Where Does ‘TACO’ Rank Among Investment Acronyms?

I love a good investment acronym. It’s not so much the ROICs and EPSs of the world that excite me, but a clever acronym that spells out a word and captures a concept can really brighten a researcher’s day. So, I was tickled when I heard about the TACO Trade.

TACO, for the uninitiated, stands for Trump Always Chickens Out. Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times coined the term in reference to the president’s habit of backing off tariffs in response to market declines. The implication for investors is that prices will rebound after tariff-induced selloffs. As a strategy, TACO is reminiscent of BTD (Buy The Dip—an acronym popular with the crypto crowd that sometimes includes an F).

Is TACO a fair assessment? Readers will have their own opinions. To some who hold the belief that Donald Trump is playing three-dimensional chess, the president’s pivots aren’t “chickening out”; instead, tariff announcements are bargaining chips, the “Art of the Deal” at work. To others, the president is a dangerous chaos agent—making it up as he goes along, reacting to backlash, and destabilizing the economy in the process.

I see TACO as useful insofar as it keeps investors in the market. The Trade part makes me nervous. Trading around volatility carries a high degree of difficulty. That said, panic selling is an even worse idea, and there’s merit to using market pullbacks as entry points.

TACO got me reflecting on other investment acronyms of the recent past and the wisdom they may or may not contain.

Investment Acronyms Across the Spectrum

NINJA. No Income, No Job, No Assets. You needed none of the three to receive a hefty mortgage during the US real estate boom of the mid-2000s. The NINJA acronym appropriately conveyed danger. But its stealth undertones are misleading. “Subprime” lending, often done through adjustable-rate mortgages, was a well-known practice. Property prices only go up, according to the then-conventional wisdom, so borrowers couldn’t lose. Bundling NINJA loans into widely sold securities triggered the global financial crisis of 2007-09, on top of a Great Recession.

Unfortunately, the NINJA acronym didn’t enter the collective consciousness until after crisis struck. Except for a few savvy investors profiled by Michael Lewis, we didn’t grasp the danger of subprime until it was too late. Mortgage lending became a lot stricter after the crisis. As someone who purchased property in 2006, then again in 2013, I can personally attest to how standards tightened.

TINA. There Is No Alternative (to Equities). TINA gets points for being a full sentence and for anthropomorphic (say that word five times fast) qualities. You could almost see her shrugging at you, encouraging you to keep buying stocks because bond yields were so low. As an acronym, TINA is thought to have originated in 19th century British politics. In its 21st century investment incarnation, however, it had the disadvantage of requiring explanation. TINA became popular in the years following the 2007-09 financial crisis and is connected to another, less popular acronym—ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy), which central banks adopted to combat deflation.

As an investment concept, TINA had validity. The TINA factor helps explain why returns from US stocks vastly exceeded expectations for years. TINA also highlighted that bond yields had nowhere to go but up, which they did in dramatic and painful fashion in 2022. The “worst bond market ever” was a massive reset for fixed income and led to the declaration that “TINA Is Dead.” She lived a long and fruitful life, though, as investors in US stocks over the past 15 years can attest.

FANG, FAANG, MAMAA, BATMAAN. The original FANG acronym goes back to 2013 and refers to a cohort of hot stocks of the technology persuasion—Facebook, Amazon.com AMZN, Netflix NFLX, and Google. The updated FAANG included Apple AAPL. MAMAA added Microsoft MSFT, dropped Netflix, and reflected Facebook’s rebrand to Meta Platforms META and Google’s to Alphabet GOOGL. In 2023, the Magnificent Seven entered the zeitgeist, before the addition of Broadcom AVGO gave birth to BATMMAAN: Broadcom, Apple, Tesla TSLA, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia NVDA. As an acronym, the original FANG had an impactful sound and successfully seeped into the popular imagination. It even spawned some exchange-traded fund tickers and inspired foreign imitators: BATS in China and Europe’s GRANOLAS. There’s a reason those didn’t catch on.

FANG and its successors captured something very real. They reflected the dominant investment theme of their age, worth trillions of dollars in market value. Whether you call the businesses “hyperscalers, “platform companies,” or “monopolists,” there’s no questioning their returns. They have captured the spoils from artificial intelligence and several other technology trends. Although this group has struggled in 2025, betting against it has been the wrong move.

BRICS vs. PIIGS. Both refer to groupings of countries. But while the first was a trendy investment theme, the second, a derisive term that’s been widely abandoned, was a cohort perceived as dysfunctional. Jim O’Neil of Goldman Sachs coined BRICS in 2001 for the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa was sometimes added on later. The BRICS markets enjoyed several boom years in the early 2000s, thanks in large part to China’s economic growth and the “commodities supercycle” it drove. As an acronym, BRICS evoked building and quickly gained traction. Asset managers launched enough BRICS strategies for Morningstar to create a category for funds and ETFs. And BRICS even became an intergovernmental organization looking to counterbalance Western-led institutions.

PIIGS, meanwhile, was a pejorative term referring to countries at the heart of the eurozone crisis of 2009-14: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. According to my internet research, the term originated with EU expansion of the 1990s, but it entered the investment sphere after the popping of property market bubbles in 2008, which triggered bank failures and debt crises. The acronym reflected its derisive intent. Conflict between the indebted periphery and more fiscally disciplined northern European economies like Germany posed a very real threat to the European Monetary Union.

In hindsight, both BRICS and PIIGS were something of contrarian investment indicators. The BRICS markets did boom for several years before the global financial crisis. But, as I’ve written about, emerging-market equities have struggled mightily over the past 15 years. India has been a bright spot, but the broad asset class has posted meager returns relative to the US. China has become a popular market to avoid, and Russia is no longer on most investment maps. Morningstar even retired its BRIC fund category in 2024, thanks to fund liquidations.

PIIGS has also faded from memory. Greece required several bailouts and had to “restructure” its debt in 2012. But Europe muddled through, as it has a history of doing. The euro survives. Some of the PIIGS have even staged impressive recoveries. Spain is one of the developed world’s most robust economies. Greece has massively reduced its debt load and is growing nicely. Meanwhile, Germany has rethought its aversion to debt. There is nothing permanent except change.

Will TACO Endure as an Acronym?

TACO has gone viral. From its Financial Times springboard, it made its way to a White House press conference, where it wasn’t exactly embraced by the president. It has appeared in The New York Times and on late-night TV.

Whether TACO endures as an acronym is highly dependent. The direction of Trump’s tariff policy is anybody’s guess. Eventually, the market will learn and adapt and may stop reacting in the same way. The fact the Morningstar US Market Index, a broad gauge of equities, gained 6% in May could reflect an overly optimistic assessment of the tariffs’ impact.

Back in February, I wrote a column called Why You Shouldn’t Trade the Trade War. I looked at the investment experience of 2018, when Trump began announcing tariffs in his first term. I noted that tariffs triggered a big selloff in financial markets in early 2018, which was followed by a rebound, then a downturn that left the Morningstar US Market Index down 5% for the year. In 2019, the stock market gained 31%. Urging investors to eschew bets on policy, I concluded: “Who knows how the current trade war will play out?”

I admit, I was feeling a bit Pollyannaish after the market selloffs that followed April 2’s tariff announcement. But with the US stock and bond markets both up more than 2% as of this writing, I’m feeling better counseling inaction. Maybe some savvy traders have made good money betting on policy reversals and buying dips. But for most of us, it’s best not to react to big market swings. Whether you’re putting your faith in TACO or just the history of US equity returns, patient long-term investors tend to be rewarded.

Also published on Morningstar.com.