These numbers spell out free money. A lot of employers offer retirement account plans such as these that allow you to put a portion of your pre-tax paycheck into your retirement account. The only catch is, you have to wait until you're in your 60s to spend it. If you spend it any earlier, Uncle Sam will come a knockin'.
This is basically a big box of I.O.U.s—it's the money that is owed to the folks waiting to be paid by the company. These are people like suppliers and vendors. Like for McDonald's, this would be the bun guy.
This is a way for companies to account for earnings and expenses in those crazy-long financial statements. The “accrual basis” method is just a fancy way of saying that companies report income when it’s earned and expenses when they’re incurred. Got it, Einstein?
The interest you earn and are promised to get that hasn't yet been paid to you, so like that $10 you lent a friend a year ago and charged $1 interest on but that they haven't paid you yet, that $1 is your accrued interest.
Like French wine and Italian olive oil, sometimes you just have to go offshore to get what you're looking for. It's the same with investing in American depository receipts—buy foreign companies (shares) without having to go to foreign exchanges. U.S. banks act like your importer so you don't get bogged down with currency conversions, overseas transaction fees, and a whole bunch of other foreign foolishness.
If you want to buy (or sell) a stock, this is one of the places that has the goods. Also known as the AMEX, it’s one of the three major stock exchanges in the U.S. (the NYSE and NASDAQ are the other two). It was founded in 1842 and is now owned by the NASDAQ, but it still operates on its own.
Say you owe a boatload of money to the bank because you just bought a, ummmm, boat. Instead of paying for it in one lump sum, you can in installments. Each installment will include a little interest on the loan (no such thing as free money right?) and principle (that's the money you borrowed), and while the monthly payments will stay the same the amount that goes to interest and to principle will change with the life of the loan until it's all paid off, and that's amortization, captain.
Someone who covers the stock world like a fantasy-baseball geek covers a sport. They try to tell you who is in, who is out and what the next hot trend is. Most are paid professionals but, shhhh! Here's a secret: Some are just hacks.
This report airs the company's dirty laundry with the freshest spin possible. They tell you what happened last year and what the financials look like all in one place, they can usually be found filed with the SEC or on the company website. Companies are required by law to put these out, but don't get fooled by the pretty pictures—the bad stuff is in there too.
If stocks had those little price stickers you see at the grocery store, this would be it, it's the price you pay to buy the stock and put it in your grocery cart.
All the stuff a company owns that has some sort of value, such as cash, inventory, stocks, the chair you're sitting in, the building, and other less tangible things like secret recipes and patented bright ideas.
When you play Monopoly, you get some gold dollars, blue dollars, and green ones. In real life, companies are allotted a certain number of shares they can play with. It is the legal number of shares a company has and can issue.
It's just like at the casinos, where you can cash out your chips or toss them back onto the table. This is a way of buying additional shares of a stock simply by reinvesting the dividends.
This financial statement tells you if the company is in the black (good) or red (bad). The statement details the good, the bad, and the ugly of the company's liabilities, assets and shareholders’ equity. One rule to remember here is a company's assets = liabilities + shareholders' equity.
A term usually used by pros to refer to changes in interest rates. One “basis point” is 1/100 of a percentage point, or .0001. This may not look like much, but when you're buying a house, it's a lot. Trust us.
Rooaaaaaaar! This means the market is tanking. The pros usually say we’re in a bear market when the stock market drops 10%. A drop of less than 10% is often referred to as a “correction.”
Tells you how volatile a stock is compared to the market as a whole. So if it has a beta of 1.2, it's more volatile than the market (which is at ‘1’), and if it’s .8, it’s less volatile than the market.
How much is the stock worth to you? The bid is the price at which customers can sell their stocks, bonds, and options.
The difference between the bid price and the ask price. This is the money the market maker gets to keep.
When you buy bonds, you're basically lending money to municipalities, states, and other government entities, which they use for construction projects and other fun stuff. They then pay you back with interest. These aren’t the biggest money makers, but bonds are fairly stable for those of you who think “risk” is a dirty word.
Theoretically, it’s what a shareholder would receive if the company were liquidated or sold for cash today. As we all know, the books don't always reflect the reality.
Like a bull charging forward, a “bull market” is typically a market on the upswing. Olé!
