I’d never heard of the phrase “psycho-terror” until the chairman of ThyssenKrupp AG used it in a recent newspaper interview to describe the tactics of some activist hedge funds. The comments from Ulrich Lehner were a bit gnomic but you’d assume he was referring to Elliott Management Corp., the New York fund that has bought a stake in the German industrial giant. Elliott certainly thought so, branding the remarks “defamatory.” Lehner has since resigned. After ThyssenKrupp’s profit warning on Tuesday evening, one might be tempted to throw the “psycho-terror” insult back in the direction of the steel-to-elevators conglomerate.