Accounts
Payable
A current liability of a company owed to creditors
and/or suppliers for goods and services obtained in the normal course of
business.
Accounts
Receivable
Current
assets owed to a company for services or goods sold to customers on
credit.
Accreted
Interest
The difference between
par value of a zero coupon security and purchase price. Also called
original issue discount. Yearly accreted interest is the amount of
accreted interest "earned" each year that you hold a zero
coupon investment.
Accrued
Interest
The amount of interest that the buyer owes the
seller on transactions involving fixed income securities, such as most
bonds and notes.
Actual
EPS, CPS, or DPS
Reported annual Earnings Per Share (EPS -Trailing 12 months), cash flow
(CPS) or Dividends Per Share (DPS) for a company for the fiscal year
indicated. For companies, which report on a quarterly basis, this
information will contain the sum of the actual earnings, cash flow or
dividends for the previous four quarters. For companies that report
semi-annually, the field will contain the sum of the previous two
semiannual actual.
Acquisition
The process of which, one firm or company buying
another firm or company.
Adviser
The firms’
primary person, responsible for a fund's day-to-day operation.
Aggressive
Growth Funds
Mutual funds that focus
on small-company stocks that have the potential for accelerated
earnings.
Allocation
The process of deciding which investment (choice or
combination of choices) best fits your goals, time horizons, and capital
availability.
All-or-None
(AON)
A type of order
instructing the exchange or market maker to execute the entire order
quantity at the stated price (or better) or none of it.
American
Depository Receipt (ADR)
A security, created by a U.S.
bank, that evidences ownership to a specified number of shares of a
foreign security held in a depository in the issuing company's country
of domicile. The certificate, transfer, and settlement practices for
ADRs are identical to those for U.S. securities. U.S. investors often
prefer ADRs to direct purchase of foreign shares because of the ready
availability of price information, lower transaction costs, and timely
dividend distribution.
AMEX
American Stock Exchange
Amortization
An accounting term indicates the appointment of an
incurred expense over a period of time, such as the life of an asset.
Analyst
A person with expertise in
evaluating financial investments; he or she performs investment research
and makes recommendations to institutional and retail investors to buy,
sell, or hold; most analysts specialize in a single industry or business
sector.
Annual Report
An
audited report of a corporation's year-end financial results and
operations filed annually with the SEC. The report contains detailed
information related to the company's financial condition, legal
liabilities and plans for the upcoming year. Shareholders may obtain a
free copy of this report from the corporation.
Arbitrage
Profiting from
differences in the price of a single security that is traded on more
than one market.
Arbitration
A
method of settling a dispute by utilizing an impartial individual or
individuals. All exchanges and securities associations have adopted a
Code of Arbitration through which all disputes between firms, employees
and firms, and firms and clearing corporations are settled.
Ask
The price at which someone who
owns a security offers to sell it; also known as the asked price.
Assets
Any possessions that has value
in an exchange.
Asset
Allocation
The percentage breakdown
of how assets are invested in a portfolio. The primary asset categories
of a portfolio are cash, bonds and stocks.
Asset Allocation Funds
Funds
that seek to provide the optimal mix of stocks, bonds and cash at any
given time.
Average
Daily Share Volume
The number of shares traded per day, averaged over a period of time,
usually one year.
Average
Maturity
The average
time to maturity of securities held by a mutual fund. Changes in
interest rates have greater impact on funds with longer average life.