Finally, Current Account is pleased to see that Merrill Lynch has gone at least part of the way to eliminating some of the analyst babble that baffles most outsiders.

No longer will Merrill use the terms "buy" and "accumulate", two words that mean pretty much the same thing to all but market cognoscenti. Instead comes "strong buy" and "buy". "Neutral" stays the same while the old "reduce" has been expanded to a "reduce/sell".

The straightforward "sell" tag, which Current Account believes is appropriate for a large chunk of the Irish market, has been abandoned. A marginal improvement, one supposes, but why is it that analysts have to agonise and twist the English language to avoid using the simple four-letter word "sell" for even the dogs of the market?