A
Asset: Everything of value owned by a corporation.
B
Balance Sheet: A finance statement giving a summary of an organization's assets, liabilities, and equity.
Bear Market: When stock prices trend lower over a period of time it said to be a bear market.
Bull Market: When stock prices trend higher over a period of time it is said to be a bull market.
C
Call Options: A contract written against owned shares agreeing to sell those shares at a set strike price.
Cash Flow Statement: Financial statement showing the movement of fund's within a business. These are divided into three categories: Operational, Investment, and Financing.
D
Dividend: Payments made by a corporation to it's shareholders. When a corporation earns profit it can either use that money to reinvest in the business (retained earnings) or pay it to its shareholders in the form of a dividend.
E
Earnings: The remainder of revenue after costs of that revenue. Also called net profit.
Equity: The remainder value of an entities assets after liabilities are accounted for. An example of this is if your home is worth 100,000$ and you owe 50,000$ on the loan, your equity in the home is 50,000$.
EPS: Earnings Per Share - A corporations earnings( minus any preferred dividends) divided by the number of common shares outstanding. IE if a corporation has a profit of 1 million and 1 million shares outstanding then the EPS is 1$.
ETF: Exchange Traded Fund, similar to a mutual fund though traded like a stock.
F
Forex: The foreign currency exchange market. A highly leveraged market typically trading at a 100:1 margin; meaning a 100$ position was trading 10,000$. Because of the high leverage this market should be considered highly speculative.
Fundamental Analysis: The process of analyzing the financial health of a company and making predictions of the well being of the company in the near future.
Futures: A standardized contract to buy or sell a specified commodity at a standardized contract.
G
GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, term used to refer to the standard framework of guidelines for financial accounting in any given jurisdiction.
Goodwill: The amount of money a company has paid over book value when acquiring another company.
Growth Stock: Stocks that appreciate in value and yield a high return on equity(ROE).
H
I
Intangible Asset: Assets that lack physical substance, and are usually hard to evaluate value. These include patents, copy rights, franchises, goodwill, trademarks, trade names, etc… According to US GAAP these assets are amortized to expense over 5 to 40 years with the exception of goodwill.
IPO: Initial Public Offering; when a corporation first makes it's stock publicly traded on stock exchanges.
J
K
L
Liability: For financial purposes defined as "an obligation of an entity arising from past transgressions or events, the settlement of which may result in the transfer of assets, provision of services, or other yielding of economic value.
Long Position: A position opened by purchasing a stock and closed by selling that stock.
M
Margin: Money loaned to a client from a brokerage firm for the direct purpose of being used to trade in the financial markets. These loans are charged a rate of interest by the brokerage firm.
MLP: Major Limited Partnership; a limited partnership stake traded on public exchanges limited to certain types of business's usually pertaining to natural resource extraction and transportation.
N
O
Options: A contract for the option to purchase or sell shares of a stock at a set price during a set period of time.
P
P/E: Price to Earnings ratio, this is the ratio of the price of a stock when compared
Penny Stock: Referred to a stock worth less than 5$. Typically traded OTC and are prone to misinformation and scams.
Put Option: A contract agreeing to purchase shares of a particular stock at a set strike price.
Q
R
Revenue: Income a business receives from normal business activities.
REIT: Real-estate investment trust; a special classification awarded to corporations dealing with real-estate that require the corporation to pay it's shareholders 90% of its earnings.
ROA: Return on assets, a ratio figured by dividing a companies earnings by its assets.
ROE: Return on equity, simply a companies earnings and dividing it by the companies equity.
S
Shorting: Borrowing stock from another to sell on the stock market then attempting to repurchase that stock at a lower price for a profit.
Short Position: A position opened by selling of a stock you don't own and closed by repurchasing the stock.
Strike Price: The price of the stock traded when an option is exercised.
T
Tangible Asset: Assets that have a physical substance, such as equipment and real estate.
Technical Analysis: The process of attempting to predict future price moves by analyzing previous price moves. Most technical analysis involves looking for patterns in volume and chart movement.
U
V
Value Stock: A stock believed to be traded at less than it's intrinsic value. The shares are generally believed to be underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis.