AMERICAN BUSINESS & FINANCIAL TERMS
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accrual	In accrual accounting, revenue is matched to the activity that generates it. For example, total revenue from a five-year contract accrues at 20% a year.
agency trader	A brokerage firm or individual that trades assets but never takes an ownership position in them.
alpha	A modern portfolio theory measure of risk-adjusted return. A desirable portfolio manager is one who consistently achieves positive alphas.
Amex	The American Stock Exchange (despite its name, not one of the largest U.S. exchanges). Also used as a nickname for American Express Co.
amortization	Accounting policy that matches expenses with the economic activity to which they are associated. For example, a $36,000 truck expected to last six years would be amortized at the rate of $6,000 per year.
annual	Slang for annual report.
annual report	A company's report issues after its fiscal year is completed. It contains financial statements and messages from top management.
arbs	Slang for arbitrageurs.  Ex: "They arb the difference between New York and London prices."
asked	The offering quote for an assets.  Ex: "The asked for XYZ is $12.34."
auction market	A market like the New York Stock Exchange, where those executing the transactions do not necessarily buy and sell from their own inventory of assets.
back-end fee	A fee due when an asset is sold. Ex: A mutual fund might have a back-end fee (or load) of 4%.
back office	The departments in an investment firm that keep track of administrative matters such as client accounts, securities holdings and records of transactions.
balance sheet	A statement (usually issued annually) of a firms assets liabilities and net worth.
balloon	For an asset to move swiftly higher in price. Ex: "XYZ stock ballooned 20% yesterday."
ballpark	A very rough approximation or estimate. Ex: "Here is a ballpark estimate of what the new venture will cost."  Ex: "I think your estimate is in the ballpark."
bandwidth	The amount of data communications throughput. Ex: "We now have enough bandwidth for the new data servers." Also, the amount of resources available for a project. Ex: "Do we have enough management bandwidth to handle the new products?"
barometer	An index or indicator of the direction of an asset or a market.
bargain hunters	Investors who search for securities that they believe are under priced.
base building	When a market or a security has declined and then stayed at a low level for a period of time and is believed poised to move higher, it is said that it has experienced a period of base building.
bear	A person who believes securities are poised to move lower. A market in which securities have been moving down in value is a bear market.
bear trap	A market condition that convinces bears that they should commit to a downward move, but then moves higher and causes them to miss on gains or lose money on short-sale positions.
belly up	When a business endeavor fails (becomes completely insolvent), it is said to "go belly up."
beta	A measure of a stock's or a portfolio's price movement relative to the market. A high-beta asset (beta coefficient great than 1.00) will tend to move with greater amplitude than the market while a low-beta asset (beta coefficient of less than 1.00) will tend to experience more moderate ups and downs than the market.
bid	1. The offering price for an asset. 2. To place an offer to purchase an asset. Ex: She made a bid to buy 10,00 shares of XYZ.
bid down	For an asset to move down because many more investors are placing sell orders for it than buy orders.
bid up	For an asset to move down because many more investors are placing buy orders for it than sell orders.
Big Board	Nickname for the New York Stock Exchange.
big boys	Large, influential investment institutions or the people who work for them.
bills	Treasury bills (short-term treasury obligations, usually maturing in less than six months).
biotech	Biotechnology stocks or the biotechnology sector.
blend	An investment style that combines growth stocks and value stocks.
blindsided	A completely unexpected situation that results in a big movement of prices, usually downward. Ex: Investors were blindsided by the firm's bankruptcy announcement.
block	A large stock transaction. Ex: A large block of IBM traded right after the market opened.
blue chip	A stock perceived to be of extremely high quality that is likely to prosper for many years.
bond	A fixed-income
book	A list of clients or prospects. Ex: If we can get John Smith aboard our company, he will bring a great book with him.
book value	The intrinsic value of a company (total assets minus total liabilities). It may be expressed as a cumulative number (200 million dollars) or per share (a book value of 75 cents per share).
boom	An economy that is expanding at an unusually rapid rate.
bottom	The lowest point in a market decline. The point where a bear market stops and a bull market begins.
bottom feeder or bottom fisher	An investor who attempts to buy extremely depressed assets at their lowest price during a period of declining prices.
bottom line	Slang for a company's profit. Also, the main point in an issue (ex: Bottom line, the cost is too high. Or: Let's get to the bottom line in this discussion.
bounce	A big gain in an asset's price, especially when the sharp gain is from a depressed level after a decline.
breadth	The number of assets moving higher minus the number moving lower. Ex: A few big stocks moved up, resulting in the indices gaining, but the majority of issues moved lower, resulting in negative breadth.
break-out	A condition where an asset has moved in a narrow price range for a period and then suddenly moves up or down out of that range.
bricks & mortar	An organization generally conduct business in buildings rather than electronically. Ex: Wal-Mart is primarily a bricks & mortar retailer.
bubble	A market that rises far beyond its underlying value as the emotion of greed overcomes common sense.
buck	A U.S. dollar. Sometimes it is used to mean US$1,000 (ex: One contractor wanted a buck and a half ($150,000) to do the job.)
bull	A person who believes securities are poised to move higher. A market in which securities have been moving up in value is a bull market.
bull trap	A market condition that convinces bulls that they should commit to a upward move, but then moves lower and causes them to miss on gains or lose money on their purchases.
burn rate	The projected time for an unprofitable venture to use up its liquid resources and then, presumably, go out of business. Ex: That software company's burn rate means it will be out of business in three months.
bust	Word used to described an economy or a market that is rapidly contracting.
buy and hold	An investment strategy of buying assets and not selling them for many years.
call	A contractual option to purchase an asset at a price specified before hand.
cap	Short for "market capitalization" (value per share times shares outstanding).
capital gains (or losses)	The difference between the purchase prices or assets and the prices at which they are sold.
capitalization	The product of shares times prices per share. It can apply to an investor's position in a stock or the aggregate value of the company's stock issue.
capitulation	A point in a bear market where investors tend to become disenchanted with that market and give up (capitulate) on it. Many believe this is the point when a bear market ends and a new bull market begins.
carry trade	"The carry trade" refers to the practice of borrowing funds at short-term interest rates and lending them at higher long-term rates or investing in a similar manner.
cash cow	A product, a business or a unit of a corporation that tends to generate relatively steady, high profits with minimal need for new capital or technology. A cash cow unit of a corporation is frequently used to generate profit that is then used to finance new ventures or to supply capital or technology for other units of the company.
cash EQ	Cash and equivalents (treasury bills, short term commercial paper, certificates of deposit, etc.)
cash flow	A company's earnings per share plus its depreciation. It is essentially the cash that it takes in from operations.
cats & dogs	Investments that don't appear to be very promising. Ex: His portfolio was loaded with cats and dogs.
CDSC	Contingent deferred sales charge. A sales charge that isn't due until an asset is sold, usually applicable to some mutual funds.
cents on the dollar	When an asset sells for a small fraction of its earlier value--usually less than 10%. Ex: "The company is near bankruptcy and its bonds are selling for cents on the dollar."
CEO	Chief executive officer of an organization.
CFO	Chief financial officer of an organization.
chartist	A person who attempts to predict the direction of an asset or a market by analyzing charts of its past behavior.
charts	Graphic representations of assets or markets.
chasing	Placing bids to purchase an assets even as it moves significantly higher in value.
chat rooms	Internet sites where investors post opinions of investments.
chips	Semiconductor chips used in data processing devices.  Stocks of such companies.  Ex: Chip stocks moved higher on good news from Intel Corp.
chump change	A relatively insignificant amount of money. Ex: To that company a million dollars is chump change.
CIO	Chief information office of an organization (usually the highest ranking data processing person).
Citi	Short for CitiGroup, the largest U.S. financial organization (owner of CitiBank)
City	London's financial district is referred to as "The city."
Closet indexer	A manager who claims to actively manage a portfolio but who actually closely matches the performance of an index.
commercial paper	Short-term fixed-income obligations issued by companies.
commission	The amount (in money or as a percentage of price) that an purchaser pay or a broker receives for executing a transaction.
compliance	For a securities firm to be in conformity with securities regulations.  For example, in the U.S. it is important for securities firms and their representatives to be in compliance with SEC and NASD regulations.
contraction	A period when an economy is falling.
contrarian	A person who believes that by "leaning against the wind" or investing contrary to the conventional wisdom, that he will be unusually successful.
contrary opinion	The theory that when everyone believes a market will go in a given direction, that in fact it will go in the opposite direction because most everyone has already acted on their beliefs.
conventional wisdom	Beliefs about markets that are shared by most everyone. Contrarians believe that the conventional wisdom will most likely be wrong.
convertible	A security, such as a bond, that can be converted into another type of security, such as a stock.
convexity	A measure of a fixed-income security's sensitivity to changes in interest rates. It is a more abstract but more robust measure than "duration."
