LEVEL 2 GLOSSARY
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Balance Sheet
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.
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Book value
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.
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Income Statement
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.
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Market maker
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!
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Security
Basically, any contract representing ownership, such as stocks, bonds, options, swaps, notes, and futures. It says, "I OWN THIS"
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Shares Outstanding
The total number of shares currently held by investors.
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Statement of Cash Flows
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.
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Value Investing
An investment strategy that relies on picking stocks that are undervalued by the market and hoping that the market catches up at some point.
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Annual report
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.
See full glossary
In Level 2, we'll take you a little deeper into the trading world. Like in Level 1, there are a series of concepts that you should master before taking the Level 2 quiz. Remember to click the "Mastered this concept?" link at the bottom of the page to keep track of your progress in your Report Card.
- Invest in what you know
- Working at the stock market
- Price of stock
- What affects share price?
- Judging a stock
- The Fair-Price Rating
- Shares outstanding
- Where to learn about a company
- Growth investing
- Value investing
- Invest like Buffett
- The government's role
- LEVEL 2 QUIZ
Tricks of the Trade
When you see people in the market pit flailing and gesturing madly, it's hard to believe that frenzy is actually the epicenter of our economy. (Trust us — it is.)
And as hectic as this might seem, intelligible communication is actually occurring every step of the way.
Floor traders use all sorts of hand signals to indicate all sorts of information. For options traders, a hand in front of the throat in a single-handed choke position means "January."
If a trader is pulling his open hands toward his body, that means "Buy!" And a single index finger across the forehead means, of course, "60."
The hand-signal communication is known as Arb, which is short for arbitrage, and was originally introduced in the late 1800s. But it wasn't fully developed until 1972 in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's futures pit.
This style has three advantages:
1) It's fast.
2) It's practical — when it gets too loud, you can always "hear" a hand sign.
3) It's confidential — traders are buying and selling for virtually anonymous clients.
As cool as Arb is, these traders are now being phased out as the brokerages integrate ultra-fast, automated stock transactions. Alas.
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