confident people feel in the economy) 
TO FLOW INTO = to move easily and quickly into
MUTUAL FUNDS = organizations that receive investors’ money and invest it in diversified stocks and bonds for them. The investment comes in the form of shares of the fund. 
TRENDS = tendencies, inclinations, movements, developments
SLUMPS = economic downturn or decline
TO COME TO BELIEVE = to be convinced of, to arrive at a conclusion 
GARDEN-VARIETY = ordinary, everyday
STOCK BUBBLE = artificially high valuation of stock
MARKET FORCES = determiners of market performance such as high interest rates or political events
TO DEAL WITH = to work with, to handle, to manage, to arrange
TO RESOLVE = to settle, answer, work out, solve
SELL-OFF = a period where there is a lot more selling of stocks than buying
THE FIX = the solution, the answer
TO SHAPE = to influence, affect, have an effect on
TO OVERCOME = to beat, defeat, conquer

Examples: 

“What will it take to get stocks moving up again? Surprisingly, the solutions seem a lot clearer than they did just a few weeks ago. Then, many investors saw the stock market as a conundrum: Economic forces such as industrial production and consumer spending were strong and money was flowing into mutual funds. . . [but the stock market wasn’t moving]. 

“Now, as stocks have stumbled into one of their worst slumps in 30 years, investors are coming to believe they are dealing with something more than a garden-variety decline. It now seems possible that the bursting of the late-1990s stock bubble has created a set of persistent market forces that will need to be dealt with and resolved before stocks can truly recover. [Recently] the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen . . . nearly10%. . . . The power of the sell-off has, for many, helped clarify how deep the market’s problems are. That, unfortunately, is the good news. 

“The bad news could be that the fix won’t be quick. Of the major factors shaping the market now, two of the most important – disagreement about how much stocks are really worth and a lack of trust in corporate numbers – could take months, or perhaps longer, to overcome.” The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2002, page A1. 

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