Understood

[namsteven]

Dear Teacher,

1) Stockists are understood to be mostly buying in the range.

-What does this sentence mean?

2) It may have even bottomed out.

-What does this sentence mean?

3) We're talking mid-Q4 before prices get back to normal.

I don’t understand “ taking” in this sentence, please help me explain it.

Thanks very much.

Nam Steven.

[Pete]

Dear Teacher,

1) Stockists are understood to be mostly buying in the range.

-What does this sentence mean?

2) It may have even bottomed out.

-What does this sentence mean?

3) We're talking mid-Q4 before prices get back to normal.

I don’t understand <strike>“ taking”</strike> "talking" in this sentence, please help me explain it.

Thanks very much.

Nam Steven.
All of these sentences use jargon related to the stock market.

1 means: Most of the stocks that are listed are priced low enough that experts think (or at least the person writing/talking thinks) that people who buy them will likely make a profit.

2 means: The prices have been going down, but they may have reached their low points and are ready to go back up.

3 uses an informal idiom to shorten a longer sentence: We are talking about expecting the prices to get back to normal, but the time when we expect that to happen is the middle of the fourth quarter of the year.

[Rusty]

Let's take another look at #1.
http://www.m-w.com defines stockist as British: one (as a retailer) that stocks goods. "In the range" means more or less; approximately; plus or minus; between one figure and another. You would need the context to know what is being stocked/sold and in what range the price runs.

[Pete]

Thanks, Rusty. I badly misread #1. I'm glad you caught it.

(My answer was a paraphrase of the (imaginary) sentence:
- The stocklists are understood to be mostly in the buying range.)

I must have been tired when I tried to answer that one.