Definitions of Finance Terms

Daisy Chain
A group of unscrupulous investors who, practicing a kind of fictitious trading or wash selling, artificially inflate the price of a security so that they sell it at a profit. Price manipulation is typically very difficult in stocks with heavy volumes, so the stocks with low liquidity are much more susceptible to daisy chains.
Prop Shop
A proprietary trading group that usually trades electronically at a physical facility. Prop shops supply their traders with the education and capital resources to engage in a large number of deals each day.
Dutch Disease
Negative consequences arising from large increases in a country's income. Dutch disease is primarily associated with a natural resource discovery, but it can result from any large increase in foreign currency, including foreign direct investment, foreign aid or a substantial increase in natural resource prices.
Double Taxation
A taxation principle referring to income taxes that are paid twice on the same source of earned income.
Double taxation occurs because corporations are considered separate legal entities from their shareholders. As such, corporations pay taxes on their annual earnings, just as individuals do. When corporations pay out dividends to shareholders, those dividend payments incur income-tax liabilities for the shareholders who receive them, even though the earnings that provided the cash to pay the dividends were already taxed at the corporate level.

Junior Mortgage
A mortgage that is subordinate to a first or prior (senior) mortgage. A junior mortgage often refers to a second mortgage, but it could also be a third or fourth mortgage. In the case of foreclosure, the senior mortgage will be paid down first.

W-Shaped Recovery
An economic cycle of recession and recovery that resembles a "W" in charting. A W-shaped recovery represents the shape of the chart of certain economic measures such as employment, GDP, industrial output, etc. A W-shaped recovery involves a sharp decline in these metrics followed by a sharp rise back to the previous peak, followed again by a sharp decline and ending with another sharp rise. The middle section of the W can represent a significant bear market rally or a recovery that was stifled by an additional economic crisis.

Reinsurance
The practice of insurers transferring portions of risk portfolios to other parties by some form of agreement in order to reduce the likelihood of having to pay a large obligation resulting from an insurance claim. The intent of reinsurance is for an insurance company to reduce the risks associated with underwritten policies by spreading risks across alternative institutions.
Also known as "insurance for insurers" or "stop-loss insurance".

Teaser
A document circulated to potential buyers of a specific security that may be offered for sale in the future. The document, often prepared by the investment bank representing the company, details information that is designed to entice potential buyers to buy the security.

One-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor a payout once the price of the underlying asset reaches or surpasses a predetermined barrier. This type of option allows the investor to set the position of the barrier, the time to expiration and the payout to be received once the barrier is broken.

Dual-Class Ownership
A type of share division in which companies issue shares that have differing rights. In a dual class ownership structure, the company can issue two classes of shares, Class A and Class B. These classes may have different voting rights, but they represent the same underlying ownership in the company.

Dark Pool Liquidity
The trading volume created by institutional orders that are unavailable to the public. The bulk of dark pool liquidity is represented by block trades facilitated away from the central exchanges.
Also referred to as the "upstairs market", or "dark liquidity", or just "dark pool."

Royalty Income Trust
A type of special-purpose financing created to hold investments or their cash flows in operating companies. These trusts are neither stocks nor bonds but investment trusts (a legal entity). Royalty trusts buy the right to royalties on the production and sale of a natural resource company and pass on the profits to trust unit holders.

Triple Witching
An event that occurs when the contracts for stock index futures, stock index options and stock options all expire on the same day. Triple witching days happen four times a year on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.
This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "freaky Friday".

Dawn Raid
When a firm or investor buys a substantial number of shares in a company first thing in the morning when the stock markets open. Because the bidding company builds a substantial stake in its target at the prevailing stock market price, the takeover costs are likely to be significantly lower than they would be had the acquiring company first made a formal takeover bid.

Shadow Banking System
The financial intermediaries involved in facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system, but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions.

Andersen Effect
A reference to auditors performing more careful due diligence when auditing companies in order to prevent accounting errors. This extra level of accounting scrutiny often leads to companies restating earnings even though they have not necessarily intentionally misrepresented material accounting information.

