One hundredth of a percentage point. A move from 4.56 to 4.73 per cent is 17 basis points.
Cash left after running the business and paying for new equipment. It pays dividends.
Market capitalization (market cap) is a company’s share price multiplied by its number of shares — the total…
When a company uses its own cash to buy shares back from investors.
The part of each sale left after the product’s cost.
The interest rate the US government pays to borrow, for a given length of time. Price and yield move in oppos…
Money spent on long-lived assets — servers, buildings, power — rather than on the day-to-day running of the b…
The company's own forecast for sales and profit, usually for the full year.
The rise in the price of everyday goods and services over time.
Using borrowed money to control a position larger than your own capital. It magnifies both gains and losses.
Operating profit divided by sales. It shows how much the company keeps from each franc of sales.
The reference crude against which other barrels are priced, usually Brent or WTI.
The annual return you get if you buy a bond at today's price and hold it to maturity. It moves opposite to pr…
When a supplier lends money to its own customer so the customer can buy the supplier's product. Sales and rev…
A fiscal deficit is the gap created when a government spends more than it collects in taxes in a year. The ga…
The goods a company has made but not sold.
A rating of BBB- or higher meaning a borrower is unlikely to default. It decides who is allowed to buy the de…
The interest rate a central bank sets as its main tool. In America it is a target range for overnight lending…
The ability to raise prices and keep most buyers.
Lending by non-bank funds to companies that are not listed on a stock exchange. The loans are negotiated priv…
Firm orders a company has placed for future delivery, disclosed in the notes to its accounts as an obligation.
The money a company gets from selling its products.
A windfall is a sudden, unexpected amount of money — a gain nobody planned for.
The yield curve is one line that plots the yields of the same borrower across all maturities, from a few mont…
Whether ordinary shoppers can comfortably pay for something. If a snack is affordable, it does not feel too e…
An AI agent is software that does a task for you end-to-end rather than just answering a question — booking,…
Annualized revenue takes a short period's revenue and scales it up to a full year — a projection, not money a…
The total market value of everything a manager invests for clients. It is the base on which most management f…
The scheduled sale of government debt, where dealers bid for yield. The average accepted yield is the clearin…
Signed orders a company has not yet delivered or billed. It is a promise of future revenue, not revenue.
The official measure of how prices for a typical basket of household goods change month to month. Usually sho…
A loan that can later turn into shares, so early backers are repaid in equity rather than in cash.
Price growth with food and energy removed. Those two move with weather and war, so economists take them out t…
An agency's score for a borrower's willingness and ability to repay.
In a share-for-share deal, the number of the buyer's shares that one share of the target converts into.
The price an asset would fetch between willing parties on the measurement date: an estimate, not a transactio…
When a central bank tells markets what it expects to do next, so that policy works before the decision is eve…
Leaning towards higher rates and tighter money. The opposite is dovish, leaning towards lower rates.
One of the handful of companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle — that run cloud computing at a sca…
The price of borrowing money, shown as a percentage per year. Higher rates make loans cost more.
The first sale of a company's shares to the public, which gives it cash and a listed share price.
A company owned by two or more firms, which share the cost, the risk and the profit.
A mortgage rate is the interest rate on a home loan. In the US, the 30-year fixed rate is the standard: the r…
A company's value divided by a measure of its business, such as revenue or earnings, used to compare it with…
The value of a fund's assets minus its liabilities, divided by the number of shares.
A profit measure a company defines itself, usually by excluding items it calls unrepresentative; it sits besi…
Obligations that are disclosed in the footnotes of a filing but not yet recorded as assets or liabilities — t…
Cash produced by the ordinary business after paying its bills, before investment and financing.
A loss from daily business, before interest and tax.
The process by which buyers and sellers agree on what an asset is worth.
The share of a refinery's capacity that is actually running. 97% means almost every unit is in use; 100% is n…
Sales at shops that were open in both years.
