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Key Takeaways Brian Moynihan is the CEO of the second-largest bank in the U.S. and has been in the position for 16 years.
Moynihan regularly uses words like “gainsay,” “concomitant” and “fantods” as part of a secret game he plays on analyst calls.
Sometimes his diction can lead to confusion, with different transcription services recording the wrong word.
Wall Street analysts listening in to Bank of America’s quarterly results last month may have been scrambling for a dictionary.
The confusion was intentional. The CEO of the second-largest U.S. bank, Brian Moynihan, deliberately sprinkles obscure, archaic words into his prepared statements on these calls, The Wall Street Journal recently reported.
Moynihan regularly uses words like “gainsay,” “concomitant” and “fantods” as part of a secret game he plays on analyst calls, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. The game is so secretive that only a few employees within Bank of America are in on it.
These employees note that someone chooses random words at the last minute for Moynihan to use in his prepared statements. For example, Moynihan has used “gainsay,” or labeling something as untrue or invalid, more than once. In one earnings call, he said adviser productivity was strong, along with accompanying or “concomitant” growth in fee-based assets. In another call, he said he didn’t “get fantods,” or wasn’t nervous.
“There is no question, Brian loves a good challenge and always makes us think,” a Bank of America spokesperson told the Journal. “Or what might be called ludically noetic.” According to Merriam-Webster, “ludic” means playful while “noetic” means relating to or based on the intellect.
How he does it
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