Stock market English analysis

The style of English used in stock market articles can be interesting

This is part of an article about the stock market – it’s the part of the article which has the most interesting use of English:  ‘In early European trade Monday, London dropped 2.30 percent, Frankfurt dived 3.49 percent, Paris slumped 2.89 percent, Madrid shed 3.26 percent and Zurich declined 2.47 percent.’
It’s the verbs that are interesting – did you ever see such a wide variety of verbs in such a short sentence or paragraph?
Basically these stock prices just fell; the journalist who wrote the story could have just written ‘London fell 2.30 percent, Frankfurt fell 3.49 percent, Paris fell 2.89 percent, Madrid fell 3.26 percent and Zurich fell 2.47 percent.’
Obviously, a series of identical verbs like this would be pretty boring, which is why he used a series of different verbs.
However, although these verbs make the report more interesting, they are usually used in a completely different context to this.
For example, the verb ‘dropped’ is usually used in the context of someone physically dropping something, and ‘dived’ is usually used in the context of someone physically diving into something – a swimming pool for example.
However, ’slumped’ is hardly ever used in any context; the only people who might use it are professional writers, who might use it in the context of a story or novel – in a crime story perhaps, ie. ’somebody fired a shot and he slumped to the ground.’
‘Shed’ is also hardly ever used in any context; It’s widely used, at least in Britain, as a noun (to describe an out-building) but is hardly ever used as a verb.
For example, no-one says “I shed 10 pounds in weight,” they are more likely to say “I lost 10 pounds in weight.” No-one says “I shed the relationship,” they are more likely to say say “I finished (or ended) the relationship.”
Should we criticise the writer of the article for using these verbs?
After all, they are usually either used in a completely different context (’dropped’ and ‘dived’) or they are hardly used at all (’shed’ and ’slumped.’)
(continued in Stock market English analysis 2)