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The absolute return or simply return is a measure of the gain or loss on an investment portfolio expressed as a percentage of invested capital. The adjective "absolute" is used to stress the distinction with the relative return measures (often used by long-only stock funds) that are based on comparison to a benchmark.

Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of computers relative to human traders. In the twenty-first century, algorithmic trading has been gaining traction with both retail and institutiona

Alpha is a measure of the active return on an investment, the performance of that investment compared with a suitable market index. An alpha of 1% means the investment's return on investment over a selected period of time was 1% better than the market during that same period; a negative alpha means the investment underperformed the market.

An alternative investment, also known as an alternative asset or alternative investment fund (AIF), is an investment in any asset class excluding capital stocks, bonds, and cash.

Alternative trading system (ATS) is a US and Canadian regulatory term for a non-exchange trading venue that matches buyers and sellers to find counterparties for transactions. Alternative trading systems are typically regulated as broker-dealers rather than as exchanges (although an alternative trading system can apply to be regulated as a securities exchange). In general, for regulatory

In finance, arbitrage pricing theory (APT) is a multi-factor model for asset pricing which relates various macro-economic (systematic) risk variables to the pricing of financial assets. Proposed by economist Stephen Ross in 1976, it is widely believed to be an improved alternative to its predecessor, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). APT is founded upon the law of one price, which

An Asian option (or average value option) is a special type of option contract. For Asian options, the payoff is determined by the average underlying price over some pre-set period of time. This is different from the case of the usual European option and American option, where the payoff of the option contract depends on the price of the underlying instrument at exercise; Asian options a

In financial economics, asset pricing refers to the formal development of the principles used in pricing, together with the resultant models. The treatment develops the interrelated paradigms of general equilibrium asset pricing and rational asset pricing, the latter corresponding to risk neutral pricing.

The term asset swap has a number of different meanings:

Assets under management (AUM), sometimes called fund under management (FUD), refers in finance to the total market value of all financial assets that a financial institution—such as a mutual fund, venture capital firm, or depository institution—or a decentralized network protocol manages and invests, typically on behalf of its clients. Funds may be managed for clients, platform users, or

The Bachelier model is a model of an asset price under Brownian motion presented by Louis Bachelier in his PhD thesis The Theory of Speculation (French: Théorie de la spéculation), published 1900. It is also called the normal model equivalently (as opposed to log-normal model or Black–Scholes model). One early criticism of the Bachelier model is that the probability distribution which h

In options trading, the backspread is the converse strategy to the ratio spread and is also known as the reverse ratio spread. Using calls, a bullish strategy known as the call backspread can be constructed and with puts, a strategy known as the put backspread can be constructed.

Backwardation is a market condition where the price of a commodity's forward or futures contract price is trading below the spot price.

The Baltic Exchange (incorporated as The Baltic Exchange Limited) is a British financial services company and membership organisation for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of chartering and derivative contracts.

A barrier option is an option whose payoff is conditional upon the underlying asset's price breaching a barrier level during the option's lifetime.

A basket option is a financial derivative, more specifically an exotic option, whose underlying is a weighted sum or average of different assets that have been grouped together in a basket. A basket option is similar to an index option, where a number of stocks have been grouped together in an index and the option is based on the price of the index, but differs in that the members and we

In options trading, a bear spread is a bearish, vertical spread options strategy that can be used when the options trader is moderately bearish on the underlying security.

The Belgrade Stock Exchange (BSE or BELEX; Serbian: Београдска берза, romanized: Beogradska berza) is a stock exchange based in Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia. The exchange was originally founded in 1894. It currently consist of 2 indices.

In finance, the beta (β or market beta or beta coefficient) is a statistic that measures the expected increase or decrease of an individual stock price in proportion to movements of the stock market as a whole. Beta can be used to indicate the contribution of an individual asset to the market risk of a portfolio when it is added in small quantity. It refers to an asset's non-diversifiabl

The bid–ask spread (also bid–offer or bid/ask and buy/sell in the case of a market maker) is the difference between the prices quoted (either by a single market maker or in a limit order book) for an immediate sale (ask) and an immediate purchase (bid) for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario. The size of the bid–ask spread in a security is one m

A binary option is a financial exotic option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all. The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The former pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the latter pays the value of the underlying security. They are also cal

In finance, the binomial options pricing model (BOPM) provides a generalizable numerical method for the valuation of options. Essentially, the model uses a "discrete-time" (lattice based) model of the varying price over time of the underlying financial instrument, addressing cases where the closed-form Black–Scholes formula is wanting, which in general does not exist for the BOPM.