Soccer Mom Indicator
An economic indicator based on the theory that listening to what people are talking about at their children's soccer games (or similar event) is one of the best ways to find out how the economy or investing environment was doing.

Bond Ladder
A strategy for managing fixed-income investments by which the investor builds a ladder by dividing his or her investment dollars evenly among bonds or CDs that mature at regular intervals such as every six months, once a year or every two years.

Organic Growth
The growth rate that a company can achieve by increasing output and enhancing sales. This excludes any profits or growth acquired from takeovers, acquisitions or mergers. Takeovers, acquisitions and mergers do not bring about profits generated within the company, and are therefore not considered organic.
Soft Dollars

A means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through normal direct payments (hard dollar fees).

The investing public tends to have a negative perception of soft dollar arrangements because they believe that buy-side firms should pay expenses out of their profits, rather than from investors' pockets. As such, the use of hard dollar compensation is becoming more common.

Bottom Fisher
An investor who looks for bargains among stocks whose prices have recently dropped dramatically. The investor believes that a price drop is temporary or is an overreaction to recent bad news and a recovery is soon to follow.

Contagion
The likelihood that significant economic changes in one country will spread to other countries. Contagion can refer to the spread of either economic booms or economic crises throughout a geographic region.

Squawk Box
An intercom speaker often used on brokers' trading desks in investment banks and stock brokerages. A squawk box allows a firm's analysts and traders to communicate with the firm's brokers.

Double Entry
The fundamental concept underlying present-day bookkeeping and accounting. Double entry accounting is based on the fact that every financial transaction has equal and opposite effects in at least two different accounts. It is used to satisfy the equation Assets = Liabilities + Equity, whereby each entry is recorded so as to maintain the relationship.

Crisis Management
The identification of threats to an organization and its stakeholders, and the methods used by the organization to deal with these threats. Due to the unpredictability of global events, organizations must be able to cope with the potential for drastic changes to the way they conduct business. Crisis management often requires decisions to be made within a short time frame, and often after an event has already taken place. In order to reduce uncertainty in the event of a crisis, organizations often create a crisis management plan.

Venture Capital
Money provided by investors to startup firms and small businesses with perceived long-term growth potential. This is a very important source of funding for startups that do not have access to capital markets. It typically entails high risk for the investor, but it has the potential for above-average returns.

Cost Of Carry
Costs incurred as a result of an investment position. These costs can include financial costs, such as the interest costs on bonds, interest expenses on margin accounts and interest on loans used to purchase a security, and economic costs, such as the opportunity costs associated with taking the initial position.

Recoupling
When returns on asset classes revert back to their historical or traditional patterns of correlation. This is in contrast to decoupling, which occurs when asset classes break away from their traditional correlations. Recoupling occurs after a period in which the asset classes have been generating a return that shows little correlation.

Flight To Quality
The action of investors moving their capital away from riskier investments to the safest possible investment vehicles. This flight is usually caused by uncertainty in the financial or international markets. However, at other times, this move may be an instance of investors cutting back on the more volatile investments for the conservative ones (i.e. diversifying) without much consideration of the international markets.

Capitulation
When investors give up any previous gains in stock price by selling equities in an effort to get out of the market and into less risky investments. True capitulation involves extremely high volume and sharp declines. It usually is indicated by panic selling.
The term is a derived from a military term which refers to surrender.

Earnings Yield
The earnings per share for the most recent 12-month period divided by the current market price per share. The earnings yield (which is the inverse of the P/E ratio) shows the percentage of each dollar invested in the stock that was earned by the company.
The earnings yield is used by many investment managers to determine optimal asset allocations.

Finite Reinsurance
A type of reinsurance that transfers over only a finite or limited amount of risk. Risk is reduced through accounting or financial methods, along with the actual transfer of economic risk. By transferring less risk to the reinsurer, the insurer receives coverage on its potential claims at a lower cost than traditional reinsurance.

Disinflation
A slowing in the rate of price inflation. Disinflation is used to describe instances when the inflation rate has reduced marginally over the short term. Although it is used to describe periods of slowing inflation, disinflation should not be confused with deflation.