Sanctions are penalties — freezing assets, cutting off finance, barring trade — that one country imposes on a…
A small part of a company. People buy and sell these parts on a stock market.
The price for immediate delivery, agreed today. It moves every day, unlike a contract price fixed months in a…
One number that puts many answers together, so you can compare one month with another.
A stress test is a regulator's exercise in which banks are run through a severe hypothetical recession to see…
The extra value two companies claim they will create by joining — normally cost savings from cutting duplicat…
A contract term requiring the buyer to pay for capacity whether or not it uses it.
Taxes a government puts on goods coming into the country. The importer pays them, and usually passes part of…
The extra yield investors demand for holding a long bond instead of rolling short ones.
The central bank of the United States. It sets interest rates to keep inflation low and jobs plentiful.
A Treasury is a bond the U.S. government sells to borrow money. You hand Washington cash today; it pays you i…
A short-term government bond that matures in a year or less.
How many times a company’s earnings (or cash flow) investors will pay for it. A 30x multiple means you pay $3…
When a supplier lends money to, or takes a stake in, a customer so that the customer can buy the supplier's p…
The amount of product sold, not the money received. Also called real internal growth.
The income an investment pays each year, shown as a percentage.
Describes a deal that makes the buyer's earnings per share go up rather than down.
When one company buys another. A takeover usually means the buyer ends up controlling the target, and the tar…
A profit figure that leaves out items the company calls one-off, such as acquisition charges and restructurin…
Monetization is the step from “people use it” to “people pay for it”. AI monetization means finding a way to…
The total sum you borrow to buy the car — the price minus your down payment, plus any fees rolled into the lo…
An anchor investor is a large institution — a sovereign fund, an insurer, a big asset manager — that is allot…
A tariff charged on imports that are found to be sold below their normal value, usually below the price in th…
Laws that stop companies from becoming so dominant that competition, prices or jobs suffer. Regulators can cl…
The yearly cost of borrowing, shown as a percent. It includes the interest rate plus most fees, so it is the…
ARPU, or average revenue per user, is total service revenue divided by the number of users. For a telecoms co…
The asking price is what a seller hopes to get — the number on the listing. It is a wish, not a fact. The sal…
A business model that rents or outsources expensive equipment instead of owning it, so less capital is tied u…
Deliberate spending cuts and tax rises aimed at shrinking a deficit. It is politically expensive, because tho…
A loan taken out to buy a vehicle. The car itself is the collateral, so the lender can repossess it if you st…
The money one person spends in one visit, on average. Menu prices and what people order both move it.
The average pay for one hour of work, before tax.
When many depositors ask for their money at the same time, because they fear the bank may fail.
The part of the balance sheet for assets the bank plans to hold, such as ordinary loans. They are harder to s…
The distortion in a growth rate that comes from the size of the period it is compared with.
The capacity figure a country's quota is calculated from — the denominator of every future cut.
A relative-value trade that captures the small gap between a cash bond and the matching futures contract, usu…
Power generated behind the meter is produced on the customer's own side of the utility meter, so it never tra…
The number of bids received divided by the amount of debt sold. A ratio of 5.84 means investors wanted 5.84 t…
A contest in which two or more buyers keep raising their offers for the same asset until one wins. The seller…
The itemised list of every part inside a product, and what each one costs to buy. It is where a component sho…
A copy of a biologic drug that is highly similar but not identical, and needs its own clinical data to be app…
The average price of everything a company sells, weighted by how much of each product it ships. It rises even…
A blockade is when a country uses its navy to stop ships from entering or leaving another country's ports. Ir…
The book-to-bill ratio divides new orders by the revenue recognised in the same period. Above 1.0, the compan…
The stage in which bankers collect orders at a series of prices, so that demand can be read before a price is…
Bookings are the total value of new contracts a services company signs in a period. They are not revenue yet:…
Money one side pays the other if the deal collapses — set high enough that walking away is an expensive decis…
The break-even point is the sales volume at which a company covers all of its fixed costs and starts making a…
Money that must be paid if a deal collapses — most often by the target company to the rival bidder that lost…
A short-term loan from banks that lets a buyer sign a deal before permanent financing is arranged. It is expe…
“Buy the rumor, sell the news” describes the habit of a stock rising in expectation of an event and falling o…
A buyer's market is one where supply exceeds demand, so buyers hold the negotiating power: they can push on p…
The number of seats an airline puts in the air: planes multiplied by flights.