COO	Chief operating officer of an organization.
cooking the books	Modifying values in a company's financial statements in a method not in conformity with accepted accounting standard in order to deceive investors.
core	1. A investment firm's "core holdings" are its most important assets. 2. An investment "style" that combines growth and value stocks.
corner a market	To control enough of a supply of a commodity or other asset to have price control over the asset.
coupon	The annual amount paid to a holder of a bond. It can be expressed as an amount of a percent.
cowboy	Slang for a manager who tends to make decisions impulsively and with little regard for risk or negative consequences. Ex: "Be careful of that fund, I hear it is managed by a cowboy."
CPI	The consumer price index, indicating the inflation rate at the consumer level.
crash	When an economy or a market moves suddenly lower by a large amount.
crater	For a financial instrument to suffer a sudden, steep loss. Ex: The stock cratered when news of the loss was released.
current yield	The "simple" cash percentage return on an investment.  For example, an asset priced at $40 paying an annual dividend of $2 is said to have a current yield of 5%.
CUSIP	An alphanumeric identifier for U.S. securities.
cut to the chase	To get directly to the main point in a discussion and by-pass less important aspects of the issue. Ex: Let's cut to the chase and determine how much this is going to cost us.
cyclicals	Stocks that tend to move up and down in tandem with the economy.
dead-cat bounce	A phenomenon when a price drops sharply lower and then experiences a small bounce, with expectations that the bounce does not mean an end to the declining trend.
dealer market	A market such as NASDAQ, where transactions are from dealer inventories.
deflation	An undesirable economic condition where prices tend to drop.
depressed	A condition where a market or an economy has moved significantly lower.
derivative	An investment vehicle whose value is dependent on another vehicle. Examples are puts, calls and swaps.
discount	1. To determine the impact an event is likely to have on the price of an asset. The present value of future dividends or product developments are likely to be "discounted" into the value of a stock's price. 2. A security sold at a low price, such as $950, and redeemed later at a higher price such as $1,000.
disrupt, disruptive, disruption	Usually a favorable development by a company that changes the nature of its industry to that company's advantage. Ex: The technology they developed will totally disrupt the industry and give them dominance for years. It was the most disruptive event ever in that industry.
diversified	A portfolio containing many unrelated investments is said to be diversified.
DJIA	The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
dog	An investment thought not to be very worthwhile.
Dow	The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
drawdown	The maximum decline in value suffered by an investment, usually applied to commodity funds or hedge funds.
duct tape	An investment, company or arrangement said to be "held together by duct tape" is not considered a solid situation.
duration	A measure of the sensitivity of a bond's price to a 1 percent change in prevailing interest rates. For example, if a bond has a duration of 2.5 and the interest rate rises by 1 percent, the bond's price is likely to decline by about 2.5%.
economic cycle	A complete cycle in the economy from expansion to contraction or vice versa.
EBITDA	Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. Some view this as a consistent measure of a firm's business success or failure.
efficient market	A market where all the information necessary to fairly determine prices is known and available to all participants.
efficient market hypothesis	A theory that the value of a market or an individual asset reflects all the information known about it and everything that is anticipated for the future.
Election year cycle	References to activities that frequently occur during a certain point in the four-year U.S. presidential election cycle (with the election being in the year divisible by 4). In investments, a theory that market behavior differs in the various years of the cycle.
EPS	Earning per share.  Total after-tax profit divided by total shares outstanding.
ETF	Exchange traded fund. A type of U.S. closed-end mutual fund that is traded on a stock exchange.
Eurobond	A U.S. bond traded  in Europe.
Euro paper	A U.S. short-term fixed-income obligation traded in Europe.
ex	"Without," such as a portfolio consisting of Asia ex (except for) Japan.
ex dividend	The price of a stock or mutual fund after a dividend has been declared but before it has been paid.
expansion	The period in the economic cycle when the economy is growing.
expiration	The date when a option or a derivative no longer has value.
explode	When an asset or a market unexpectedly moves significantly higher.
Fed	The U.S. Federal Reserve, the central bank that sets monetary policy in the U.S.
fee-only advisor	A financial advisor who is compensated by clients on a percentage of assets rather than on commissions received by transactions.
filter	A quantitative constraint that reduces a population of assets. Ex: All NYSE stocks were filtered to a list which were priced at less than 20 times latest 12-month earnings per share.
fiscal date	The date when a company's fiscal year ends.
fiscal policy	Government attempts to control economic activity by means of adjustments to tax rates and spending.
floater	An obligation with an interest rate that varies ("floats") according to outside conditions.
footprint	The market segment of geographic area covered by a product or by an organization.