Mezzanine Debt
When a hybrid debt issue is subordinated to another debt issue from the same issuer. Mezzanine debt has embedded equity instruments (usually warrants) attached, which increase the value of the subordinated debt and allow for greater flexibility when dealing with bondholders. Mezzanine debt is frequently associated with acquisitions and buyouts, where it may be used to prioritize new owners ahead of existing owners in case of bankruptcy.

Falling Knife
A slang phrase for a security or industry in which the current price or value has dropped significantly in a short period of time. A falling knife security can rebound, or it can lose all of its value, such as in the case of company bankruptcy where equity shares become worthless.
A falling knife situation can occur because of actual business results (such as a big drop in net earnings) or because of increasingly negative investor sentiment.

Time Decay
The ratio of the change in an option's price to the decrease in time to expiration. Since options are wasting assets, their value declines over time. As an option approaches its expiry date without being in the money, its time value declines because the probability of that option being profitable (in the money) is reduced.
Also known as "theta" and "time-value decay".

Gambler's Fallacy
When an individual erroneously believes that the onset of a certain random event is less likely to happen following an event or a series of events. This line of thinking is incorrect because past events do not change the probability that certain events will occur in the future.

Black Swan
An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. This term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor and former Wall Street trader.

Rogue Trader
A trader who acts independently of others - and, typically, recklessly - usually to the detriment of both the clients and the institution that employs him or her. In most cases this type of trading is high risk and can create huge losses.

E-Mini
An electronically traded futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that represents a portion of the normal futures contracts. E-mini contracts are available on a wide range of indexes such as the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and Russell 2000.

Merger Deficit
An accounting term used to describe the situation when the total value of the share capital used to purchase another company is less then the total value of the equity purchased. The merger does not necessarily have to be an all-stock acquisition.

Callable Security
A security with an embedded call provision that allows the issuer to repurchase or redeem the security by a specified date. Since the holder of a callable security is exposed to the risk of the security being repurchased, the callable security is generally less expensive than comparable securities that do not have a call provision.

Tequila Effect
Informal name given to the impact of the 1994 Mexican economic crisis on the South American economy. The Tequila Effect occurred because of a sudden devaluation in the Mexican peso, which then caused other currencies in the region (the Southern Cone and Brazil) to decline. The falling peso was propped up by US$50 billion loan granted by then U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Also referred to as the "Mexican Shock".

Salad Oil Scandal
One of the worst corporate scandals of its time. It occurred when Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Company discovered that banks would make loans secured by its salad oil inventory.
When the ships full of salad oil would arrive in the docks, inspectors would test it and confirm that the ship was full of salad oil. However, the company didn't remind anyone that oil floats on water. They had filled salad oil tanks with water and put a few feet of oil on top, fooling everyone. The company would even transfer oil to different tanks while taking inspectors out to lunch. In 1963, the scam was busted and over $175 million worth of salad oil was missing.

Stalking-Horse Bid
An initial bid on a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the bankrupt company. From a pool of bidders, the bankrupt company chooses the stalking horse to make the first bid.

May Day
Refers to May 1, 1975, when brokerages changed from a fixed commission for securities transactions to a negotiated one. Previous to this, commissions were standard from broker to broker.

Counterparty
The other party that participates in a financial transaction. Every transaction must have a counterparty in order for the transaction to go through. More specifically, every buyer of an asset must be paired up with a seller that is willing to sell and vice versa.

Structured Finance
A service that generally involves highly complex financial transactions offered by many large financial institutions for companies with very unique financing needs. These financing needs usually don't match conventional financial products such as a loan.

Short Hedge
An investment strategy that is focused on mitigating a risk that has already been taken. The "short" portion of the term refers to the act of shorting a security, usually a derivatives contract, that hedges against potential losses in an investment that is held long.
If a short hedge is executed well, gains from the long position will be offset by losses in the derivatives position, and vice versa.