A capacity auction is a market in which a grid operator buys commitments to be able to generate electricity i…
In finance, capital is money that has been put to work — the cash shareholders have invested in a business, o…
Extra capital a bank holds on top of the minimum, so it can absorb losses in a downturn without failing.
Money leaving a country’s markets quickly, usually for safer places. It hits the currency too: foreigners sel…
A long-term investment in physical assets — warehouses, machines, data centres, stores — rather than day-to-d…
Money spent on physical assets that will be used for years, such as data centres, servers and factories. It s…
A long-term rental of a car: you pay to use it for two or three years and return it at the end. You never own…
The share of a fund's profits — usually 20 per cent — that the manager keeps, paid only after investors have…
A carrier (or operator) is the company that runs a mobile network and bills subscribers. It owns or rents the…
A group of producers that agrees to restrict supply in order to keep prices high.
Cash and cash equivalents are the money a company can spend right away: bank balances plus short-term investm…
Cash burn is the speed at which a company spends more cash than it takes in. It is measured over a period — s…
Cash flow from operating activities is the cash the business actually generated from trading in the period —…
The large amount of cash and short-term investments a company keeps.
The principle that rate decisions are made by appointed technocrats, not by elected politicians. It is protec…
A single lawsuit brought on behalf of a large group of people with the same complaint, instead of thousands o…
Sales made through a cloud platform. The customer buys on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azur…
Claims and costs as a share of premiums. Below 100 means a profit.
Common equity Tier 1, or CET1, is a bank's strongest capital — shareholders' equity that absorbs losses first…
Competition for capital means several borrowers chasing the same pool of savings. If companies issue hundreds…
How closely a member actually produces what the agreement says it should.
Concentration limits are rules or internal guidelines that cap how much of a portfolio may sit in one stock,…
How people feel about their own money and the economy. It comes from surveys, not from sales data.
When stress in one market spreads to another that shares its lenders, its currency or its investors — often b…
A new fund set up by the same manager to buy an asset from one of its expiring funds, giving existing investo…
The direct cost of the goods sold: components, manufacturing and shipping. Also called cost of goods sold.
Savings that come from combining two companies — duplicated head offices, overlapping sales teams, a factory…
The risk that the other side of your deal cannot pay you back, even if the asset itself is fine.
The gap between what a refinery pays for crude and what it sells the fuel for. It is the refiner's gross marg…
A form of insurance against default: the buyer pays a small annual fee, and the seller pays out if the borrow…
Credit quality measures how likely borrowers are to repay. Banks track it with delinquency rates (payments th…
A position held by so many investors that exiting becomes difficult, because everyone tries to sell at once.
The broad measure of a country's trade in goods and services, plus the income it earns and pays on foreign in…
Looking after someone else's assets for them, while they keep the right to get them back.
Customisation (personalisation) is selling extra features, materials and finishes chosen by the buyer — speci…
A business whose profit swings with the economic or price cycle rather than growing steadily. When the cycle…
A legal cap on how much the federal government may borrow in total.
A debt crisis is the moment lenders stop rolling over a government's debt at any reasonable price. Yields spi…
Issuance is the act of selling new bonds. When a government runs a deficit, it covers the gap by issuing debt…
The total amount a company owes, and the weight it carries. A bigger load means more interest to pay every ye…
Total government debt divided by a year's economic output. It is the standard yardstick for whether a debt lo…
The gap in a single year, when the government spends more than it collects.