Like your girlfriend's mood: some days it's up, some days it's down. The cycle is the ebb and flow of business activity for one company over a period of time. The standard cycle is: expansion, peak, contraction, and recession.
The opposite of day-trading, this method of investing is when you buy stock and hold it for over a year. See? It's not rocket science.
This is like layaway. You think you want that sequin shirt, but you want to buy it next month when you have more change in your pocket. For a small fee, not only will the layaway clerk keep the shirt for you, but he'll keep the price the same for you as well. Calls give you the right—but not the obligation—to buy stock at a specified price by a specified date.
Dough, coin, dineros, moolah, green—call it what you want, but cash is cash. This is the change a company has sitting in the bank, and will be listed on a company's balance sheet under their assets.
The method in which companies report income when it’s actually received (as opposed to earned on paper) and expenses when they’re actually incurred.
The cash that comes and goes from the company borrowing money, paying cash dividends, and raising money from the sale of stock.
The cash that comes and goes from the company making investments in itself—external stock purchases, property, plants, and equipment. If the company is a lemonade stand, for instance, money would be used to upgrade the lemonade cart and maybe buy a few shares of a lemon grove company.
The cash that comes and goes from the company’s sales and product expenses. This is the 5 cents you paid out in lemons and the 25 cents you received for a cup of lemonade.
Slick brokers might trade your stocks more frequently than you'd like—all this trading is called churn. Why? Because more trading means more fees. Cheaters churn chumps. Don't be a chump.
The final price of a stock when the market closes for the day. The only time it gets to rest after a long day filled with ups and down.
Brokers don't make your trades for you out of the goodness of their heart. “Full service brokers” charge higher commissions for being at your beck and call. “Discount brokers” charge a lot less, usually as low as about $10, depending on your order size.
Experts will say we’ve had a market “correction” when they think the prices of stocks have come back to Earth, or to their “correct” values.
This is the original, out-of-pocket cost to buy an investment, including the commission.
How much it costs a company to produce and prepare whatever it's selling. For a lemonade stand, it would be the lemons, the sugar, and the hourly pay the juicer makes.
For our proverbial lemonade stand, this would be the lemons, the sugar, and the cups—all the stuff a company has that will be turned into cash within one year.
Let's say you borrowed $5 to buy your lemonade stand, or the grocer sends you a bill for your lemons. These are the liabilities. It's everything a company will be paying off within one year.
This ratio is a quick way for you to see if a company can pay its short-term debts. The higher the number the better, because it means a company can quickly pay what’s due. You get the current ratio by dividing the “current assets” by the “current liabilities."
This is the bottom-of-the-barrel stock price during a day of trading.
It's a bad word in personal finance, but it's pretty common in the corporate world. This is the money that a company owes to a lender.
This number tells you how much a company is “leveraged”—or how much a company owes vs. how much it has. The higher the number, the riskier the business. To get it, take total liabilities and divide them by shareholders' equity.
How much something loses in value over a period of time. New cars depreciate the second they leave the lot, for instance.
Options, futures, and mortgage-backed securities are forms of derivatives because their value is “derived” from something else like stocks, bonds, or the S&P 500.
Discount brokers allow you to buy and sell stocks but offer limited services compared to full-service brokers.
The interest rate the Federal Reserve Board charges its member banks for loans. When the “Fed” drops rates, it's cheaper for you to take out a loan.
Not all companies pay dividends, but when they do, you should say "Cha-ching!" Dividends are payments the company makes to their shareholders. They're a way of giving the shareholder a piece of the profit pie.
A crystal ball or model analysts use for valuing stocks: It predicts future dividends, then discount them back to their present value. If the value calculated is higher than the current stock price, the stock is viewed as undervalued, which is the kind of stock you want to buy.
Put your dividend dinero into a percentage: a $1 annual dividend for a $10 stock has a 10% yield.
If you like Russian roulette, this investing strategy might be too stable for you. Depending on the price you buy your stock at, you could win big or lose big. Dollar cost averaging minimizes those extremes. Instead of buying a lot of stock at one price, this strategy allows you to buy small amounts of the stock at different price points over the course of a year. If you’re participating in your 401(k), chances are you’re already using dollar cost averaging.
The grandaddy of them all when it comes to indices only because it’s the oldest and most popular—not the largest or most representative. The Dow only represents the prices of 30 largest and most widely held companies in the U.S.