Footsie	The Financial Times index of U.S. stock prices.
fundamentalist	A market analyst who focuses on items such as revenue and earnings rather than price history.
fundamentals	Factors such as revenue and earnings that impact a stock's price.
fungible	Interchangeable. One U.S. dollar is as valuable as any other U.S. dollar; therefore, dollars are fungible. The same is true for a ton of number 7 cocoa on a commodities exchange.
funny money	Complex financial instruments of dubious value. Ex: That merger involves a lot of funny money.
futures	Contracts to buy or sell commodities or financial instruments at specified prices on pre-determined future dates.
gap	For a price or index to move sharply higher or lower and skip some price levels.
garage operation	An extremely small business or unit of a business, especially one that is just getting started. Ex: "Don't worry about XYZ & Company, it is really just a garage operation."
gauge	An index or indicator of the direction of an asset or a market.
GDP	Gross Domestic Product. The sum of an economy's domestic production of goods and services.
gear heads	Slang for people involved in data processing and/or quantitative analysis. Also used to describe automobile enthusiasts.
golden parachutes	Severance plans--usually for top executives--to generously reward executives in the event they lose their jobs, especially if the job loss is due to a merger.
Goldilocks	An event with consequences that are near optimal (not too good nor too bad). Ex: It was a Goldilocks report from the government, not too strong as to raise fears of inflation nor too weak as to cause worries of recession.
good will	Intangible assets on a company's balance sheet. It is frequently the difference between the purchase price and the book value of an acquisition.
government	Short for government securities. Ex: "Governments moved lower on a sharp rise in the CPI."
green	Environmentally friendly. Ex: "Our production facilities are the greenest in the industry."
greenback	Slang term for the U.S. dollar.
Greenspan, Alan	The chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. He controls U.S. monetary policy and, therefore, is influential in U.S. and world economic policy.
growth stock	A stock whose appeal is that its earnings per share are forecasted to experience unusual growth in years to come.
haircut	To suffer a financial loss. Ex: Investors in XYZ took a haircut when earnings were announced.
hammered	When an asset's price is driven sharply lower.
head and shoulders	A pattern of stock or index chart prices that resembles a profile of a person's head and shoulders. Some technical analysts believe that a head-and-shoulders chart formation indicates the value will decline. In inverse head-and-shoulders formation is believed by some as an indication the value will increase.
high yield	A polite term for a junk bond. A bond with an unusually high dividend yield and higher than average degree of risk.
home run	To achieve maximum success in an effort. Ex: We hit a home run when we reduced the price.
homer	Same as home run.
hot	When an asset or a market is perceived to be unusually strong.
HR	Human resources (the division of an organization with the job of hiring and maintaining personnel).
huddle	When several people get together to decide on a plan of action. Ex: "The marketing group huddled to decide on a strategy."
hybrid	An asset that is a combination of more than one type of investment vehicle. A bond sold with a warrant to purchase stock attached to it is a hybrid investment.
illiquid	Not having a sufficient amount of ready cash.
imbalance	A situation where there are more bids to buy an asset than shares available for sale; or vice versa.
income statement	A company's profit and loss statement.
index	A gauge that measures the movements of a market. "To index" means to match the performance of a portfolio with a selected index.  (See "closet indexer.")
inflation	When costs of goods are rising relative to a currency.
information ratio	A risk-adjusted and style-adjusted rate of return for a specific portfolio. A talented portfolio manager is expected to generate positive information ratios.
in play	A condition when a business seems hospitable to being acquired. Ex: "After the merger with XYZ Corp. fell through, QRS is in play."
institution	An investment organization, usually one that manages money.
instruments	Investment vehicles such as stocks and bonds.
intangibles	Somewhat the same on a balance sheet as good will. Assets of value without physical form such as customer lists.
in the black	To be in a profitable situation. Ex: "The new unit is now in the black."
in the red	Unprofitable. Ex: "That division of the company is still in the red."
IPO	Initial public offering of a stock or mutual fund.
IT	Information technology (data processing).
jackpot	An unexpectedly high return on a venture. The venture that generates the unexpected return. Ex: "We hit the jackpot with that new product."
