Allocation
Generally means to set aside a fund designed for specific purposes. Asset allocation is the investment strategy, which aims to balance the risk and return by distributing a portfolio's assets.  

Amortization

It is decreasing an amount over a period of time, in other words. Amortization is deducting capital expenses overtime, which usually measures the consumption of value to intangible assets, like patents for example; the common mistake is referring to Amortization as depreciation while conceptually they are the same but technically depreciation is for tangible assets while amortization is for intangible assets.    

Arbitrage

It is referred to as the "risk-less profit" and is achieved by simultaneously buying and selling an asset to obtain the profit form the difference in prices, which usually is performed on different marketplaces or exchanged.

Assets

In investment Assets refer to a resource that has economic value and can generate cash flows, and in a balance sheet it represents what the firm owns.

There are current or fixed assets that provide benefits for more than a year, while the non-current is that consumed within one year. Other difference in assets specifications is tangible assets which have a physical form like machinery, while intangible assets is the opposite which is not physical in nature such as trademarks and patents.

Auctions
An auction can be describes as a system where potential buyers place their competitive bets on an asset or service, where it will finally go to the highest bidder. 

Balance Sheet
It is a statement of a business that summarizes an entity's assets, liabilities, and shareholders' equity for a specified point in time. This basically sums what the company owns and owes and the amount invested by shareholders. It must follow this basic formula: Assets= Liabilities+ Shareholders' equity.

Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

An international organization that exists to foster cooperation among central banks and other agencies aiming to achieve monetary and financial stability. The BIS is the oldest international financial organization, it's based in Basel, Switzerland and was established by the Hague Agreement in 1930.

The central bank of banks dose not provide services to the public, among others its main goals are summed as regulating capital adequacy and make reserve requirements transparent, prompting information sharing and to be a key center for economic research.

Bankruptcy

Is when a certain business or an individual is unable to pay back the debts hold upon him, the representative of the firm must go file for a petition, assets then will be measured and sold in order to pay back part of the debt, the priority of payments stand first for debtors then comes accumulative preferred stocks then preferred stocks and finally common stocks. The bankruptcy gives chance to businesses to begin a new start by erasing all the debts they had.     

Bilateral trade

The commerce between two countries, which represents the growth and slowing of goods and services flows between them. Bilateral Trade Agreements are between two nations at a time, they operate upon negotiated terms and provide those two nations with favored trading status between each other. 

Black Market

Defined as the market where products, goods or currencies in all their forms are subcategories, are bought and sold illegally, in violation of restriction or rationing.

While it's commonly associated with criminal activities, it also has a financial component; the black currency-exchange markets almost always emerge when government controls on exchange rates prevent the use of natural exchange rates in the global marketplace.

Blue Chipped Stocks

Are the type of stocks that stand for well established companies, who pay dividends on a regular basis even when they are at there worst times, plus they don’t hold high percentage of liabilities to their assets, for example DAX is an index which consists of blue chipped companies. 

Bond

Fixed income securities, in which the holder who bought it, loans money to the issuing party. That certificate of debt issued by a government or cooperation guarantees payment of the original investment plus the fixed set interest at a specified date in the future which is known as the maturity date. The main categories are corporate bonds, municipal bonds, and treasuries. 

Broker
An individual or a firm that charges investors fees or commissions on executing their submitted orders of buying or selling. 

Budget
An estimation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time, which can be designed for individuals, corporations, and governments.

Bull Market
A term used to express the uptrend in markets, meaning demand is exceeding supply which results in rapid appreciation.

Bullions
Bullion is referred to Gold and Silver, which are recognized with high quality (at least 99.5% pure), and is formed of bars usually an ounce.  

Business Cycle

Recurring and fluctuating economic activity that an economy or a business experiences over a long period of time. For economies the five stages of the business cycle are: Growth (expansion), peak, recession (contraction), trough and recovery.

Capital Goods
Goods that can be used to produce other commodities. Examples include buildings, equipment and machinery.

CDO

Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) is an investment-grade security backed by a pool of bonds, loans and other assets. CDOs do not specialize in one type of debt but are often non-mortgage loans or bonds.

