The Margin: NYSE, SEC, ECB get poetic for Valentine’s Day (and show they should stick to numbers)

United States

There are few parings as reliable as Valentine’s Day and bad poetry, and some of the world’s most esteemed financial organizations did their worst Sunday.

First came a tweet from the European Central Bank reaffirming its commitment from its January meeting toward maintaining favorable monetary conditions: “Roses are red/Violets are blue/We’ll keep financing conditions favourable/‘Til the crisis is through,” with the hashtag #ECBmyvalentine.

Groan.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, mercifully, did not respond in kind. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission got into the act later Sunday morning, with this even more tortured bit of prose from the regulator’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy: “Roses are red/Some fish are perch/Before you invest/Do your research.”

Nice use of emojis, though.

Minutes later, the New York Stock Exchange posted this affront to poetic meter:

In fairness, they’re not the only ones who can write a bad Valentine’s poem:

Roses are red
Violets are top notch
This Valentine’s Day
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