The deficit-to-GDP ratio divides the annual shortfall by the size of the economy. It lets you compare countri…
A delinquency is a payment that is late. Banks and regulators track the delinquency rate — the share of loans…
Deposit costs are what a bank pays savers to keep money in an account. Non-interest-bearing deposits pay noth…
The yearly expense a company books for equipment it has already paid for, spread across the years it expects…
Diluted earnings per share is net profit divided by all the shares that would exist if every option and conve…
The fall in each existing shareholder's stake when a company issues new shares to pay for something.
Direct-to-device means an ordinary phone talks to a satellite, with no dish and no special handset in between…
The rate used to turn future money into today’s value. The higher it is, the less a payment ten years away is…
The middle of the barrel: diesel, heating oil and jet fuel — heavier than gasoline, lighter than asphalt.
A non-GAAP cash measure of profit that a listed private equity firm can pay out as dividends. It counts fees…
Diversification means spreading money across different assets and markets so that one bad bet cannot sink the…
Selling or separating a business unit. In mergers, regulators often require divestitures to preserve competit…
A financing in which a company sells shares at a lower valuation than the one it sold them at before.
The standard memory chip that holds the data your computer or phone is using right now. It loses everything w…
Capital that investors have already committed and the fund has raised, but that has not yet been invested in…
Digital signal processor: the chip inside an optical module that cleans up and reshapes the signal on the way…
The Fed's two legal goals: stable prices and maximum employment. Sometimes the two pull in opposite direction…
A structure with two or more classes of stock carrying different voting rights, letting founders keep control…
Things that last a long time, such as cars, furniture and appliances. People can delay buying them.
A measure of how sensitive a bond's price is to changes in interest rates, roughly the weighted average life…
A conference call where a listed company walks analysts and journalists through its quarterly results, usuall…
Earnings per share, or EPS, is a company's profit divided by its number of shares. It is the number analysts…
The principle that newsrooms, not owners or politicians, decide what gets reported. When an owner has politic…
Government-held oil or fuel kept for crises. Releasing it adds supply, but only until the tanks run dry.
A middle tier in the index world: markets big and open enough for global funds, but less developed than “deve…
What it would cost to buy the whole business: what its shares are worth, plus the debt the buyer inherits, mi…
A valuation multiple: a company's enterprise value (roughly its price tag, including debt) divided by its rev…
An ETF is a basket of many investments that trades on a stock exchange like a single share. Buy one ETF and y…
EV/EBITDA compares the value of a whole business — equity plus net debt — with its operating profit before in…
One exabyte is a billion gigabytes (10¹⁸ bytes). Storage analysts count industry size in exabytes and zettaby…
A company where people swap one coin for another, and where they leave their coins parked.
An executive chair (executive chairman) chairs the board of directors while still being an employee of the co…
A government order stopping a product from leaving the country. It keeps fuel at home, but removes it from wo…
A growth model in which an economy relies on selling to foreign buyers rather than on spending by its own hou…
Accounting steps that create room under the ceiling without new borrowing.
The profit a manager makes from management and advisory fees, before any gain from selling investments. It is…
The overall price and availability of money: bond yields, mortgage rates, credit spreads, the dollar, share p…
Financing costs are what a borrower pays to raise money. For a government, that means the interest it pays on…
Whether a government can keep borrowing without its debt growing faster than the economy. When interest rates…
A fiscal year is a company’s own 12-month accounting year. It does not have to start in January.
Money an insurer holds from premiums before it pays claims.
The number that economists expect before a report is published.
Forward earnings are the profits analysts expect a company to make over the next 12 months. They are a foreca…
A family of products built around one brand or one molecule, reported together by the company.
The share of a company’s stock that actually trades in the market — not locked up by founders, families or th…
To block coins in a wallet so that nobody can move them, usually done by the company that issued them.