The Black model (also known as the Black-76 model) is a variant of the Black–Scholes option pricing model. Its primary applications are for pricing options on future contracts, bond options, interest rate cap and floors, and swaptions. It was first presented in a paper written by Fischer Black in 1976.

In mathematical finance, the Black–Derman–Toy model (BDT) is a popular short-rate model used in the pricing of bond options, swaptions and other interest rate derivatives; see Lattice model (finance) § Interest rate derivatives. It is a one-factor model; that is, a single stochastic factor—the short rate—determines the future evolution of all interest rates. It was the first model to com

The Black–Scholes or Black–Scholes–Merton model is a mathematical model for the dynamics of a financial market containing derivative investment instruments. From the parabolic partial differential equation in the model, known as the Black–Scholes equation, one can deduce the Black–Scholes formula, which gives a theoretical estimate of the price of European-style options and shows that t

A block trade is a high-volume transaction in a security that is privately negotiated and executed outside of the open market for that security. Major broker-dealers often provide "block trading" services—sometimes known as "upstairs trading desks"—to their institutional clients. In the United States and Canada a block trade is usually at least 10,000 shares of a stock or $100,000 of bo

In finance, a bond option is an option to buy or sell a bond at a certain price on or before the option expiry date. These instruments are typically traded OTC.

In options trading, a box spread is a combination of positions that has a certain (i.e., riskless) payoff, considered to be simply "delta neutral interest rate position". For example, a bull spread constructed from calls (e.g., long a 50 call, short a 60 call) combined with a bear spread constructed from puts (e.g., long a 60 put, short a 50 put) has a constant payoff of the difference

A broker is a person or entity that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. This may be done for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confused with that of an agent—one who acts on behalf of a principal party in a deal.

In financial services, a broker-dealer is a natural person, company or other organization that engages in the business of trading securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers. Broker-dealers are at the heart of the securities and derivatives trading process.

The Buffett indicator (or the Buffett metric, or the Market capitalization-to-GDP ratio) is a valuation multiple used to assess how expensive or cheap the aggregate stock market is at a given point in time. It was proposed as a metric by investor Warren Buffett in 2001, who called it "probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment", and its modern form co

In options trading, a bull spread is a vertical spread options strategy that is designed to profit from a moderate rise in the price of the underlying security.

Business valuation is a process and a set of procedures used to estimate the economic value of an owner's interest in a business. Here various valuation techniques are used by the interested counterparties to determine the price they are willing to pay or receive to effect a sale of the business. In addition to estimating the selling price of a business, the same valuation tools are ofte

In finance, a butterfly (or simply fly) is a limited risk, non-directional options strategy that is designed to have a high probability of earning a limited profit when the future volatility of the underlying asset is expected to be lower (when long the butterfly) or higher (when short the butterfly) than that asset's current implied volatility.

Buy and hold, also called position trading, is an investment strategy whereby an investor buys financial assets or non-financial assets such as real estate, to hold them long term, with the goal of realizing price appreciation, despite volatility.

In finance, a calendar spread (also called a time spread or horizontal spread) is a spread trade involving the simultaneous purchase of futures or options expiring on a particular date and the sale of the same instrument expiring on another date. These individual purchases, known as the legs of the spread, vary only in expiration date; they are based on the same underlying market and str

In finance, a call option (often simply a "call") is an option contract that gives its buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy an agreed quantity of a particular commodity, security, or other financial instrument from the seller at a specified price. The asset or instrument to which the option relates is known as the underlying, and the specified purchase price is known as the st

A callable bull/bear contract, or CBBC in short form, is a derivative financial instrument that provides investors with a leveraged investment in underlying assets, which can be a single stock, or an index. CBBC is usually issued by third parties, mostly investment banks, but neither by stock exchanges nor by asset owners. It was first introduced in Europe and Australia in 2001, and it i

Capital allocation line (CAL) is a graph created by investors to measure the risk of risky and risk-free assets. The graph displays the return to be made by taking on a certain level of risk. Its slope is known as the "reward-to-variability ratio".

