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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, 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, “” means playful while “” means relating to or based on the intellect.

How he does it

Typically, Moynihan adds at least one advanced word per earnings call, although at times he includes multiple archaic words in one sentence. Bank of America staff members listening in on the calls try to pinpoint the word that Moynihan added, and sometimes it is easy to find.

For example, Moynihan added “perspicacious,” meaning “smart, sharp and quick to notice or understand things that are hidden,” to a sentence during an analyst call in 2022. “A perspicacious analyst might wonder whether talk of inflation, recession and other factors would fructify in a slower spending growth,” he said at the time.

Moynihan’s penchant for advanced vocabulary can sometimes lead to confusion. During a July call with analysts, Moynihan labeled the Iran war as “anfractuous,” which means winding, complex or tortuous. 

The unusual vocabulary created a transcription mess. FactSet recorded the word as “infructuous,” meaning unproductive, while Bloomberg’s transcription service captured it as “intractable,” or difficult to manage. 

S&P Global Market Intelligence transcribed the remark as: “the Iran war is in [fractures].”

One listener, Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo, labeled Moynihan’s vocabulary an “intellectual flex” and said he preferred to keep things simple. Mayo said Moynihan was the “anti-Jamie Dimon.” When the JPMorgan Chase CEO speaks, “everybody understands,” he added. 

Moynihan’s journey

According to the Journal, Moynihan studied history at Brown University, where he also co-captained the rugby team. He graduated in 1981, then got his JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1984. Members of his team describe him as intelligent, having a photographic memory and constantly working, per the Journal.  

He following the company’s merger with FleetBoston Financial and in 2010.

Bank of America had a market capitalization of at the time of writing.