The price of moving cargo by sea, quoted per barrel, per tonne or per day for the ship. It ends up inside the…
A fresh issue means the company creates and sells new shares, so the cash goes into the business. The alterna…
The front-month contract is the futures contract closest to expiry — the one the market quotes as today's pri…
The tier below emerging: smaller, less liquid markets such as Kenya or Vietnam. Fewer funds track them — but…
Fundamentals are the real-world facts behind a price: how much oil is produced, how much is consumed, and how…
The yield on a foreign bond after paying for currency protection. If hedging costs 2%, a 5% Treasury yields o…
A gigawatt is a billion watts — roughly the output of a large power plant, and enough to supply several hundr…
A pause in federal services when the laws that fund them lapse.
A grey market premium is the price at which unlisted shares change hands informally before a listing, quoted…
When a middleman handles the sale, a company can book either the gross amount (everything the customer paid)…
The number of people who buy something. Shops count orders, so one person buying twice counts twice.
A type of memory made by stacking many layers of ordinary memory chips into one tall package, so data can mov…
A hedge fund is a pooled investment vehicle for institutions and wealthy investors that uses leverage and sho…
A holding company discount is the gap between what a parent is worth on paper and what the market is willing…
A crypto wallet that is connected to the internet, so it can send coins out at any moment.
A hyperscale data center is a very large, standardized computing campus built by one of the big cloud operato…
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 U.S. law that lets a president freeze or block econom…
Hard to sell quickly without moving the price. A liquid asset can be sold in days at a known price; an illiqu…
The incumbent is the company already in the market — the one with the customers, the contracts and the sunk i…
A company that builds and maintains stock indexes — the lists of securities that funds copy. MSCI, FTSE Russe…
The cost of running a trained AI model to answer a request, usually paid to a cloud provider by the query.
What people think prices will do next. Central banks watch this because beliefs can become behaviour.
The interconnection queue is the line of projects waiting for a grid operator's permission and engineering wo…
The cost of borrowing money, charged by the lender, usually a percent of the amount still owed. On a car loan…
A company's true worth, estimated from the cash it will produce.
The benefit of selling goods built with cheaper materials bought earlier, rather than at today's prices.
Investment banking fees are the commissions a bank collects for arranging things rather than lending: advisin…
Shares in pooled vehicles such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Buying a US-listed ETF is re…
In-process research and development: the value of unfinished drug projects bought in an acquisition, written…
The company that creates the tokens and holds the reserves behind them.
The special fuel that planes burn. Airlines buy it by the gallon, and it is priced in dollars.
The Jevons paradox says that when a resource becomes cheaper or more efficient to use, people end up consumin…
An economy where different groups split in opposite directions: the well-off keep rising while the less well-…
Cadence means rhythm — how often something happens. A company's launch cadence is the pattern in which it rel…
How long you must wait between placing an order and receiving the goods. A 52-week lead time means ordering a…
Selling an asset and then renting it back from the buyer. You get cash now and keep using the asset, but you…
A company that sells long-term savings and protection policies and must pay claims decades later. To match th…
How long you have to repay the loan, shown in months. An 84-month term is seven years.
“In local currencies” means the numbers are calculated as if exchange rates had not moved. It isolates how sh…
The lock-in effect describes owners who would like to move but cannot afford to give up a cheap fixed-rate mo…
A period after listing during which insiders and early shareholders are contractually barred from selling.
A contract that locks in price and volume for months or years. For a buyer, it is insurance against a shortag…
The end of the period when only one company may sell a medicine; the industry shortens it to LOE.
Low band means frequencies below roughly 1 GHz. Signals at those frequencies bend around obstacles and pass t…
A hybrid security that pays a fixed return and must convert into common shares on a set date. It raises equit…
A company's margin is the share of each dollar of sales that it keeps as profit. Gross margin counts only the…
A demand from a lender for more collateral or cash when a position loses value.
The value an investor or a fund puts on an asset in its own books, whether or not anything has traded there.
