Industry WIKI

Islamic banking, Islamic finance (Arabic: مصرفية إسلامية masrifiyya 'islamia), or Sharia-compliant finance is banking or financing activity that complies with Sharia (Islamic law) and its practical application through the development of Islamic economics. Some of the modes of Islamic finance include mudarabah (profit-sharing and loss-bearing), wadiah (safekeeping), musharaka (joint ventu

Islamic finance products, services and contracts are financial products and services and related contracts that conform with Sharia (Islamic law). Islamic banking and finance has its own products and services that differ from conventional banking. These include Mudharabah (profit sharing), Wadiah (safekeeping), Musharakah (joint venture), Murabahah (cost plus finance), Ijar (leasing), Ha

Walter Joseph "Jay" Clayton III (born July 11, 1966) is an American attorney who has served as the 9th director of national intelligence since August 2026. Clayton has additionally served as the White House AI czar since October 2026. He served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2025 to 2026 and as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commissi

Leverage is defined as the ratio of the asset value to the cash needed to purchase it. The leverage cycle can be defined as the procyclical expansion and contraction of leverage over the course of the business cycle. The existence of procyclical leverage amplifies the effect on asset prices over the business cycle.

This is a list of banking crises. A banking crisis is a financial crisis that affects banking activity. Banking crises include bank runs, which affect single banks; banking panics, which affect many banks; and systemic banking crises, in which a country experiences many defaults and financial institutions and corporations face great difficulties repaying contracts. A banking crisis is ma

Foreign exchange reserves, also called Forex reserves, in a strict sense, are foreign-currency deposits held by nationals and monetary authorities. However, in popular usage and in the list below, it also includes gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs), and IMF reserve positions because this total figure (more accurately called "official reserves", "international reserves", or "off

In China, a local government financing vehicle (LGFV) (Chinese: 地方政府融资平台) is an investment company formed by local governments to raise funds, usually by borrowing money to finance real estate development and other local infrastructure projects. They allow local governments to finance infrastructure projects while complying with laws prohibiting them from issuing bonds or having deficits

Magic formula investing is an investment technique outlined by Joel Greenblatt that uses the principles of value investing.

Mark-to-market (MTM or M2M) or fair value accounting is accounting for the "fair value" of an asset or liability based on the current market price, or the price for similar assets and liabilities, or based on another objectively assessed "fair" value. Fair value accounting has been a part of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States since the early 1990s. Fail

In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market's feature whereby an individual or firm can quickly purchase or sell an asset without causing a drastic change in the asset's price. Liquidity involves the trade-off between the price at which an asset can be sold, and how quickly it can be sold. In a liquid market, the trade-off is mild: one can sell quickly without havi

A market trend is a perceived tendency of the financial markets to move in a particular direction over time. Analysts classify these trends as secular for long time-frames, primary for medium time-frames, and secondary for short time-frames. Traders attempt to identify market trends using technical analysis, a framework which characterizes market trends as predictable price tendencies wi

The Ministry of Finance (Spanish: Ministerio de Hacienda) is the cabinet-level administrative office in charge of managing the financial affairs, fiscal policy, and capital markets of Chile; planning, directing, coordinating, executing, controlling and informing all financial policies formulated by the President of Chile.

The Ministry of Finance (Dutch: Ministerie van Financiën; FIN) is the Dutch Ministry responsible for economic policy, monetary policy, fiscal policy, tax policy, incomes policy, financial regulation, the government budget and the financial market. The Ministry was created in 1798 as the Department of Finance of the Batavian Republic. It became the Ministry of Finance in 1876. The Ministe

In finance, model risk is the risk of loss resulting from using insufficiently accurate models to make decisions, originally and frequently in the context of valuing financial securities.

Monetary reform refers to proposals to change a country's monetary system, including how money is created, regulated, and distributed. Such reforms seek to address perceived problems with current monetary schemes, like financial instability, wealth inequality, or inflation. Monetary reform movements grow during economic crises, proposing alternatives to prevailing systems.

Money creation, or money issuance, is the process by which the money supply of a country or economic region is increased. In most modern economies, both central banks and commercial banks create money. Central banks issue money as a liability, typically called reserve deposits, which is available only for use by central bank account holders. These account holders are generally large comm

A money market fund (also called a money market mutual fund) is an open-end mutual fund that invests in short-term debt securities such as US Treasury bills and commercial paper. Money market funds are managed with the goal of maintaining a highly stable asset value through liquid investments while paying income to investors in the form of dividends. Although they are not insured against

MoneyGram International, Inc. is an American interstate and international peer-to-peer payments and money transfer company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It has an operations center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and regional and local offices around the world.