January theory	The theory that the market will rise in January because investors tend to sell assets in which they have losses late in the year. When the selling pressure abates, the market bounces back.
junk bond	A high-yield bond.
kickoff	To initiate an action. Ex: "Here is the kickoff date for the new sales campaign."
large cap	A stock with unusually high market value (price times shares outstanding). A fund that invests in large cap stocks.
lay-up	A decision or an action that is extremely easy and produces positive results.  Ex: "Making profits in this bull market is a lay-up."
lean against the wind	Making decisions that are contrary to the conventional wisdom.
letter writers	People whose business is to offer investment advise in periodic publications or on the Internet.
letters	The publications or Internet messages issued on a regular basis by letter writers.,
leverage	To attempt to increase returns with debt or with high fixed costs.
liquid market	A market with a ready amount of securities available to buy and sell.
liquidity	A reference to the relative amount of an asset available for purchase or sale.
listed	An asset that can be bought or sold on an exchange.
little guys	Individual investors who are not wealthy.
load	An up-front charge to buy an investment, especially a mutual fund. Ex: The mutual fund charges a front-end load.
load fund	A mutual fund that charges a fee equal to a percentage of the sales price.
lock, stock and barrel	When everything in a category gets disposed of by sale or by other means. Ex: ABC Company acquired the assets of the South American division of XYZ Company, lock stock and barrel.
long	To own an asset.  Ex: "He is long on IBM."
long bonds	Bonds that mature well into the future, usually 10 years or more.
low-hanging fruit	Sales or achievements that can be made or acquired quickly and relatively easily. Ex: "Let's pick the low-hanging fruit before we go after the difficult sales."
manipulation	To create desired asset prices by means other than normal buying and selling.
margin	To purchase assets with borrowed money. The amount of money that is owed on assets.
mark-up	The profit per unit of an asset.  Ex: "The mark-up per share on the IPO is 8%."
market maker	Someone who handles the purchases and sales of a specific security.
maturity	The date when a bond is redeemed.
meal ticket	A virtually sure source of cash. Ex: "That investment is my meal ticket to a prosperous retirement."
median	The middle value of an array of numbers. Ex: "The median market cap of the portfolio is $400 million."
momentum investor	An investor who attempts to identify major trends in prices and buys when an uptrend is identified and sells when a downtrend is perceived to be in force.
monetary policy	Economic policy achieved by manipulating interest rates and/or the money supply.
Moody's	A company that rates bonds by assigning them grades such as A, BBB, etc.
MPT	Modern portfolio theory (alpha & beta coefficients).
multiple	A stock's price/earnings ratio.
muni	A municipal bond issued by a local government unit like a city, county or state.
NASD	National Association of Securities Dealers. The organization enforces many U.S. securities regulations.
NASDAQ	A U.S. market (pronounced naz-dak). NASDAQ stocks are not "listed" in that dealers execute transactions from their inventory.
natural resources	Companies that deal in minerals such as oil and natural gas.
no-brainer	A decision that is so obvious that no brains are required.
no-load fund	A mutual fund that does not charge a sales feel.
north	Slang for when an asset's price move higher. Ex: XYZ stock is now priced north of $50 a share.
NYSE	New York Stock Exchange. A market for listed securities.
offline	A one-on-one discussion about an issue, as opposed to the issue being brought up before a larger group at a meeting. Ex: "Because this only involves the two of us, let's discuss it offline rather than taking up the time of everyone at this meeting."
offshore funds	Mutual funds that are not listed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and, therefore, cannot be sold to American citizens.
operating profit	A company's basic profit, essentially total sales less the cost of the goods or services that are sold.  Very close to EBITDA.
option	A contract that allows the owner to buy or sell an asset at a pre-specified price. "Puts" and "calls" are options.
OTC	Over the Counter. An "unlisted" dealer's market.
outsourcing	The process of a company contracting work to another firm, especially a foreign company. Ex: XYZ company has been outsourcing much of its support work to India.