Synthetic CDO
A form of collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that invests in credit default swaps (CDSs) or other non-cash assets to gain exposure to a portfolio of fixed income assets. Synthetic CDOs are typically divided into credit tranches based on the level of credit risk assumed. Initial investments into the CDO are made by the lower tranches, while the senior tranches may not have to make an initial investment.
All tranches will receive periodic payments based on the cash flows from the credit default swaps. If a credit event occurs in the fixed income portfolio, the synthetic CDO and its investors become responsible for the losses, starting from the lowest rated tranches and working its way up.

Quant Fund
An investment fund that selects securities based on quantitative analysis. In a quant fund, the managers build computer-based models to determine whether an investment is attractive. In a pure "quant shop" the final decision to buy or sell is made by the model; however, there is a middle ground where the fund manager will use human judgment in addition to a quantitative model.

Bull Call Spread
An options strategy that involves purchasing call options at a specific strike price while also selling the same number of calls of the same asset and expiration date but at a higher strike. A bull call spread is used when a moderate rise in the price of the underlying asset is expected. The maximum profit in this strategy is the difference between the strike prices of the long and short options, less the net cost of options. Most often, bull call spreads are vertical spreads.

Vertical Analysis
A method of financial statement analysis in which each entry for each of the three major categories of accounts (assets, liabilities and equities) in a balance sheet is represented as a proportion of the total account. The main advantages of vertical analysis is that the balance sheets of businesses of all sizes can easily be compared. It also makes it easy to see relative annual changes within one business.

403(b) Plan
A retirement plan for certain employees of public schools, tax-exempt organizations and certain ministers.
Generally, retirement income accounts can invest in either annuities or mutual funds.
Also known as a "tax-sheltered annuity (TSA) plan".

Currency Swap
A swap that involves the exchange of principal and interest in one currency for the same in another currency. It is considered to be a foreign exchange transaction and is not required by law to be shown on a company's balance sheet.

Merger Arbitrage
A hedge fund strategy in which the stocks of two merging companies are simultaneously bought and sold to create a riskless profit. A merger arbitrageur looks at the risk that the merger deal will not close on time, or at all. Because of this slight uncertainty, the target company's stock will typically sell at a discount to the price that the combined company will have when the merger is closed. This discrepancy is the arbitrageur's profit.

Tax Refund
The return of excess amounts of income tax that a taxpayer has paid to the state or federal government throughout the past year. In certain cases, taxpayers may even receive a refund if they owed no taxes, because certain tax credits are fully refundable.

Hidden Taxes
Taxes that are indirectly assessed upon consumer goods without the consumer's knowledge. Hidden taxes are levied upon the goods at some point during the production process and therefore raise the cost of the goods sold. However, this tax is never revealed directly to the consumer, who simply pays a higher price for the good, not knowing that part of that price is due to this tax.

Tax Deferred
Investment earnings such as interest, dividends or capital gains that accumulate tax free until the investor withdraws and takes possession of them. The most common types of tax-deferred investments include those in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and deferred annuities.

Tax Shield
A reduction in taxable income for an individual or corporation achieved through claiming allowable deductions such as mortgage interest, medical expenses, charitable donations, amortization and depreciation. These deductions reduce taxpayers' taxable income for a given year or defer income taxes into future years.
Tax shields vary from country to country, and their benefits will depend on the taxpayer's overall tax rate and cash flows for the given tax year.

Tax Avoidance
The use of legal methods to modify an individual's financial situation in order to lower the amount of income tax owed. This is generally accomplished by claiming the permissible deductions and credits. This practice differs from tax evasion, which is illegal.

Tiger Economy
A nickname given to the economies of Southeast Asia. Some of the tigers are Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China.

Parity Price
When the price of an asset is directly linked to another price. Examples of parity price are:
1. Convertibles - the price at which a convertible security equals the value of the underlying stock.
2. Options - when an option is trading at its intrinsic value ("trading at parity").
3. International parity - official rates for a currency in terms of other pegged currencies, typically the U.S. dollar.

Reverse Convertible Note - RCN
A synthetic instrument that shares characteristics with both bonds and stocks. Reverse convertible notes typically provide high coupon payments and final payoffs that depend on the performance of an underlying stock.

