Fitch Ratings: a credit ratings agency located in New York and London. One of the top agencies along with Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.
Source: Investopedia
Flash Crash
Flash Crash: Quick drop-and-recover in securities prices that occurred shortly after 2:30 p.m. EST on May 6, 2010. Initial reports indicating that the crash was caused by a mistyped order proved to be erroneous. The causes of the flash crash remain unknown. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have investigated the incident and released a report that provided several working hypotheses, but failed to identify a single cause for the incident.
Source: Investopedia
Forward Earnings
Grand Bargain
“Great Recession”
“Great Recession”: A catch phrase describing the recession that began on December 2007, giving reference to the Great Depression of the 1930s. This “Great Recession” lasted longer and was more severe than prior ones; however, the severity of economic decline has not eclipsed the levels reached by the Great Depression. Prior recessions lasted for about 16 months, whereas the “Great Recession” was over 20 months. This is still much shorter than the length of the Great Depression. Also, less than 1 percent of banks failed during the “Great Recession” whereas during the Great Depression, close to 50 percent of all U.S. banks collapsed.
Source: Investopedia
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Hawkish
Hedge Fund
Hedge Fund: An aggressively managed portfolio of investments that uses advanced investment strategies such as leveraged, long, short and derivative positions in both domestic and international markets with the goal of generating high returns (either in an absolute sense or over a specified market benchmark). Legally, hedge funds are most often set up as private investment partnerships that are open to a limited number of investors and require a very large initial minimum investment. Investments in hedge funds are illiquid as they often require investors keep their money in the fund for at least one year.
Source: Investopedia, finbox
High-Frequency Trading (HFT)
High-Frequency Trading (HFT): Also known as algo or algorithmic trading, HFT is computerized trading at high volumes and speed using powerful computers and complex algorithms, often of a proprietary nature. HFT can be split into two types: execution and opportunistic. Execution trading is used to find the best possible price for an order and may involve splitting the order into smaller pieces and executing at different times. Opportunistic trading uses algorithms to find small trading opportunities in the market based on conditions rather than completing a specific trade.
Sources: Investopedia, NASDAQ.com
High-Yield Bond
High-Yield Bond Fund
High-yield Bond Fund: A mutual fund that invests in low rated corporate bonds, also called junk bonds. High-yield bonds have lower credit ratings than investment grade bonds but have higher yields due to the increased risk. High-yield bonds are also referred to as junk bonds.
Source: InvestingAnswers.com, Investopedia
Household Employment Survey (HES)
Household Employment Survey (HES): An indicator of how the economy was able to create jobs, often used by analysts in conjunction with the payroll survey. HES estimates the nation's employment based on responses from interviews with about 60,000 households. The Bureau of Labor Statistics then inflates the data by the most recent estimates of the population. Unlike the payroll survey, the raw household survey data is not revised, but the population estimates used to inflate them are occasionally updated to incorporate new information from censuses and estimates on immigration.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Inflation
Inversion Merger
Inversion Merger: A strategy used by companies with overseas income to reduce their tax burden. A company may be re-incorporated overseas in a country with lower tax rates so as to bypass paying higher taxes on foreign generated income. As long as corporate inversion does not involve misrepresenting tax information or illegal activities to hide profits, it is not considered tax evasion.
Source: Investopedia
Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM)
Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM): The first and largest supply management association in the world. Founded in 1915, its mission is to lead the supply management profession through its standards of excellence, research, promotional activities and education. The Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® is published monthly by the association.
Source: ism.com
Investment-Grade Bond
Investment-Grade Bond: Investment-grade refers to bonds with a Moody’s rating of Baa or higher, Standard & Poor’s rating of BBB or higher … or both. Bonds with lower ratings are considered speculative grade. Many investors have policies that require them to limit their bond investments to investment-grade issues.
Source: The Street
iCloud
iPhone 5
iPhone 5: As of September 2012, iPhone 5 is the latest model and major upgrade to the iPhone line. The screen is half an inch larger and the device is longer, slimmer and lighter. It supports LTE 4G cellular networks and employs a faster processor and graphics. Other improvements were made to the camera, earbuds and dock connector.
Source: PC Magazine
Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium
Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium: The Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium is an annual summit sponsored by The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The symposium draws prominent central bankers, finance ministers, academics and leading financial market players from around the world and focuses on important economic issues facing the U.S. and the world. The event started in 1978 and has been held in Jackson Hole since 1981. The symposium events are closely monitored by market participants as comments made by the attendees have the potential to affect global stock and currency markets around the world. Media partners are present at the symposium, but press presence is limited so as to provide transparency, but not enough to influence discussion or proceedings.
Source: Investopedia, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Joint Economic Committee (JEC)
Joint Economic Committee (JEC): The Joint Economic Committee is one of four joint standing congressional committees and consists of 10 members each from both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The committee is split evenly among partisan lines, with 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. The committee was created by The Employment Act of 1946 and the main purpose of the committee is to study matters pertaining to the economy. The JEC then provides their findings to the Senate and House and advises members of Congress.
Source: Joint Economic Committee website, Wikipedia