This is the amount of money earned per every one share. If the company made $1 million in profits and has 1 million shares outstanding, the EPS would be $1.
It stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. But losing the geek speak, this is just the profit you made before anyone like Uncle Sam can take a piece out of it.
Absolutely nothing to do with Star Trek, you big nerd. This is the entire value of a company, taking debt into account.
A fancy term for stocks. If you've got stock, you technically have an "equitable claim" on the company. Get used to the fancy words...Wall Street loves them.
Enterprise value divided by EBITDA, a valuation method that takes debt into account.
This is the date stock is traded without the previously declared dividend; typically in the US this is two business days before the record date.
This is the broker's cut stated as a percentage so it doesn't sound as bad. It's kind of like the fantasy-football organizer saying that he is going to take 2% of the entrance fee rather than a $100 from the pot. Expense ratios of less than 1% are nice.
All the costs a company has shelled out for. A cabbie has to pay for his car, gas, and maintenance, but he also has to pay for other expenses that aren't quite so obvious like the credit-card company fee that he's assessed every time he swipes your credit card.
Don't worry, this isn't rated R. These are clear, observable costs associated with doing business. If you own a lemonade stand, your costs will be lemons, water, sugar, and cups.
This is the magic price at which sellers are willing to sell and buyers are willing to buy. But it's a fickle beast: A house worth $250,000 one day could be worth $200,000 a week later.
This is the rate banks charge other banks for overnight loans. Yeah, that's right, overnight. Oh yeah.
The big cheese that sets interest rates and policies for the supply of money and credit. The Fed is our nation’s central bank and is governed by a seven-member board.
The dough that’s left over after a company has paid its bills and everything else.
Just like a chauffeured limo is a more expensive ride than driving yourself, these guys will do more stuff for you and your stocks—but they'll charge a pretty penny too.
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or the accounting rules publicly traded companies use so that "creative" accounting is kept to a minimum.
This is an order to buy stock that will stay in effect until you cancel it. Day orders expire by the end of the day—kind of like your deodorant.
This is more than just a thrift store: The term is part of the balance sheet. It is the premium one company pays over a company's book value when purchasing another company for its good name and brand. A company that has a good reputation has a higher level of goodwill, and buyers will have to compensate the company for that.
If the country was a company, this would be its revenue. The total value of all the goods and services produced by a country, it helps to measure an economy's size.
Percentages seem scary, but think of this one in terms of dollar signs rather than percent signs. This percent measures the profit of a company taking the cost of the products into consideration. Gross Income / Net Sales = Gross Margin.
No it's not reality TV. Similar to GDP, it's a measure of the size of the economy. But unlike GDP, this stat includes production by U.S. companies located outside the country.
This is the money made from selling a product after you subtract other costs like office supplies and salaries. Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Profit. Uncle Sam has yet to take his cut, though, so that sack of cash isn't all yours.
An investment strategy in which investors identify stocks that have good potential for above-average growth. These guys are looking for the magic beans that grow like Jack's beanstalk.
If you take a trip to the Bahamas and use unpaid vacation time, the money you could have made while sitting at your desk is the implicit cost of your vacation. For a company, it's all the man hours lost at the ping pong table in the break room. Implicit costs represented by lost opportunity in the use of a company’s assets.
An investment strategy in which investors identify stocks which they expect to provide a steady stream of income like dividends. Play your cards right and you might be able to replace the income from your paycheck...
One of the three common financial statements that is basically the company's quarterly budget. This is how much the company made and how much it spent, the bottom line (literally) being the profits left over.
This is the sampler platter of stocks that act like a weather vane to tell you which way the wind is blowing in the market. The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 Index are two of the biggies, but there are literally tons of them.
If your $20 plate of salmon just went up to $24 and there isn't any extra salmon on your plate, your dinner just got inflated. This is when the same thing costs you more now than in it did the past, for no other reason than the fact that your dollar isn’t worth as much now. This could happen to food, gas, or services.
An asset that lacks a physical substance like patents, recipes, copyrights, and bright ideas.
The products and materials a company has that are ready (or nearly ready) for sale. Inventory is also a balance sheet term for the monetary value of the physical inventory.