In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it will not bear the full costs associated with that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher risk knowing that its insurance will pay the associated costs. A moral hazard may occur where the actions of the risk-taking party change t

NAV (Net Asset Value) lending is a form of fund-level financing where loans are secured by the value of a private equity fund’s investments rather than the uncalled capital commitments of limited partners (LPs). NAV-based credit facilities provide liquidity to private equity funds by allowing them to borrow against the underlying portfolio. These facilities differ from subscription line

Neutrality of money is the idea that a change in the money supply affects only nominal variables in the economy such as prices, wages, and exchange rates, with no effect on real variables, like employment, real GDP, and real consumption. Neutrality of money is an important idea in classical economics and is related to the classical dichotomy. It implies that the central bank does not aff

In economics, nominal rigidity, also referred to as price stickiness or wage stickiness, describes a situation in which a nominal price is slow to adjust or resistant to change. Complete nominal rigidity occurs when a price remains fixed in nominal terms for a relevant period of time. For example, the price of a good may be contractually set at $10 per unit for an entire year, regardles

The following outline provides an overview and topical guide to finance:

Over-the-counter (OTC) or off-exchange trading or pink sheet trading is done directly between two parties, without the supervision of an exchange. It is contrasted with exchange trading, which occurs via exchanges. A stock exchange has the benefit of facilitating liquidity, providing transparency, and maintaining the current market price. In an OTC trade, the price is not necessarily pub

An overnight indexed swap (OIS) is an interest rate swap (IRS) over some given term, e.g. 10Y, where the periodic fixed payments are tied to a given fixed rate while the periodic floating payments are tied to a floating rate calculated from a daily compounded overnight rate over the floating coupon period. The OIS term is not overnight; it is the underlying reference rate that is an over

The Panic of 1792 was a financial credit crisis that occurred during the months of March and April 1792, precipitated by the expansion of credit by the newly formed Bank of the United States as well as by rampant speculation on the part of William Duer, Alexander Macomb, and other prominent bankers. Duer, Macomb, and their colleagues attempted to drive up prices of United States (U.S) de

Panic selling is a large-scale selling of an investment that causes a sharp decline in prices. Specifically, an investor wants to sell an investment with little regard to the price obtained. The sale is problematic because the investor is reacting to emotion and fear, rather than evaluating the fundamentals.

Peer-to-peer lending (P2P lending) is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns

"Pre-money valuation" is a term widely used in the private equity and venture capital industries. It refers to the valuation of a company or asset prior to an investment or financing. If an investment adds cash to a company, the company will have a valuation after the investment that is equal to the pre-money valuation plus the cash amount. That is, the pre-money valuation refers to the

Predatory lending refers to unethical practices conducted by lending organizations during a loan origination process that are unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent. While there are no internationally agreed legal definitions for predatory lending, a 2006 audit report from the office of inspector general of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) broadly defines predatory lending a

The general price level is a hypothetical measure of overall prices for some set of goods and services (the consumer basket), in an economy or monetary union during a given interval (generally one day), normalized relative to some base set. Typically, the general price level is approximated with a daily price index, normally the Daily CPI. The general price level can change more than on

On March 17, 2008, in response to the subprime mortgage crisis and the collapse of Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve announced the creation of a new lending facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). Eligible borrowers include all financial institutions listed as primary dealers, and the term of the loan is a repurchase agreement, or "repo" loan, whereby the broker dealer sells

Private credit is an aspect of the shadow banking system involving assets defined by non-bank lending where the debt is not issued or traded on the public markets. "Private credit" can also be referred to as "direct lending" or "private lending". It is a subset of "alternative credit". Estimations of the global private credit industry's size vary; as of April 2024, the International Mone

Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Instead, it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in managing and structuring the companies. Colloquially, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies in which they invest.