Valuing an asset at the price it would fetch today, rather than at what it cost. It needs a market price — wh…
The slice of a market a company holds, usually shown as a percentage of sales or, in this industry, of total…
The maturity of a bond is the date it is repaid, and by extension the length of the loan: a 2-year, 5-year, 1…
Middle management is the layer of managers who sit between the people doing the work and the executives runni…
A moat is the durable advantage that keeps competitors out — a brand, a network, a licence, or the cost of sw…
A model variant (or derivative) is a version of a car — same nameplate, different body, engine, trim or perfo…
The fixed amount you pay the lender every month to repay a loan. On a car loan it is mostly interest at first…
A moratorium is an official temporary ban — here, a local government barring new data centers for a fixed per…
A mortgage is a loan used to buy a home, repaid over many years with interest. The mortgage rate is the inter…
A nearline hard drive is a high-capacity disk built for data centres: it sits “near the line”, close enough t…
A neocloud is a newer cloud company that rents out raw GPU computing power, mostly to AI developers. Unlike A…
Net cash flow margin is the cash left over from the car business, after investment, expressed as a share of r…
The bottom line: all profit, including gains on shares still held.
Net interest income is what a bank earns on loans and securities minus what it pays on deposits and other bor…
When a company spends more than it earns, the money it loses after everything is counted.
What a drugmaker actually receives after rebates and discounts, as opposed to the list price on the label.
Net purchases are what investors buy minus what they sell. If foreigners buy $50bn of US shares but sell $30b…
The profit a firm actually books when it sells an investment, after investors' capital has been returned. It…
Revenue from last year's customers divided by what those same customers paid last year; above 100% means they…
A retailer's net sales are what customers actually paid, after discounts and returns. It is the top line of t…
A gain or a cost that is not expected to repeat, so investors look past it when judging how the underlying bu…
A gain or cost that will not repeat, and so should be removed before one period is compared with another.
A one-time effect is a gain or loss that will not repeat next quarter. Companies must point it out, so invest…
The money a company spends to run its business every day: fuel, staff, airports, maintenance.
Profit from the businesses a company actually runs, before investment gains.
Operating profit is what is left from sales after the costs of running the business — but before interest and…
Connecting chips, boards and racks with light through glass fibre, instead of electricity through copper cabl…
Sales growth that leaves out currency moves and takeovers. It shows what the company actually sold.
Organic growth comes from selling more of what you already do. Inorganic growth comes from buying other compa…
A situation in which an industry can produce more than the world is willing to buy at a price that covers its…
Paid conversion is the share of users who start paying. If a million people use an app and 30,000 pay, the pa…
To hand a cost or a benefit along to the next party in the chain — a supplier passing costs to a retailer, or…
Selling that happens not because a manager dislikes the stock, but because the fund’s rulebook says so. When…
The sharp fall in a drug's sales when its patent expires and cheaper copies reach the market.
Patent infringement is using someone else's patented invention without permission. If a court agrees, the inf…
The number of people on company payrolls, counted each month by the government.
The fixed price a stablecoin promises to keep, usually one dollar.
Pending home sales count homes where a seller has accepted an offer but the deal has not yet closed. It is th…
A platform is the shared underbody, suspension and electrical backbone under several different cars. Platform…
A power shortfall is the gap between the electricity a site needs and the electricity it can actually get. A…
The powertrain is everything that turns energy into movement: engine or motor, gearbox, and the electronics l…
The amount by which an offer price exceeds the target's market price before the deal was known.
The front of the plane: business and first class. Fewer seats, much higher prices.
A price band is the range a company and its bankers put on the shares before an IPO opens — in Jio's case 1,0…
A price target is the share price an analyst thinks the stock will reach in about a year. It is an opinion, n…
A company's market value divided by its annual revenue; useful when profits are distorted by one-off charges.
The part of sales growth that comes from charging more, rather than selling more.
The amount you actually borrowed, before interest. Each payment is split between principal (what you owe) and…
Trade in goods that are imported, assembled or finished in a country, and then exported again.