Short for Initial Public Offering, this is a private company's way of saying, "Do you want a piece of this?" This is when a company offers shares to the public to get more dough to grow the business. Also known as "going public."
Debt the company takes on to reinvest in itself to make more money. If Starbucks were to buy out another coffee house, it would do so by taking on debt in hopes that the additional sales and decreased competition would enhance its profit margin. The more debt you take on, the more leveraged you are and the riskier your biz is, but with the right amount of leverage you can make more money for shareholders. Finding the right balance can be tricky.
Think of this as debt, but then cast the net a little wider. Liability is the obligation to repay its loans, IOUs, payroll, leases, pensions, vacation hours, and taxes a company owes.
An order to buy or sell a security at a specific price. Kind of like setting your TiVo to tape something at a specific time, even if you're not around.
Liquidity is how quickly you can turn products, money-market funds, and CDs, into cold cash in your pocket. If you have a hot product, it shouldn't take long.
These are the investments found on the balance sheet that won't be sold for more than a year. So that poor widget will have to sit on the shelf for a long time.
This is the profit—the gain—you make on a stock you’ve held for more than a year. You’ll pay taxes on this profit, but at least it’s lower than if you had held the stock less than a year (short-term capital gain).
This is like a mole. It's ugly, it's noticeable, and you can't do anything about it. This is debt that sits on the Balance Sheet for over a year's time.
You can call your little sister this all you want, but these are liabilities that are not expected to be paid off within the year. These are basically IOUs you can sit on.
The big stuff these are economic factors that affect the entire country—things like the unemployment rate or interest rates.
Taking a loan from the "House" and tossing that money on a horse is similar to margin accounts. A margin account allows you to buy stocks with a loan from the broker. Borrowed money is great... unless you lose.
The price of the stock multiplied by the amount of shares out there. A good way to stand companies back to back and judge them and see who's bigger and badder.
A brokerage firm that is willing to sell you a stock (at the bid price) or buy one back from you (the ask price). They play both sides and make money off of each. Brilliant!
An order to buy or sell shares at whatever the current price is in the market. Unless you choose otherwise, your order will always be a market order. The advantage of market orders is that your order is almost always guaranteed to be executed (so long as there's a willing buyer or seller).
Market timers have a ton of confidence: They think they can figure out just the right time to buy and sell stocks in the short-term and come out ahead. Good luck with that.
This is the value an assessor comes up with when looking at your house. Forget what you would or wouldn't pay—this is what the bank thinks your home is worth.
These are stocks of companies that have less than $150 million in market cap value. These are the little guys.
Economic factors such as supply and demand, pricing, and production amount that are relevant to a specific industry, company, or product.
When someone like Warren Buffett owns a great deal of shares of a company, but not enough to solely make decisions for the company. Minority interest means you don't have the power!
A place to park your cash and get a higher return than if it were in a bank account. A money market fund is a type of fund that invests in very short-term securities, such as CDs.
No it's not the board game... as close as you can get to walking on Easy Street, monopolies are when a company has no competition for a product or service.
A way to buy a basket of stocks with a theme, usually run by a mutual fund company that will charge you a fee for managing the fund. Kind of like all those college parties you used to go to—only without the beer. Unless it's a beer mutual fund.
It's known as The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System, but suffice to say this stock exchange is one of the biggies.
This isn't the eco version of the board game. It's a situation in which a company has no competitors due to the nature of the business. Take utilities, for example.
Take all the assets you have and subtract all the debt that you owe. The net asset value is what's left in the piggy bank. For a company this is like book value. A tip? Call it "NAV"—it makes you sound cooler.
A company’s profit or loss—the "bottom line." This is how much is left after the company pays everything, including the taxes and cash dividends.
Compares present value with future value—in other words, will this venture be profitable?
This is the gravy, the money a company makes after paying expenses like salaries, marketing, and actual costs for its products or services.
This is a percentage, and the higher the better. A higher net profit margin means more of the sales you generate are going toward the bottom line.
This is the money coming in from a company’s sales, after any discounts or returns.
Put your scalpel away "doc," these are revenues and expenses that occur outside of general business activities, like relocating or collecting an insurance settlement.
The New York Stock Exchange, a.k.a. Wall Street, is where stocks are bought and sold.
Nothing to do with removing your appendix, these are business activities related to a company's products or services, like taking inventory or having a martini lunch with a client.