The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, and expanded considerably by the Blair government, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and macroeco

A private investment in public equity, commonly known as a PIPE deal, involves selling of publicly traded common shares or some form of preferred stock or convertible security to private investors. It is an allocation of shares in a public company not through a public offering in a stock exchange. PIPE deals are part of the primary market. In the U.S., a PIPE offering may be registered w

In finance, the Private Equity Secondary Market (also often called Private Equity Secondaries or Secondaries) refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private equity and other alternative investment funds or the underlying private equity assets (e.g., credit secondaries). Unlike public markets, private-equity interests lack an established trading exchange,

Proprietary trading (also known as prop trading) occurs when a trader trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments with the firm's own money (instead of using customer funds) to make a profit for itself.

Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy action where a central bank purchases predetermined amounts of government bonds, company shares, or other financial assets (liquidity) in order to artificially stimulate economic activity. Quantitative easing is a novel form of monetary policy that began in Japan and came into wide application in the US following the 2008 financial crisis. It

The real bills doctrine says that as long as bankers lend to businessmen only against the security (collateral) of short-term 30-, 60-, or 90-day commercial paper representing claims to real goods in the process of production, the loans will be just sufficient to finance the production of goods. The doctrine seeks to have real output determine its own means of purchase without affecting

Renminbi currency value is a debate affecting the Chinese currency unit, the renminbi (Chinese: 人民币 Code:CNY). The renminbi is classified as a managed floating exchange rate currency "with reference to a basket of currencies", which has drawn attention from nations which have freely floated currencies and has become a source of trade friction with Western nations.

A repurchase agreement, also known as a repo, RP, or sale and repurchase agreement, is a form of secured short-term borrowing, usually, though not always, using government securities as collateral. A contracting party sells a security to a lender and, by agreement between the two parties, repurchases the security back shortly afterwards, at a slightly higher contracted price. The differe

Reserve requirements are central bank regulations that set the minimum amount that a commercial bank must hold in liquid assets. This minimum amount, commonly referred to as the commercial bank's reserve, is generally determined by the central bank on the basis of a specified proportion of deposit liabilities of the bank. This rate is commonly referred to as the cash reserve ratio or sh

Return on Tangible Equity (ROTE) is a financial performance metric that measures a company's profitability relative to its tangible common equity. Unlike Return on Equity, ROE, which includes intangible assets such as goodwill, ROTE focuses solely on the tangible portion of shareholders' equity, excluding intangible assets and preferred equity. This makes ROTE particularly useful for eva

Risk of ruin is a concept in gambling, insurance, and finance relating to the likelihood of losing all one's investment capital or extinguishing one's bankroll below the minimum for further play. For instance, if someone bets all their money on a simple coin toss, the risk of ruin is 50%. In a multiple-bet scenario, risk of ruin accumulates with the number of bets: each play increases th

Risk parity (or risk premia parity) is an approach to investment management which focuses on allocation of risk, usually defined as volatility, rather than allocation of capital. The risk parity approach asserts that when asset allocations are adjusted (leveraged or deleveraged) to the same risk level, the risk parity portfolio can achieve a higher Sharpe ratio and can be more resistant

Risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) is a risk-based profitability measurement framework for analysing risk-adjusted financial performance and providing a consistent view of profitability across businesses. The concept was developed by Bankers Trust and principal designer Dan Borge in the late 1970s. Note, however, that increasingly return on risk-adjusted capital (RORAC) is used as a

A scrip is any substitute for legal tender.

In finance, securities lending or stock lending refers to the lending of securities by one party to another.

Self-fulfilling crisis refers to a situation that a financial crisis is not directly caused by the unhealthy economic fundamental conditions or improper government policies, but a consequence of pessimistic expectations of investors. In other words, investors' fear of the crisis makes the crisis inevitable, which justified their initial expectations.

The shadow banking system is the collection of non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs), or nondepository financial institutions (NDFIs) that legally provide services similar to traditional commercial banks but outside normal banking regulations. S&P Global estimates that, at end-2022, shadow banking held about $63 trillion in financial assets in major jurisdictions around the world, re

In economics, a shock is an unexpected or unpredictable event that affects an economy, either positively or negatively. Technically, it is an unpredictable change in exogenous factors—that is, factors unexplained by an economic model—which may influence endogenous economic variables.

In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value of the asset rises. An investor that sells an asset short is, as to that asset, a short seller.