Product-market fit means your product is exactly what enough people were already looking for — so they keep c…
How much a factory can produce in a given period. In storage it is measured in capacity (how many terabytes o…
The money a company keeps after it pays all its costs. Sales are not profit: a shop can sell a lot and still…
In commodity markets prompt means "deliverable right now". Prompt supplies are the barrels available today, n…
A public report showing how much the exchange says it holds for customers at one point in time.
How much your money can buy. When prices rise faster than pay, purchasing power falls.
The volume a producer is allowed to sell under an agreement — a ceiling, not a forecast.
A rate buydown is when the seller — or the builder — pays the lender a lump sum to lower the buyer's interest…
Contracts that pay out according to where the policy rate will be. Their prices are read as the market's prob…
A decision by a central bank to raise its policy interest rate.
A ratepayer is anyone who pays an electricity bill — in practice, the households and small businesses sharing…
A sell-side verdict on a stock — usually Buy / Overweight / Hold / Sell. “Overweight” means the analyst expec…
Pay measured after inflation, showing what it can actually buy.
A budget procedure that lets some fiscal bills pass the Senate with 51 votes.
An investor's request to take money out of a fund. In private markets it is usually capped, so you may get on…
Money paid back to whoever paid it in the first place. In trade, a tariff refund goes to the importer of reco…
Bringing money invested abroad back home. For Japan it means selling foreign bonds or letting them mature, an…
A sale of securities with an agreement to buy them back later, which works as a short-term secured loan.
Sales in the company's reporting currency, after currency moves. It is the number in the accounts.
The assets an issuer holds to back every token it has issued.
A promise to cover part of an asset's value at the end of a lease if the market price falls below an agreed l…
A business that sells goods to the public — supermarkets, discount chains, convenience stores. PepsiCo sells…
The profit a company earns on each dollar invested in the business. It is the test of whether growth creates…
The profit a company earns each year as a share of all the capital tied up in the business.
A revenue backlog is the total value of contracted work a company has not yet delivered or billed. It is a pr…
The proportions in which different products or segments contribute to total revenue.
How much money one seat earns for each mile it flies. Airlines use it to compare quarters.
A revenue stream is one separate source of money coming into a business. A company can have many: ads, subscr…
A change to an earlier figure after more complete data arrive.
A bank's assets adjusted for how risky regulators think each one is. Capital rules are expressed as a percent…
The staged reversal of an earlier cut: output is returned to the market in steps.
A rolling 12-month total adds up the latest 12 months and moves forward every month, instead of using a fixed…
Investors selling one group of shares and buying another — here, moving out of high-growth technology and int…
A rush of holders trying to take their money out at the same time.
An asset investors buy when they are worried, because its price is expected to hold up or rise in a crisis.
The profit made by issuing money, or a money-like token.
A fast, broad wave of selling that pushes a price down sharply. It is about flow, not about fundamentals chan…
Selling and administrative expenses (often shortened to SG&A) are the costs of running the shops and the comp…
Services revenue is the money a hardware company earns from things that are not hardware: app-store commissio…
A payment and benefits package given to an executive when they leave. It is agreed in advance and can be wort…
The physical room a product gets on a shop’s shelves. More shelf space means more chances a shopper picks it…
A sovereign bond yield is the interest rate a government pays to borrow. It is also the discount rate the who…
When a government fails to pay its bondholders in full and on time. A state cannot be liquidated, so the loss…
Oil a country could pump within weeks if it chose to, but is not pumping now.
A separate company set up for one deal, so the assets and the debt sit inside it instead of on the parent's b…
Spectrum is the range of radio waves a government licenses to companies. It is not bought like land: you rent…
Speculative grade — also called junk — is a credit rating below investment grade. It means the borrower needs…
Separating a division into an independent, separately listed company and giving its shares to existing shareh…
A contract price is locked in with a supplier for months at a time. A spot price is what you pay today for wh…
The extra yield one borrower pays over a benchmark — here the gap between French and German 10-year bonds. Th…
The extra yield a corporate bond pays over a government bond of the same maturity. It is the market's price f…
A digital token designed to stay at one dollar, backed by reserves the issuer holds.
