Stock Investing Glossary

Simple stock investing glossary for your handy reference,

• 52-Week High/Low: The highest and lowest price at which a stock traded in the past 12 months or 52 weeks


• Annual Report: An annual publication that public corporations must provide to shareholders to describe their operations and financial conditions


• Bear Markets: A market condition in which the prices of securities are falling or are expected to fall


• Blue Chip: A nationally recognized, well-established and financially sound company


• Bonus Issue: An offer of free additional shares to existing shareholders


• Bull Markets: A financial market of a certain group of securities in which prices are rising or are expected to rise.
• Capital Gain: An increase in the value of a capital asset that gives it a higher worth than the purchase price


• Credit Risk: the risk that the issuer will default or fail to pay the debt.
• Cyclical Stock: A stock that rises quickly when economic growth is strong and falls rapidly when growth is slowing down


• Defensive Stock: A company whose sales and earnings remain relatively stable during both economic upturns and downturns


• Delisting: The removal of a listed security from the exchange on which it trades


• Dividend Payout Ratio: The ratio of dividend paid to shareholder to its earnings


• Dividend Policy: The policy a company uses to decide how much it will pay out to shareholders in dividends


• Growth Stock:Shares in a company whose earnings are expected to grow at an above-average rate relative to the market


• Income Stock: A stock with a history of regular dividend payments that constitute the largest portion of the stock's overall return


• Index: A statistical measure of change in an economy or a securities market


• Insider: Any person who has knowledge of, or access to, valuable nonpublic information about a corporation


• Interest Rate Risk: the risk that bonds get affected from interest rate changes
• Life Cycle: The course of events that brings a new product into existence and follows its growth into a mature product and into eventual critical mass and decline


• Margin of Safety: A principle of investing in which an investor only purchases securities when the market price is significantly below its intrinsic value. To Calculate Margin of Safety, click here...


• Market Capitalization: The total dollar market value of all of a company's outstanding shares


• Mergers And Acquisitions - M&A: A merger is a combination of two companies to form a new company, while an acquisition is the purchase of one company by another with no new company being formed


• Preferred Stock: A class of ownership in a corporation that has a higher claim on the assets and earnings than common stock


• Price-Earnings Ratio: A valuation ratio of a company's current share price compared to its per-share earnings. Further explanation on Price to Earnings Ratio, click here...


• Recurring Revenue: The portion of a company's revenue that is highly likely to continue in the future


• Reverse Stock Split:A reduction in the number of a corporation's shares outstanding that increases the par value of its stock


• Secondary Market: A market on which an investor purchases an asset from another investor rather than an issuing corporation


• Small Cap: Refers to stocks with a relatively small market capitalization


• Speculative Stock: A stock with extremely high risk relative to potential return


• Stock Exchange: A market in which securities, options or futures are traded