Bunny Bond
A type of bond that offers investors the option to reinvest coupon payments into additional bonds with the same coupon and maturity.
Also known as "multiplier bond" or "guaranteed coupon reinvestment bond."

Act Of God Bond
A bond issued by an insurance company, linking principal and interest to a company's losses due to natural disasters. Act of God bonds are issued by insurers to protect against unforeseen events.

Sucker Rally
A temporary rise in a specific stock or the market as a whole. A sucker rally occurs with little fundamental information to back the movement in price. This rally may continue just long enough for the "suckers" to get on board, after which the market or specific stock falls.
Also known as a "dead cat bounce" or a "bull trap".

Sin Tax
A state-sponsored tax that is added to products or services that are seen as vices, such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling. These type of taxes are levied by governments to discourage individuals from partaking in such activities without making the use of the products illegal. These taxes also provide a source of government revenue.

Seasons
The current stage of a proposed business idea or concept. Seasons is a slang term that is generally used among venture capitalists.
The seasons are spring (infancy), summer (adolescence), fall (maturing) and winter (mature).

Michael Milken
As an executive at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. during the 1980s who used high-yield junk bonds for corporate financing and mergers and acquisitions. Michael Milken amassed an enormous personal fortune, but in 1989 he was indicted by a federal grand jury and eventually spent nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of securities fraud. While he is credited with founding the high-yield debt market, he was banned for life from the securities industry.

Silver Thursday
A steep fall in the price of silver that occurred on Thursday March 27, 1980. The sharp drop, on Silver Thursday, was triggered by a failed attempt to corner the silver market and it led to massive panic in other commodities.

Bow Tie Loan
A short-term, variable-rate loan in which unpaid interest charges above a predetermined interest rate are deferred. A variable-rate loan is a loan in which the interest rate fluctuates in response to market interest rates. So, when bow tie loans are issued, a predetermined interest rate is set and whenever the market rate goes up past that rate, interest payments for investors are deferred until the end of the loan's maturity.

Dash To Trash
When investors flock to a class of securities or other assets, bidding up prices to beyond what can be justified by valuation or other fundamental measures. While the dash-to-trash effect can occur within any type of security, the phrase is typically used to describe low-quality stocks and high-yield bonds, both of which can be subject to periods of overbuying in the markets.

China ETF
Exchange-traded funds that invest in and track the equity stakes of China-based companies, either through investment on Chinese stock exchanges or via foreign-listed shares such as American depositary receipts (ADRs). Because of regulations against certain types of foreign investment and the existence of many large state-run companies operating in China, ETFs that represent the nation are limited in their investment choices to companies that have public shares to offer. As with all ETFs, intraday trading is offered for China ETFs, which makes for increased liquidity and flexibility over China-based mutual funds.

Witching Hour
The last hour of stock trading between 3pm (when the bond market closes) and 4pm EST. Witching hour is typically controlled by large professional traders, program traders and large institutional traders, and can be characterized by higher-than-average volatility.

Initial Claims
A measure of the number of jobless claims filed by individuals seeking to receive state jobless benefits. This number is watched closely by financial analysts because it provides insight into the direction of the economy. Higher initial claims correlate with a weakening economy.

Angel Bond
Investment-grade bonds that pay a lower interest rate because of the issuing company's high credit rating. Angel bonds are the opposite of fallen angels, which are bonds that have been given a "junk" rating, and are therefore much more risky.

Leprechaun Leader
A corporate manager or an executive who, like the fabled Irish elf, is a mischievous and elusive creature said to possess buried treasures of money and gold.
Also spelled "Lepre-con Leader".

Cramer Bounce
The sudden overnight appreciation of a stock's price after it has been recommended by Jim Cramer on his CNBC show, "Mad Money". This increase in price can be attributed to investors who buy stocks after seeing Cramer's recommendations.

