Churn - Definition and Overview

• Churn is a river that runs through Gloucestershire. See Churn (river).
• Churn can refer to an object such as a butter churn, or it may be used as a verb to mean 'to agitate rapidly'. See a fuller definition of churn at Wiktionary (http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Churn).
• Churn is also a term used in the lingo of stockbrokers to describe the practice of convincing a customer to constantly buy and sell stocks, and being misleading about the prospects of the profitability of this action (usually by not factoring in the commisions). This allows the stockbroker to make a lot more money, because most stockbrokers are paid on a commision per trade. Some see this as a fundemental flaw with the stockbroker system. This term has also been adopted by critics of the computer hardware industry, who accuse it of using tactics like increasing bus speed for a minor overall speed increase but which requires users to buy a new motherboard and RAM. Another alleged example is the forced upgrade to Digital HDTV set by the FCC.