A capital asset is defined as property of any kind held by an assessee. It need not be connected to the assesse's business or profession. The term encompasses all kinds of property, movable or immovable, tangible or intangible, fixed or circulating. Land and building, plant and machinery, motorcar, furniture, jewellery, route permits, goodwill, tenancy rights, patents, trademarks, shares

In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio. The model takes into account the asset's sensitivity to non-diversifiable risk (also known as systematic risk or market risk), often represented by the quantity beta (β) in t

Capital market line (CML) is the tangent line drawn from the point of the risk-free asset to the feasible region for risky assets. The tangency point M represents the market portfolio, so named since all rational investors (minimum variance criterion) should hold their risky assets in the same proportions as their weights in the market portfolio.

In mathematics, the Chan–Karolyi–Longstaff–Sanders process (abbreviated as CKLS process) is a stochastic process with applications to finance. In particular it has been used to model the term structure of interest rates. The CKLS process can also be viewed as a generalization of the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. It is named after K. C. Chan, G. Andrew Karolyi, Francis A. Longstaff, and Ant

Chance-constrained portfolio selection is an approach to portfolio selection under loss aversion.

The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program is a postgraduate professional certification offered internationally by the US-based CFA Institute (formerly the Association for Investment Management and Research, or AIMR) to investment and financial professionals. The program teaches a wide range of subjects relating to advanced investment analysis—including business analysis, statistics,

In finance, the Chen model is a mathematical model describing the evolution of interest rates. It is a type of "three-factor model" (short-rate model) as it describes interest rate movements as driven by three sources of market risk. It was the first stochastic mean and stochastic volatility model and it was published in 1994 by Lin Chen, PhD from Harvard, former economist of Federal Res

In finance, a chooser option is a special type of option contract. It gives the purchaser a fixed period to decide whether the derivative will be a European call or put option.

In finance, a collar is an option strategy that limits the range of possible positive or negative returns on an underlying to a specific range. A collar strategy is used as one of the ways to hedge against possible losses and it represents long put options financed with short call options. The collar combines the strategies of the protective put and the covered call.

A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Like other private label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the c

A Commodity pool operator (CPO) is an individual or organization that solicits or receives funds to use in the operation of a commodity pool, syndicate, collective investment vehicle, investment trust, or similar structure, specifically for trading (buying and selling) of and in commodity interests. Such commodity interests include commodity futures, swaps, options and/or leverage transa

A commodity trading advisor (CTA) is US financial regulatory term for an individual or organization who is retained by a fund or individual client to provide advice and services related to trading in futures contracts, commodity options and/or swaps. They are responsible for the trading within managed futures accounts. The definition of CTA may also apply to investment advisors for hedge

Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Commonwealth realms. This type of share gives the stockholder the right to share in the profits of the company, and to vote on matters of corporate

In economics, a complete market (a.k.a. Arrow-Debreu market or complete system of markets) is a market with two conditions:

A compound option or split-fee option is an option on an option. The exercise payoff of a compound option involves the value of another option. A compound option then has two expiration dates and two strike prices. Usually, compounded options are used for currency or fixed income markets where insecurity exists regarding the option's risk protection. Another common business application t

A conditional variance swap is a type of variance swap or swap derivative product that allows investors to take exposure to volatility in the price of an underlying security but only while the underlying security is within a pre-specified price range. This instrument can be useful for hedging complex volatility exposures, making a bet on the volatility levels contained in the skew of th

A condor is a limited-risk, non-directional options trading strategy consisting of four options at four different strike prices. The buyer of a condor earns a profit if the underlying is between or near the inner two strikes at expiry, but has a limited loss if the underlying is near or outside the outer two strikes at expiry. Therefore, long condors are used by traders who expect the un

In mathematical finance, the constant elasticity of variance model (CEV) is a stochastic volatility model, although technically it would be classed more precisely as a local volatility model, that attempts to capture stochastic volatility and the leverage effect. The model is widely used by practitioners in the financial industry, especially for modelling equities and commodities. It was

A constant maturity swap (CMS) is a swap that allows the purchaser to fix the duration of received flows on a swap.