Dollar Roll
A type of repurchase transaction in the mortgage pass-through securities market in which the buy side trade counterparty of a "to be announced" (TBA) trade agrees to a sell off the same TBA trade in the current month and to a buy back the same trade in a future month at a lower price.
In a dollar roll, the buy side trade counterparty gets to invest the funds that otherwise would have been required to settle the buy trade in the current month until the agreed upon future buy-back. The sell side trade counterparty benefits by not having to deliver the pass-through securities (which they might otherwise have shorted or committed to another trade) in the current month.

Fairway Bond
A type of bond that accrues interest if the embedded index or interest-rate option underlying the bond remains within a specified range. The fairway in golf is like the index or interest rate range. The outlook is positive if the ball lands on the fairway; if a ball lands in the rough, the outlook is negative.
Also known as "corridor bond", "index range note", "range accrual note", or "index floater".

Crack Spread
The spread created in commodity markets by purchasing oil futures and offsetting the position by selling gasoline and heating oil futures. This investment alignment allows the investor to hedge against risk due to the offsetting nature of the securities.

Peak Debt
The point at which a household or economy's interest payments become so high compared to income that a halt in spending must occur. This is followed by a period of debt reduction.

Slumburbs
A slang term for the suburbs of once large and prosperous cities that have become less desirable due to an economic downturn. Slumburbs refer to the neighborhoods and small towns that cannot consistently attract highly educated and entrepreneurial people. As a result, business in these previously hopeful communities diminishes leading to such negative outcomes as unemployment and crime. Slumburbs can also refer to areas in otherwise wealthy cities that experience similar problems.

Muriel Siebert
A pioneer for women in the world of finance. Known as "the first woman of finance", Muriel Siebert is the president and founder of Siebert Financial Corp., a holding company which owns and operates a discount brokerage and investment banking business. Muriel Siebert was also the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and the first woman to serve as superintendent of banks in the state of New York.

Lookback Option
An exotic option that allows investors to "look back" at the underlying prices occurring over the life of the option and then exercise based on the underlying asset's optimal value. This type of option reduces uncertainties associated with the timing of market entry.

Spring Loading
An option-granting practice in which options are granted at a time that precedes a positive news event. Spring loading relies on the fact that positive news typically causes the underlying company's stock to surge in value. Timing an option grant to precede the public news release provides the option holder with an almost instant profit.

Echo Bubble
A post-bubble rally that becomes another, smaller bubble. The echo bubble usually occurs in the sector in which the preceding bubble was most prominent, but the echo is less dramatic.

Discouraged Worker
A person who is eligible for employment and is able to work, but is currently unemployed and has not attempted to find employment in the last four weeks. Discouraged workers have usually given up on searching for a job because they found no suitable employment options and/or were met with lack of success when applying.

Love Money
Seed money or capital given by family or friends to an entrepreneur to start a business. The decision to lend money and the terms of the agreement are usually based on qualitative factors and the relationship between the two parties, rather than on a formulaic risk analysis.

Teaser Rate
An initial rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM). This rate will typically be below the going market rate, and is used by lenders to entice borrowers to choose ARMs over traditional mortgages. The teaser rate will be in effect for only a few months, at which point the rate will gradually climb until it reaches the full indexed rate, which will be a static margin rate plus the floating rate index to which the mortgage is tied (usually the LIBOR index).

Hobby Loss
A non-deductible loss incurred as a result of doing an activity for personal pleasure instead of for profit. A taxpayer cannot deduct the hobby loss as a business loss. A "hobby loss rule" is used to determine whether an activity is a hobby or a business.

Debt-To-Income Ratio - DTI
A personal finance measure that compares an individual's debt payments to the income he or she generates. This measure is important in the lending industry as it gives lenders an idea of how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan.

Cafeteria Plan
An employee benefit plan that allows staff to choose from a variety of benefits to formulate a plan that best suits their needs. Cafeteria plan options may include health and accident insurance, cash benefits, tax advantages and/or retirement plan contributions.
Also known as "cafeteria employee benefit plan" or "flexible benefit plan".

Double No-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor an agreed upon payout if the price of the underlying asset does not reach or surpass one of two predetermined barrier levels. An investor using this type of option pays a premium to his or her broker and in turn receives the right to choose the position of the barriers, the time to expiration, and the payout to be received if the price fails to breach either barrier. With this type of option, the maximum possible loss is just the cost of setting up the option.
A double no-touch option is the opposite of a double one-touch option.