P/E	Price/earnings ratio.
paper	Contractual financial obligations such as options and other derivatives.
par	Selling at a price of 100. Ex: "The Euro is slightly above par with the U.S. dollar."
peer group	A group of assets with characteristics similar to a specified asset.  Ex: "There are 20 software stocks in Microsoft's peer group."
penny ante	A return almost too insignificant to matter. An organization or a unit that generates a very small return. Ex: "That is a penny ante operation."
penny stocks	Stocks with unusually low prices, usually less than one dollar per share.
picture	The general status of a market. Ex: "The picture of the NYSE at present is that there are many nervous sellers but few eager buyers."
play hard ball	To conduct business in a very strict, unyielding fashion. Ex: "That firm is playing hard ball with its suppliers."
plunge	When an asset's price drops sharply.
portfolio	The holdings of an individual or a particular account of a manager.
poison pill	A provision in a corporate charter that makes it undesirable for another firm to acquire the company.
positioning	When a brokerage firm will take physical possession of an asset in order to execute a trade.  Ex: Goldman Sachs positioned 5 million shares of IBM in the morning and then sold it off in smaller blocks during the day.
powwow	When a group gets together to discuss a matter. Ex: They held a powwow about what to do next. Ex: They powwowed over how to structure the pricing.
PPI	The U.S. Producer Price Index. It indicates changes in the price level at the manufacturer and wholesale level.
premium	When an asset is selling above its intrinsic value.
present value	The discounted value of all future returns from an asset, including its liquidation at some time in the future.
price to book (P/B)	A stock's price per share divided by its shareholder's equity per share.
prime paper	Promissory notes, such as commercial paper, that are of the highest credit quality.
prime rate	The interest rate charged to a bank's most credit-worthy corporate clients.
profit	Corporate earnings after taxes.
profit margin	Corporate earnings after taxes expressed as a percentage of revenue.
propeller heads	Slang for people involved in data processing and/or quantitative analysis.
pros	Investment professionals.
prospectus	The document describing a corporate securities offering.
psychology	The thought process that seems to be dominating a market.  Ex: "XYZ's loss resulted in negative psychology in its sector."
put	A contractual option to sell an asset at a price specified before hand.
QA	Quality assurance.
quality	The credit-worthiness of a financial instrument.  Also, an instrument of high quality. Ex: It is a quality bond portfolio. (Meaning it has high-quality bonds.)
quant	A person or organization using mathematical (quantitative) techniques. Ex: He is a quant working in a quant shop.
quote	The current price of an asset.
rally	When prices rise.
random walk	A theory that the value of a market or an individual asset reflects all the information known about it and everything that is anticipated for the future. Therefore, the asset's price will move in a random fashion as unanticipated developments affect its price.
rating	A measure of an assets worthiness. Ex: The bond has a high rating.
rebalance	To adjust a portfolio to its intended asset mix. For example, if a target asset mix is 65% stocks and 35% bonds, but market fluctuations change the mix to 75% stocks and 25% bonds, it would require rebalancing.
recession	An economy experiencing negative growth. Usually, two calendar quarters of negative growth is considered a recession.
recovery	An expanding economy, especially in the months following the bottom (or trough) of a recession.
red herring	An early draft of a prospectus for a security offering (warnings are in red). A proposal or statement primarily intended to divert attention from a more germane issue or to add confusion or complexity to a situation.
REIT	A real estate investment trust. A equity security whose value is based on real estate holdings.
reorg	Short for "reorganization"--when a company revises its management structure in hope of achieving better performance. Pronounced [REE-org].
repo	A repurchase agreement. A contract to buy or sell a security (usually a high-grade bond) and then reverse the transaction on a specified date.
resistance level	A point where an upward move in a market or an asset stops, usually after several attempts to surpass it.
resource	Originally this meant a non-human asset such as a manufacturing plant, minerals in the ground or funds. It is now frequently used to refer to people available to work on a project. Ex: "We will have some programming resources available next week."
rocket science	Slang term for high-level quantitative analysis.
rocketed	An extremely sharp move upward in price by an asset.
roll-down effect	The effect of the passage of time position of a fixed-income security on an upward-sloping yield curve. A manager who feels that an investment with a three-year maturity is appropriate for now but that a two-year term will be more favorable next year will rely on the roll-down effect to allow her current three-year investments to turn into two-year maturities by next year.
R-squared	In regression analysis, the degree to which the equation explains movements in the dependent variable. In modern portfolio theory, the R-squared indicates the degree to which an asset's risk cannot be reduced by further diversification.
run on	When many investors decide to buy a certain asset at the same time. Ex: Last week there was a run on energy stocks.
S&P	Standard & Poor's Corporation, a firm that processes and distributes investment indices and other information. Also, a short name for the S&P 500 index, a popular U.S. stock market gauge.
sag	When a market or an asset falls in value as if burdened by too much weight.
sales	Refers to daily volume on an exchange. Ex: Sales were brisk on the NYSE (meaning trading volume was heavy).