All expenses related to operating activities like selling, marketing, general, and administrative costs. Somebody's got to answer the phone, right? That paycheck is an operating expense.
Don’t worry, no surgery involved here. This is income from a core business. If you run a lemonade stand, it’s the money made after paying for the lemons and the sugar.
This shows you how efficient a company is at selling lemonade. Are they streamlined, or are profits going sour? To figure out how good a company is take their operating income and divided by revenue, the higher the number the better they are at turning their core business into money in the bank.
An option is more than just "Do you want fries with that?" In market speak, options let you limit your risk when trading securities or other assets.
Accounting laws vary around the world, but cash is cash no matter where you are—and P/CF comes in very handy by telling you how many times a company's cash flow goes into a company's stock price, or the multiple of cash flow you are paying for the stock. This is one way around any accounting tomfoolery.
Stocks work hard for the money, so hard for it honey—ahem. P/E ratio is "price-to-earnings": it tells you how much you’re paying for the earnings that a share is generating. For those of you who are visual learners, P/E Ratio = price per share / earnings.
Another indicator of how a company is doing. This one shows you how much you’re paying for the company’s ability to sell its stuff. ‘Cause if they can’t sell, that’s bad news.
Just what their name says: stocks that sell for less than $1 a share. Sure, they’re "cheap," but they got that way for a reason.
Property, Plant, and Equipment a company owns. What's up up with all the acronyms?!
Money spent on goods or services the company expects to use or receive in the future. Like paying for a plane ticket before you actually get on the plane. Sort of.
This is what the high-rollers get: A class of stock that has a higher claim on the company’s earnings and assets than your piddling common stockholders. So if the business tanks, the preferred stockholders are going to be paid first.
If you know you’re getting cash in the future, how do you value it? Barring a time machine, "present value" is how. Why? Because a bird in hand is more valuable than two in a bush.
If you think a stock is going down, then you buy a type of option called a put. Easy way to remember: “PUT it DOWN.”
The return on your investments after inflation is taken into account. For example, if you earned an 8% rate in a mutual fund but inflation (the increase in prices for bread, milk, etc.) for the year was 3%, then your “real return” is 5%. Bummer. What can you say? Reality bites.
Receivables are the cash due from customers for services rendered or products sold. So if you buy a glass of lemonade at a lemonade stand, the receivables would include your five cents. So pay up!
If you're expecting a dividend check and end up empty-handed, it could be because the company decided to keep the earnings and put them back into the business. This money, and all other earnings the company keeps, are called retained earnings. The amount of a company's retained earnings can be found in the shareholders' equity section of the balance sheet.
Gain (or loss) from an investment. Unless you're fiscally masochistic, you're going to cross your fingers for a gain.
The money generated from sales. If you own a lemonade stand and charge 25 cents per cup, add up all the sales for the day and—voila!—that's the revenue (just to keep you on your toes, sometimes people just refer to this as sales).
Basically, any contract representing ownership, such as stocks, bonds, options, swaps, notes, and futures. It says, "I OWN THIS"
The value of all the money shareholders have tossed into the company by buying its stock. These piles can get pretty big.
The total number of shares currently held by investors.
When the grocer bills you for your lemons, that would be considered a short-term debt—debt that is to be paid within one year.
Do you balance your check book? So do companies, and this is what it looks like. This is one of the three common financial statements compiled by a company. It shows how the company generated cash and where it spent it.
This is your piece of the corporate pie, and it entitles the holder to a share of assets and earnings.
They give the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a set price. If the stock is way above that price, buyers can make a pretty penny.
Let's say you're watching a stock's value drop, and you think it's going to rebound. You put in a "stop order" to buy when it falls to a certain number, and there you go. (You can also do that to buy a security when its price hits a certain number). It's almost like setting your TiVo to record when you're not around.
Arghh Matie! Sorry but this has nothing to do with buried treasures or pirates. Treasury stock is stock that the company keeps for itself or buys back from other shareholders and holds on its balance sheet for a rainy day. It can come in handy when someone is looking to take the company over or they need some extra cash.
An investment strategy that relies on picking stocks that are undervalued by the market and hoping that the market catches up at some point.
This is the cash in the wallet. It's a quick measure of the company’s efficiency and its ability to meet short term obligations.
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