Beacon Score
A number generated by the Equifax Credit Bureau to rank an individual's credit-worthiness. Beacon scores are credit scores, which are determined through a complex algorithm. These numbers tell the lender how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan. When NextGen FICO scores started being used, the Beacon score was replaced with the Pinnacle score.
Mathematical criteria involved in calculating a Beacon score can include late payments, current debts, length of time an account has been open, types of credit and new applications for credit.

No Documentation Mortgage - No Doc
A type of reduced-documentation-required mortgage program in which income and assets aren't disclosed on the loan application and employment isn't verified. However, a credit check is typically required as lenders are counting on the fact that the borrower has a good credit history. No doc mortgages usually fall into the Alt-A classification, and tend to carry a higher interest rate and require a higher down-payment than a prime mortgage.

Nonpersonal Time Deposit
Time deposit accounts held by corporate bank customers that pay a fixed amount of interest for a specified time period. Money may not be withdrawn without advance notice at the risk of incurring an early withdrawal penalty.

Tax Fairness
A tax platform based on an ideal that aims to create a system of taxation that is fair, clear and equivalent for all taxpayers. Overall, tax fairness looks to limit the amount of tax legislation and rules that benefit one segment of the tax-paying population over another.

Pay Yourself First
A phrase commonly used in personal finance and retirement planning literature that means to automatically route your specified savings contribution from each paycheck at the time it is received.
Because the savings contributions are automatically routed from each paycheck to your investment account, this process is said to be "paying yourself first"; in other words, paying yourself before you begin paying your monthly living expenses and making discretionary purchases.

Hardship Withdrawal
An emergency withdrawal from a retirement plan that may be subject to certain tax or account penalties. In the United States, funds withdrawn prior to the age of 59.5 are typically subject to a 10% Internal Revenue Service (IRS) early withdrawal penalty, as well as standard income taxes.

Pre-Encashable Deposit
A deposit made in a term deposit or CD that allows the account holder to withdraw funds without penalty to the principal. A pre-encashable deposit is a popular investment vehicle for individuals looking for full flexibility while saving in a guaranteed account.

Cramdown
A bankruptcy concept that is often employed to obtain a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan while there are still objections from one or more creditors. Cramdown allows the bankruptcy courts to modify loan terms subject to certain conditions in an attempt to have all parties come out better than they would have without such modifications. The conditions are mainly that the new terms are fair and equitable to all parties involved.

Surrender Period
The amount of time an investor must wait until he or she can withdraw funds from an annuity without facing a penalty. Withdrawing money before the agreed-upon holding period can result in a surrender charge.

McMansion
A slang term that describes a large, opulent house that may be generic in style and represents a good value for a homebuyer in terms of its size. This type of home is built to provide middle and/or upper middle class homeowners with the luxurious housing experience that was previously only available to high-net-worth individuals.
The McMansion term is as a play on McDonald's fast food restaurants, as these homes also represent the pervasiveness and excessive consumption that critics often associate with Mcdonald's.


401(a) Plan
A money-purchase retirement savings plan that is set up by an employer. The 401(a) plan allows for contributions by the employee, the employer, or both. Contribution amounts, whether dollar-based or percentage-based, eligibility, and vesting schedule are all determined by the sponsoring employer.
Funds are withdrawn from a 401(a) plan through lump-sum payment, rollovers to another qualified plan, or through an annuity.

Escrow
A financial instrument held by a third party on behalf of the other two parties in a transaction. The funds are held by the escrow service until it receives the appropriate written or oral instructions or until obligations have been fulfilled. Securities, funds and other assets can be held in escrow.

Frugalista
People who keep up with fashion trends without spending a lot of money. Frugalistas stay fashionable by shopping through alternative outlets, such as online auctions, secondhand stores and classified ads. They also reduce the amount of money spent in other areas of their lives, such as by growing their own food and reducing entertainment expenses. This is a popular term during recessions.