Chairman of the Board of Governors
The head of the central banking system, the Chairman is the active executive officer of the country's Central Bank. 

Closed Economy
A self-sufficient economy where all the production and consumption is contained within itself with no commerce outside that system.

Commercial Paper

A short-term unsecured (not backed by collateral) debt instrument issued by corporation typically for financing issued at a discount reflecting prevailing interest rates. The major benefit of CP is that it does not need to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as long as its maturity does not exceed 270 days.

Common Stock

A security that represents ownership in a corporation. Stockholders exercise by electing a board of directors and voting on corporate policy. Common stock holders are at the bottom of the priority ladder for the ownership structure.

Comparative Advantage
The situation in which an individual, company, or country or region can produce goods at a lower opportunity cost that their competitors. 

Corporation

A legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. They posses most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals enjoy. They are limited liability in which shareholders have the right to participate in profits through dividends and/or appreciation of stock while they are not held personally liable for the company's debt.

Credit Crunch

Its phase affects financial markets; where the availability of money supply reduce vastly, with financial institutions being hesitate in giving out money as loans, this phase is created from certain variables, for example the value of bank collateral falls massively, or solvency issues in a certain institutions, finally any changes in the monetary policy might trigger a Credit Crunch if it was not taken carefully according to markets. 

Cross Rates
Traded currency pairs against each other where the dollar is not directly in the pair.

Deflation
The opposite of inflation, as deflation is the general decline in prices. 

Demand
The amount needed of supplies of goods and services.

Depositary Receipt

It’s a physical financial instrument issued by banks, which allows investors to hold securities in other countries, this tool helps in making trade take place easily between different exchanges floors, an example is the American Depositary Receipts.

Discount Rate

It is usually known as the interest rate eligibly depository institutions are charged to borrow short-tern funds directly from the central bank. It is also the known as the interest rate deducted in advance in purchasing, selling, or lending commercial paper as it is used to determine the present value of a future cash flow.

Double Taxation

A taxation principle referring to income taxes that are paid twice on the same source of earned income.

Double taxation is a situation that affects C corporations when business profits are taxed at both the corporate and personal levels. The corporation must pay income tax at the corporate rate before any profits can be paid to shareholders. Then dividends that are distributed to shareholders are subject to income tax again at the individual rate. In this way, the corporate profits are subject to income taxes twice.

Dovish
Maintaining a monetary stance that is biased to economic growth.

Downside Risk
Is the description used to refer to a negative impact; downside risks to growth means it is slowing, and so is applicable to all associated terms. 

Economic Indicators
Is a general definition to all the data released on one economy form growth and employment to inflation and trade balance etc.

Efficiency
Achieving the maximum result by utilizing available resources.

Emerging Markets
Is referred to markets that have yet to reach the level of industrialized nations as the United States and Japan, and are defined according to certain characteristics as they are implementing reform programs and undergoing economic development. They contribute with a small portion to global growth and of examples are some South American and Asian nations yet they remain fragile as their markets are usually subject to political and economic uncertainties.

Eonia Rates:

Stands for Euro Overnight Index Average calculated by the European Central Bank, this rate is a weighted average of all overnight-secured lending transactions in the interbank markets.

Equity Capital Markets (ECM)

Defined by a market that exists between companies and financial institutions that is used to raise equity capital for the companies. Along with stocks, the equity capital markets deal with instruments such as futures, options and swaps.

Eurocurrency

Is the type of deposits made by some national governments or corporations in banks outside their own country, where the money deposited would be different than the countries own national currency, for example the ECB could have a deposit of Euro's in a bank in south Africa. 

Exports
Products that are manufactured with the country’s boarders and then are sold to foreign consumer abroad and are accounted in the trade balance.

Face Value

Face Value or as it's sometimes referred to as "par value" is the nominal value of a security as stated by the issuer; for stocks, it is the original cost of the stock as shown on the certificate, while for bonds, it is the amount paid at maturity to the holder.