Santa Claus rally	Said of the stock market when prices rise in late December.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act	A set of strict U.S. laws aimed at strengthening corporate governance and the quality or reporting to stockholders.
scam	A fraud or an illegal scheme.
screen	1. The computer screen that traders look at to determine prices. 2. To filter assets according to a criterion (Ex: All metals stocks were screened to find those selling at P/E rations of less than 20.
SEC	The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that regulates the securities industry.
sector	A major economic grouping, such as consumer durable companies.
sector rotation	The process of changing the focus of an investment strategy from one sector (or grouping) to another.  Ex: The stock market is experiencing some sector rotation from growth stocks to blue chips.
SEDOL	An identifier for international stocks.
selling pressure	A condition when an asset's price declines in tandem with a high volume of transactions.
sell in May and go away	An investment theory that stock market profits can be achieved by selling stocks in May and buying later in the year.
sell-off	An unusually heavy volume of selling in a market, often followed by a rebound in prices.
senior debt	Debt--usually bonds--that are contractually obligated to be paid (interest and principal payments) before other obligations.
sentiment	The prevailing mood of retail or institutional investors or letter writers. Theories exist that when sentiment is extremely negative, the market will rise because everyone has sold and not many new shares to be sold will hit the market. The opposite is often said to be true when sentiment is positive.
shares	1. Units of stock. 2. A generalization for "the market," (Ex: "Shares were generally higher today.")
short	When assets are borrowed and then sold with expectations that they can be bought back at a lower price and returned, with the "short seller" keeping the difference in the prices.
short covering	The process of buying back shares that have been sold short.
short sellers	People who engage in short selling.
short squeeze	When short sellers are forced to sell at a loss because: 1) the price has moved so high they get margin calls and must sell to meet the calls; and/or 2) buyers bid up and hoard the stock or commodity and few shares or contracts exist for short sellers to buy in order to close out (or "cover") their positions.
shorts	Short sellers.
slam dunk	A decision that is extremely obvious and quickly provides very positive results. Ex: "Buying XYZ stock was a slam dunk."
slide	When prices of an asset move steadily lower.
slump	When prices of an asset, index or the economy move lower.
small cap	Stocks with relatively low market capitalizations (price times shares outstanding).
small potatoes	An insignificant amount. Ex: The extra tax is small potatoes compared with all the extra profit in this deal.
south	For the price of an asset to move lower. Ex: The stock market moved south today. Ex: XYZ has been  south of $10 for many months.
SOX	Short for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that strengthens corporate governance and reporting to stockholders.
specialist	A person or company on a stock exchange who helps make a market in only certain stocks.
speculation	To make transactions that are deemed to be highly risky in the hope of achieving high gains.
speculator	A person who engages in speculation.
spin-off	To create a separate entity of a unit of an organization, or the unit that is being separated from the main organization. A spin-off of a corporation frequently becomes a separate corporation. Ex: "ABC Company spun off its tractor division." Ex: "XYZ Tractor is a spin-off of ABC Company."
spiral	To move steadily higher. Ex: "Turkey experienced spiraling inflation for a time."
spot	The current (as opposed to the future) price. Ex: "Spot gold was lower today."
spread	1. The difference between the bid and asked price for an asset. 2. To simultaneously buy and sell a similar bond, commodity or option with different maturity dates or striking prices in hopes of profiting from the differences in price.
sticker shock	Surprise and disappointment over a price that the buyer perceives as much too high.
stock	An equity security.
store of value	A security or an investment plan that stresses investments in securities backed by tangible assets, such as reserves of petroleum or other minerals.
stripping	To break a fixed-income instrument (a bond) into its interest payments and its principal payment and then sell the two components.
strips	When a fixed income instrument is broken down by its owner (stripped) of its interest payments and its principal payments and then sold separately, the two components are known as strips.
style	The classification of an investor by the types of stocks upon which she focuses, such as value or growth. Often a second dimension of style is the size of stocks in the portfolio (large capitalization companies, middle capitalization (mid-cap) or small cap).
sub prime	Individuals or organizations with less than ideal credit worthiness. The market for such lending. Ex: Interest rates have been rising in the sub-prime market.
subordinated debt	Debt (usually bonds) that receive interest and principal payments only after the "senior debt" is paid.
summer doldrums	A description of the stock market or of business in general when activity and returns take a downturn during the summer.