Constant proportion portfolio investment (CPPI) is a trading strategy that allows an investor to maintain an exposure to the upside potential of a risky asset while

Contango is a situation in which the futures price (or forward price) of a commodity is higher than the spot price. In a contango situation, arbitrageurs or speculators are "willing to pay more for a commodity [to be received] at some point in the future than to purchase the commodity immediately. This may be due to people's desire to pay a premium to have the commodity in the future rat

In finance, a contract for difference (CFD) is a financial agreement between two parties, commonly referred to as the "buyer" and the "seller." The contract stipulates that the buyer will pay the seller the difference between the value of an asset at the time the contract was initiated and the current value of the asset. If the asset's price increases from the opening to the closing of t

Contrarian investing is an investment strategy that is characterized by purchasing and selling in contrast to the prevailing sentiment of the time.

Convergence trade is a trading strategy consisting of two positions: buying one asset forward—i.e., for delivery in future (going long the asset)—and selling a similar asset forward (going short the asset) for a higher price, in the expectation that by the time the assets must be delivered, the prices will have become closer to equal (will have converged), and thus one profits by the amo

Convertible arbitrage is a market-neutral investment strategy often employed by hedge funds. It involves the simultaneous purchase of convertible securities and the short sale of the same issuer's common stock.

In finance, a convertible bond, convertible note, or convertible (or a convertible debenture if it has a maturity of greater than 10 years) is a type of bond that the holder can convert into a specified number of shares of common stock in the issuing company or cash of equal value. It is a hybrid security with debt- and equity-like features. It originated in the mid-19th century, and w

A correlation swap is an over-the-counter financial derivative that allows one to speculate on or hedge risks associated with the observed average correlation, of a collection of underlying products, where each product has periodically observable prices, as with a commodity, exchange rate, interest rate, or stock index.

Cost per action (CPA), also sometimes misconstrued in marketing environments as cost per acquisition, is an online advertising measurement and pricing model referring to a specified action, for example, a sale, click, or form submit (e.g., contact request, newsletter sign up, registration, etc.).

Cost per lead (CPL) is an online advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay for a defined lead, typically the contact information of a consumer who has expressed interest in the advertiser's product or service.

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed

A covered option is a financial transaction in which the holder of securities sells (or "writes") an options contract, either a "call option" or a "put option", against stock that they own or are short, respectively.

In finance, a covered warrant (sometimes called naked warrant) is a type of warrant that has been issued without an accompanying bond or equity. Like a normal warrant, it allows the holder to buy or sell a specific amount of equities, currency, or other financial instruments from the issuer at a specified price at a predetermined date.

In mathematical finance, the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross (CIR) model describes the evolution of interest rates. It is a type of "one factor model" (short-rate model) as it describes interest rate movements as driven by only one source of market risk. The model can be used in the valuation of interest rate derivatives. It was introduced in 1985 by John C. Cox, Jonathan E. Ingersoll and Stephen A.

In finance, a default option, credit default swaption or credit default option is an option to buy protection (payer option) or sell protection (receiver option) as a credit default swap on a specific reference credit with a specific maturity. The option is usually European, exercisable only at one date in the future at a specific strike price defined as a coupon on the credit default s

A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a debt default (by the debtor) or other credit event. That is, the seller of the CDS insures the buyer against some reference asset defaulting. The buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (the CDS "fee" or "spread") to the seller and, in exchange, may expect

In finance, a credit derivative refers to any one of "various instruments and techniques designed to separate and then transfer the credit risk" or the risk of an event of default of a corporate or sovereign borrower, transferring it to an entity other than the lender or debtholder.

In finance, a credit spread, or net credit spread is an options strategy that involves a purchase of one option and a sale of another option in the same class and expiration but different strike prices. It is designed to make a profit when the spreads between the two options narrows.

A Credit Linked Note (CLN) is a structured product typically issued by a financial institution, such as banks or SPV. It is structured as a financial instrument that combines a bond and a credit derivative, the bond represents the equivalent of the funding leg, that is how much the bank pays for an investor to borrow money from it, and the credit derivative the risk overlay. The core fun

Cross-listing (or multi-listing, or interlisting) of shares is when a firm lists its equity shares on one or more foreign stock exchange in addition to its domestic exchange. To be cross-listed, a company must thus comply with the requirements of all the stock exchanges in which it is listed, such as filing.

In finance, a currency swap (more typically termed a cross-currency swap, XCS) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD, and one of the most liquid benchmark products spanning multiple currencies simultaneously. It has pricing associations with interest rate swaps (IRSs), foreign exchange (FX) rates, and FX swaps (FXSs).