Financial Markets
Is all markets were money and its derivates is traded, it includes equity markets, futures, FOREX Markets etc. 

Fiscal Policy
The governmental applied economic policy, such as taxes, which are deployed to ensure financial stability that works in tandem with monetary policy.

FOMC

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) consists of the seven Governors of the Federal Reserve Board and five Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The FOMC meets eight times a year in order to determine the near-term direction of monetary policy. Changes in monetary policy are now announced immediately after FOMC meetings.

One of the most important decisions that the FOMC makes is to decide the overnight lending benchmark rate through the federal securities operations. This rate is the rate that is charged between financial institutions to held money overnight.

Foreign Exchange
The largest market in the world which is open 24 hours with a tremendous turnover which exceeds any other market; most commonly know as FOREX and is the market were world currencies, futures, and world indices are traded. 

Forwards
Purchase or sale of a derivative at the current spot price with delivery and settlement at a specific date in the future.

Frontier Markets

Are type of markets that have less accessible equity markets thought has a great chance of investing, as this takes place mostly in the developing world countries; in those types of markets investors tends to look for a high returns on longer period of time, as those markets don’t really share any correlation with other developed markets. 

Futures
A future is a financial contract that obligates the buyer to buy the asset and the seller to sell the asset, at a predetermined future date and price. They can be called for physical or cash delivery and are used as both a hedge technique against price fluctuations and as a speculative investment. 

Global Recession

Much deliberation is noted regarding the definition of global recession. In economics recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, yet for the global economy the most noted definition for recession was the IMF's definition of growth at or below 3.0% and they estimate that global recessions occur over a cycle between 8 to 10 years.

Government Spending
What the government spends on infrastructure, aids, and what is spent to support the investment environment in the economy.

Growth Rate
Is the rate of growth for a certain period of time.

H Share

H Share is the governmental owned companies at the mainland china and traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Hawkish
Maintaining a monetary stance that is biased to inflation.

Imports
Products that enter the economy from abroad and are accounted in the trade balance.

Income Tax
The deducted amounts form the gross Personal Income, which is accounted as a percentage according to the taxation code in the country.

Inflation
The rise in prices and the falling of the purchasing power parity of a currency.

Interest Rates Derivates

It is a type of asset or an agreement between two parties, that have the right to pay or receive a stated amount of money at a given interest rates; this type of market is huge in all the world, as it can't be measured correctly because mostly it take place in the over the counter markets.

IPO
Initial Public Offering, which is first time a companies stocks, is issued to the public, which is usually for small and young companies looking to expand their capital.   

Libor Rates

Is the London Interbank Offered Rate released by the British Bank Association, those rates are calculated on a daily basis, those rates are referred from a 16 banks which are selected by the association based on private nominations, certain calculations are made to take the mean of the available rates. This reading is looked at by investors' to see the benchmark of the short term period borrowing; if the rates are high this means that there is a credit squeeze and banks are not lending each other, those days specifically markets are closely watching those rates.   

Long Positions “go long”
Market terminology for executing a buying order.

Market Risk
The daily potential for investors to experience losses from fluctuations in prices. It is also known as systematic Risk the default risk to the entire market or entire market segment.

Momentum
Is a redundantly used term to refer to the volume or strength of a movement (bullish, or bearish), where the term is derived from momentum indicators, which are used to measure the strength of the move in the market regardless of its heading. 

Monetary Policy
The central banks' applied policies, which are deployed to ensure financial stability and prompts economic growth, and works in tandem with fiscal policy.

Net Exporter
Nations that depends much more on exports rather than imports.

Net Importer
Nations that depends much more on imports rather than Exports.

Open Economy
The open economy is where people and businesses can trade in good and services with other international communities, which is the exact contrary to a closed economy.

Options

Options are a financial derivative which represents a contract sold by (option writer) to (option holder). The contract offers the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) a security or other financial asset at an agreed-upon price (the strike price) during a certain period of time or on a specific date (exercise date).

Policy Makers
The committee members that are in charge of designing and adopting monetary and fiscal policies in the country.