sunset	To discontinue something. Ex: "It is time to sunset our printed products and deliver all our information online."
supermarket fund	A mutual fund that can be bought or sold in a fund "supermarket" such as the large group of funds offered by Charles Schwab & Co. Such funds usually have no front-end sales charge.
support	When the price of an asset that has been declining stops dropping because a number of buyers start accumulating the asset.
support level	The price level where a declining asset tends to attract buyers.
surge	A rapid rise in the price of an asset.
swaps	Contractual agreements (derivatives) involving trades of long-term and short-term interest and principal payments.
sweetheart deal	A business where one party receives unexpectedly generous terms, usually for a reason unrelated to the immediate economics of the deal. Ex: He gave his cousin a sweetheart deal on the construction contract.
symbol	An alpha-numeric character used as a security identifier.
tangibles	"Hard" assets such as metals or crude petroleum.
tape	The moving flow of market information across a video screen.
tax-loss selling	The process of selling an asset in order to take a loss to offset gains or to reduce taxes. Many investors feel that when an asset's price is driven down by excessive tax-loss selling, it will subsequently rebound sharply.
T-bills	U.S. Treasury bills (government debt instruments sold at a discount that mature in less than six months).
techie	Slang for a computer expert, especially a data processing technical support person.
technical analysis	The evaluation of asset prices and market movements using factors such as chart patterns and historical trends.
technical bounce	A sharp but usually temporary upward movement in the price of an asset attributed to factors that are considered by technical analysts.
the street	Wall Street and the people in the securities business in that area. Ex: "The feeling on the street is that bond prices will move lower."
thin market	An illiquid market without many buyers and sellers.  Low trading volume.
thin client application	A data processing application that does not require extensive software (thin) to be resident on the user's (the client's) computer.
ticker	An alpha-numeric character used as a security identifier.
timing the market	Attempting to buy securities when prices are low and sell when prices are high.
tin parachutes	Severance plans for employees that are not perceived to be relatively generous (as opposed to golden parachutes, which are perceived to be overly generous).
top	The highest point in an upward move in prices.
trader	1. A person who executes transactions for a securities firm. 2. Anyone who is unusually active in buying and selling securities.
trading range	When an asset's price tends to move within a fairly narrow band, it is said to be in a trading range.
trend follower	An investor who attempts to identify major trends in prices and buys when an uptrend is identified and sells when a downtrend is perceived to be in force. A less polite reference to a momentum investor.
trend line	A line on a chart that generally follows the direction of the asset's price.
trough	The lowest point in a market decline. The point where a bear market stops and a bull market begins.
tumble	When prices decline rapidly.
turnover	Trading volume in a security. (In the U.S., turnover does not refer to a firm's sales or revenues.)
up the ante	To commit additional resources to a venture.
Uncle Sam	The U.S. government. Ex: "Uncle Sam should negotiate more free-trade agreements."
unit trust	A fund that holds a fixed portfolio without buying or selling shares.
universe	The list of securities followed by an individual or organization. Ex: His universe is all stocks priced at less than $5.
unrealized gains (or losses)	Gains or losses relative to an asset's purchase price that are not "realized" until the asset is sold.
VA	A variable annuity. (An investment instrument sold by the insurance industry.  It posses tax benefits and its value fluctuates according to the securities in its portfolio).
value	Stocks whose attractiveness lies in their underlying assets rather than in their growth momentum.
vapor	Meaningless statements that should not be believed.
vaporware	Computer software that is promoted or sold before it is created.
volatile	An asset or a market whose value fluctuates heavily.
volume	The amount of trading in an asset or market that takes place during a period.
VP	Vice president.
whipsaw	Slang for losing on two related but opposite market forces. Ex: My investment holdings were whipsawed when XYZ Company said it would suffer a loss and soon afterwards said it would be acquired at a favorable price.
white elephant	Something that might appear to have value but is actually a drain on resources or is of little value. Ex: That new plant turned out to be a white elephant. It hasn't turned a profit and probably never will.
wire house	A large brokerage firm with many branch offices.
wire transfer	The process of transferring funds electronically.
yield	The dividends or interest payments received from an investment, usually stated as a percentage of the asset's price.
yield curve	A chart of yields (usually of Treasury bills and bonds) of various maturities.
yield to maturity	The return on a fixed-income security that includes its interest payments plus its gain or loss in price from the present until it matures and is redeemed.
zip	Zero. Nothing. Of no value.  In data processing, to compress one or more files in order to save disk storage space.
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