Predatory Lending
Unscrupulous actions carried out by a lender to entice, induce and/or assist a borrower in taking a mortgage that carries high fees, a high interest rate, strips the borrower of equity, or places the borrower in a lower credit rated loan to the benefit of the lender. As with most things of a dishonest nature, new and different predatory lending schemes frequently arise.

Exchange Rate Mechanism - ERM
An exchange rate mechanism is based on the concept of fixed currency exchange rate margins. However, there is variability of the currency exchange rates within the confines of the upper and lower end of the margins. This currency exchange rate mechanism is also commonly called a semi-pegged currency system.

Indemnity Insurance
An insurance policy that aims to protect business owners and employees when they are found to be at fault for a specific event such as misjudgment. Typical examples of indemnity insurance include professional insurance policies such as malpractice insurance, and errors and omissions insurance, which indemnify professionals against claims made in the workplace.

FDIC Problem Bank List
A list of commercial banks in the U.S. that are considered to be in financial difficulty. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issues this problem list quarterly based on liquidity, capital levels and asset quality. Only institutions that are insured by the FDIC through the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) are included on the list. The actual names of the banks are not given, but the total assets are provided.

Freeze Out
An action taken by a firm's majority shareholders that pressures minority holders to sell their stakes in the company. A variety of maneuvers may be considered freeze-out tactics, such as the termination of minority shareholder employees or the refusal to declare dividends.
Also referred to as a "squeeze out".

Headline Inflation
The raw inflation figure as reported through the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that is released monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI calculates the cost to purchase a fixed basket of goods as a way of determining how much inflation is occurring in the broad economy. The CPI uses a base year and indexes current year prices based on the base year's values.
The headline figure is not adjusted for seasonality or for the often volatile elements of food and energy prices, which are removed in the Core CPI. Headline inflation will usually be quoted on an annualized basis, meaning that a monthly headline figure of 4% inflation equates to a monthly rate that, if repeated for 12 months, would create 4% inflation for the year. Comparisons of headline inflation are typically made on a year-over-year basis.
Also known as "top-line inflation".

Forward Rate Agreement - FRA
An over-the-counter contract between parties that determines the rate of interest, or the currency exchange rate, to be paid or received on an obligation beginning at a future start date. The contract will determine the rates to be used along with the termination date and notional value. On this type of agreement, it is only the differential that is paid on the notional amount of the contract.
Also known as a "future rate agreement".

World Economic Outlook - WEO
A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that contains analysis and projections of the integral elements of the IMF's surveillance of economic developments and policies in its member countries, and of the developments in the global financial markets and economic system. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) is usually prepared twice a year and is used in meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee.

January Barometer
A theory stating that the movement of the S&P 500 during the month of January sets the stock market's direction for the year (as measured by the S&P 500). The January Barometer states that if the S&P 500 was up at the end of January compared to the beginning of the month, proponents would expect the stock market to rise during the rest of the year.

Fiscal Year-End
The completion of a one-year, or 12-month, accounting period. A firm's fiscal year-end does not necessarily need to fall on December 31, and can actually fall on any day throughout the year.

Tax Selling
A type of sale whereby an investor sells an asset with a capital loss in order to lower or eliminate the capital gain realized by other investments. Tax selling allows the investor to avoid paying capital gains tax on recently sold or appreciated assets.

Year Over Year - YOY
A method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those from another time period (or series of time periods), on an annualized basis. Year-over-year comparisons are a popular way to evaluate the performance of investments. Any measurable events that recur annually can be compared on a year-over-year basis - from annual performance, to quarterly performance, to daily performance.

Santa Claus Rally
A surge in the price of stocks that often occurs in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are numerous explanations for the Santa Claus Rally phenomenon, including tax considerations, happiness around Wall Street, people investing their Christmas bonuses and the fact that the pessimists are usually on vacation this week.

Boston Snow Indicator
A market theory that states that a white Christmas in Boston will result in rising stock prices for the following year. For example, in Christmas of 1995, Boston received snow and the following year, the S&P 500 increased by more than 20%.