A crossing network is an alternative trading system (ATS) that matches buy and sell orders electronically for execution without first routing the order to an exchange or other public displayed market such as an electronic communication network (ECN). Such crossing networks are a type of dark pool that employ computerized systems to match buyers and sellers of large blocks of shares with

A currency future, also known as an FX future or a foreign exchange future, is a futures contract to exchange one currency for another at a specified date in the future at a price (exchange rate) that is fixed on the purchase date; see Foreign exchange derivative.

Currency strength index expresses the index value of currency. For economists, it is often calculated as purchasing power, while for financial traders, it can be described as an indicator, reflecting many factors related to the currency; for example, fundamental data, overall economic performance or interest rates. It can also be calculated from the currency in relation to other currenci

In finance, a dark pool (also black pool) is a private forum (alternative trading system or ATS) for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Liquidity on these markets is called dark pool liquidity. The bulk of dark pool trades represent large trades by financial institutions that are offered away from public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and the NA

David LeFevre Dodd (August 23, 1895 – September 18, 1988) was an American educator, financial analyst, author, economist, and investor. In his student years, Dodd was a protégé and colleague of Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School.

In finance, delta neutral describes a portfolio of related financial securities, in which the portfolio value remains unchanged when small changes occur in the value of the underlying security (having zero delta). Such a portfolio typically contains options and their corresponding underlying securities such that positive and negative delta components offset, resulting in the portfolio's

In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements:

The derivatives market is the financial market for derivatives – financial instruments like futures contracts or options – which are derived from other forms of assets.

In derivatives trading, the term diagonal spread is applied to an options spread position that shares features of both a calendar spread and a vertical spread. It is established by simultaneously buying and selling equal amount of option contracts of the same type (call options or put options) but with different strike prices and expiration dates.

Direct market access (DMA) in financial markets is the electronic trading infrastructure that gives investors wishing to trade in financial instruments a way to interact with the order book of an exchange. Normally, trading on the order book is restricted to broker-dealers and market making firms that are members of the exchange. Using DMA, investment companies (also known as buy side fi

In corporate finance, distressed securities are securities over companies or government entities that are experiencing financial or operational distress, default, or are under bankruptcy. As far as debt securities, this is called distressed debt. Purchasing or holding such distressed-debt creates significant risk due to the possibility that bankruptcy may render such securities worthless

In finance, diversification is the process of allocating capital in a way that reduces the exposure to any one particular asset or risk. A common path towards diversification is to reduce risk or volatility by investing in a variety of assets. If asset prices do not change in perfect synchrony, a diversified portfolio will have less variance than the weighted average variance of its con

In financial economics, the dividend discount model (DDM) is a method of valuing the price of a company's capital stock or business value based on the assertion that intrinsic value is determined by the sum of future cash flows from dividend payments to shareholders, discounted back to their present value. The constant-growth form of the DDM is sometimes referred to as the Gordon growth

In finance, a dividend future is an exchange-traded derivative contract that allows investors to take positions on future dividend payments. Dividend futures can be on a single company, a basket of companies, or on an Equity index. They settle on the amount of dividend paid by the company, the basket of companies, or the index during the period of the contract.

The dividend yield of a share is the ratio of annualised cash dividends to the share's current market price. It is usually expressed as a percentage and is commonly calculated by dividing the annual dividend per share by the current share price.

The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael B. O'Higgins in a 1991 book and his Dogs of the Dow website. It is a form of dividend investing.

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is an investment strategy which aims to apply value investing principles to regular investment. The term was coined by Benjamin Graham in his 1949 book The Intelligent Investor. Graham writes that dollar-cost averaging "means simply that the practitioner invests in common stocks the same number of dollars each month or each quarter. (The same nomenclature app

The Dow theory on stock price movement is the precursor to technical analysis and is also part of modern technical analysis. The theory was derived from 255 editorials in The Wall Street Journal written by Charles H. Dow (1851–1902), journalist, founder and first editor of The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of Dow Jones & Company. Following Dow's death, William Peter Hamilton, Robe

Dupont analysis is a tool used in financial analysis, where return on equity (ROE) is separated into its component parts.

Earning yield is the quotient of earnings per share (E), divided by the share price (P), giving E/P. It is the reciprocal of the P/E ratio.

Economic returns are the gains in output, income, or value, which are generated from the employment of productive inputs or resources.