A stake is the share of a company someone owns. Raising a stake from 51% to 67% turns a majority holding into…
The bottom of the index ladder: a market excluded from both emerging and frontier indexes, so mainstream inde…
Stock-in-trade is the value of the clothes and goods the company is holding, for a retailer its inventory. To…
Charging the same amount every year until the asset is fully written down, regardless of how much it earns in…
Delivering films and TV shows over the internet, usually by monthly subscription, instead of through cable or…
Injected under the skin rather than into a vein; the abbreviation is SC.
Supply above demand: more oil is available than buyers need, which pushes prices down.
An interest-rate swap is a private contract in which two parties trade fixed interest payments for floating o…
The risk that a failure in one part of the financial system spreads and damages the whole system, not just th…
The gap between the average price paid at an auction and the lowest price accepted. A small tail means buyers…
The chance of an outcome far from the average, in the thin ends of a distribution. Unlikely, but large enough…
An agreement between two countries to stop raising tariffs on each other's goods for a fixed period, without…
A fall of 10 per cent or more from a recent high. It is a label for the size of a drop, not a judgement about…
A derivative in which one side pays the total return of an asset — interest plus any gain or loss — and the o…
The gap left when a country sells more goods abroad than it buys from abroad, measured in money at the border.
The part of a bank's balance sheet meant for assets it intends to trade. Because they are assumed to be sella…
An exchange’s emergency brake: trading stops for a set time after prices fall (or rise) too fast, to give inv…
Trading revenue is what a bank earns buying and selling securities for clients and for itself. It splits into…
One slice of a larger bond sale, with its own maturity and coupon. Splitting a deal into tranches spreads rep…
To turn bullish on something means to change your view and start expecting it to go up or do well. A “bull” e…
The insurance business of taking on risk: collect premiums, pay claims.
The share of people who want work and are actively looking for it.
An unrealised loss is a fall in the value of an asset a company still owns. Nothing has been sold, so no cash…
Management's estimate of how many years an asset will earn money for its owner. It is a judgement, not a meas…
Valuation is what something is judged to be worth. For a listed company that usually means market value (pric…
The part of a product's price that is created inside the country, after subtracting the imported parts and ma…
A list of cheap food, made to bring people in. The shop earns less on each item and hopes to sell more of the…
"Value over volume" means choosing to earn more on each sale rather than chasing more sales. It is the opposi…
A virtuous cycle is a loop in which one good outcome causes another, which then reinforces the first. The opp…
A gauge of how much movement investors expect in the next month, priced from options. The main one is the VIX…
A wafer is the round silicon disc that chips are printed on. Wafer capacity is how many of those discs a fact…
The extra price buyers pay for the risk of disruption, over and above the cost of supply.
A war-risk premium is the extra money buyers pay — and insurers charge — because a barrel has to travel throu…
Taking your money or coins out of an account and into your own control.
The day the Treasury can no longer pay all of its bills on time.
Assets equal liabilities plus equity.
A snapshot of what a company owns, what it owes, and what is left for shareholders.
A loan to a government or company that pays interest and is repaid on a set date.
The actual money moving in and out of a business.
The institution that sets a country's main interest rate and issues its money.
Interest that is earned on interest as well as on the original sum.
Failure to pay interest or principal when due.
A sustained fall in the general price level.
A cash payment a company makes to its shareholders out of profit.
The price of one currency expressed in another.
The total value of goods and services a country produces in a period.
A report of revenue, costs and profit over a period.
How easily an asset can be sold without moving its price much.
The value of the best alternative you give up when you choose.
Share price divided by earnings per share; how many years of profit you pay for.
A broad decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months.
Higher expected returns normally come with higher risk.
How the amount available and the amount wanted together set a price.