Price Stability
The general stability or slight movement for prices of variables in the market for a period of time, and by that maintaining anchored inflation or deflation in prices.

Primary Market

The market that issues new securities on an exchange. Primary markets are facilitated by underwriting groups, which consist of investment banks that will set a beginning price range for a given security and then oversee its sale directly to investors.

Public Sector
The amount of trade in the market or on a certain derivative for example.

Purchasing Power
Is the measure of how much u can purchase with one base unit of a currency in comparison with the future and the past measures. It is very essential for evaluating currencies strength against each other and a major inflationary measure. 

Recession
According to economic definitions it’s the state where the economy does not grow or contracts (meaning the GDP is negative) for two consecutive quarters.

Rights Offering

Rights Offering is the shareholders right to buy a percentage of additional securities priced by the company within a flat period.

Risk Premium
The percentage of return added to no or low risk investments to attract investors.

Secondary Markets
The markets were assets trade after trading in the primary markets, where investors can buy and sell to each other without having issuance corporations.  

Services Sector
The services sector is growing in importance as it resembles a great portion in world economies GDP, as it is the sector that is describes as rather to trade intangible assets unlike the industrial sector.

Shareholders
A shareholder is anyone that holds at least one share or stock for a company, and also called shareowners or stockholders.

Shares

A Share is a securities related terms that has two definitions the first is Common, or Preferred Stock that they introduce superior voting rights to their owners from the rest of shares they might be available by the company

Short Positions “go short”
Market terminology for executing a selling order.

Short Sellers

Is a type of selling transaction where investors tend to borrow shares from a broker, where those shares are not owned by the investor; and sell those shares when markets are heading down south, to return once again and buy them from a lower price as it’s a method of taking advantage of the imbalances in financial markets to earn some profits. Investors return the borrowed stock as they benefit from the difference between the transaction prices.

SIV

Structured Investment Vehicle (SIV) is a pool of investment assets that profits from the credit spread among its short-term debt and long-term assets, such as asset backed securities (ABS). The SIVs are funded by issuance of commercial paper (CP) that is continuously renewed or rolled over.

Spot Price
The selling and buying price of an asset in the market place at the current time when the deal is done.

Stagflation
An economic state of recession combined with elevated inflation, which is a very serious stage and economies struggle to get out of. 

Subordinated Debt

Subordinate Debt, are types of loans that are ranked risky among others; it is measured by the high possibility of default on those loans. The Creditors who hold those loans will face the threat of not being paid back, because according to the hierarchy the senior debt holders will be paid first and then comes the turn for the subordinate debt. Nowadays with high risk of default seen, governments' are acquiring that debt to shore off the banking sector.

Sub-prime Mortgages
Mortgages given to poor credited individuals to purchase properties, where they provide them as their collateral.

Supply
The available quantity of a product for sale.

Trade Deficit
In the trade balance a trade deficit or “negative trade balance” is when an economy’s imports exceed its exports, meaning the outflow of money is larger than the income, and it is the opposite of a trade surplus.

Trade Surplus
In the trade balance a trade surplus or “positive trade balance” is when an economy’s exports exceed its imports, meaning the inflow of money is larger than the outflow, and it is the opposite of a trade deficit.

Treasury Bills
Known as T-Bills they are debt instruments from the US government with a maturity period of less than a year and are sold with a discount rate from their face value.  

Treasury Bonds
They are long-term debt instruments from the US government with a maturity period of more than ten years and pays interest semiannually.

Treasury Notes
They are debt instruments from the US government with a maturity period from one to ten years and pays interest semiannually.

Variable Cost
Costs that fluctuate with the change in output capacity for a business or company's activity.

Volume
The amount of trade in the market or on a certain derivative for example.

Write-downs
Reducing the entered value of an asset as it is considered overvalued compared to market price.

Write-Offs

The accounting procedure when asset's value declines which then is removed and can be an expense or loss, which will in role reduce profits. It is used to remove bad debts or uncollectible funds from the balance sheet.

Write-ups
Increasing the book values of assets as they are undervalued compared to market value.

Yield
The amount of return on an investment, like interest and dividends.