Silver Thursday refers to the sharp collapse in the United States silver and silver futures markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980. The crisis followed a rapid rise in silver prices and the accumulation of a large long position by members of the Hunt family, principally Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt, with Lamar Hunt involved to a lesser extent. The term is used both for the tr

A sovereign wealth fund (SWF), or sovereign investment fund, is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as private equity funds or hedge funds. Sovereign wealth funds invest globally. Most SWFs are funded by revenues from commodity exports or from foreign exchange reser

A Spahn tax is a type of currency transaction tax that is meant to be used for the purpose of controlling exchange-rate volatility. This idea was proposed by Paul Bernd Spahn in 1995.

Special drawing rights (SDRs, code XDR) are a supplementary foreign exchange reserve asset defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SDRs are the units of account for the IMF, and not a currency; rather, SDR value is based on a basket of currencies, the specific composition of which is reviewed every five years. SDRs represent a claim to currency held by IMF member

In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that that asset will become more valuable in a brief amount of time.

In finance, statistical arbitrage (Stat Arb or StatArb) is a class of short-term financial trading strategies that employ mean reversion models involving broadly diversified portfolios of securities (hundreds to thousands) held for short periods of time (generally seconds to days). These strategies are supported by substantial mathematical, computational, and trading platforms.

In macroeconomics, sterilization is action taken by a country's central bank to counter the effects on the money supply caused by a balance of payments surplus or deficit.

The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis is a book documenting the necessary changes and reforms of the international financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. Written by a commission chaired by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, the report frames the crisis as part of a

A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called as shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Invest

A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation.

Since the beginning of the Bombay stock exchange, stock markets in India, particularly the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India have seen a number of booms as well as crashes.

A synthetic CDO is a variation of a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that generally uses credit default swaps (CDSs) and other derivatives to obtain its investment goals. As such, it is a complex derivative financial security sometimes described as a bet on the performance of other mortgage (or other) products, rather than a real mortgage security. The value and payment stream of a s

In finance, systemic risk is the risk of collapse of an entire financial system or entire market, as opposed to the risk associated with any one individual entity, group or component of a system, that can be contained therein without harming the entire system. It can be defined as "financial system instability, potentially catastrophic, caused or exacerbated by idiosyncratic events or co

Tail risk, sometimes called "fat tail risk", is the financial risk of an asset or portfolio of assets moving more than three standard deviations from its current price, above the risk of a normal distribution. Tail risks include low-probability events arising at both ends of a normal distribution curve, also known as tail events. However, as investors are generally more concerned with un

The Great Debasement (1544–1551) was a currency debasement policy introduced in 1544 England under the order of Henry VIII which saw the amount of precious metal in gold and silver coins reduced and in some cases replaced entirely with cheaper base metals such as copper. Overspending by Henry VIII to pay for his lavish lifestyle and to fund foreign wars with France and Scotland are cited

Trade credit insurance, business credit insurance, export credit insurance, or credit insurance is a type of insurance policy and a risk management product offered by private insurance companies and governmental export credit agencies to business entities wishing to protect their accounts receivable from loss due to credit risks such as protracted default, insolvency or bankruptcy. This

Treasury management (or treasury operations) entails management of an enterprise's financial holdings, focusing on the firm's liquidity, and mitigating its financial, operational and reputational risk.

In international finance, the Triffin dilemma (sometimes the Triffin paradox) is the conflict of economic interests that arises between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives for countries whose currencies serve as global reserve currencies. This dilemma was identified in the 1960s by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin. He noted that a country whose currency i

In economics, twin crises, also called a balance of payments crisis, are simultaneous crises in banking and currency. The term was introduced in the late 1990s by economists Graciela Kaminsky and Carmen Reinhart after several such crises worldwide.

United Kingdom insolvency law regulates companies in the United Kingdom which are unable to repay their debts. While UK bankruptcy law concerns the rules for natural persons, the term insolvency is generally used for companies formed under the Companies Act 2006. Insolvency means being unable to pay debts. Since the Cork Report of 1982, the modern policy of UK insolvency law has been to

The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The treasury executes currency circulation in the domestic fiscal system, collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service, manages U.S. government debt, licenses and supervises banks and

The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States (U.S.) and several other countries. The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 established the dollar as the base unit, with each dollar divided into 100 cents (symbol: ¢). U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green col

The uranium market, like all commodity markets, has a history of volatility, moving with the standard forces of supply and demand as well as geopolitical pressures. It has also evolved particularities of its own in response to the unique nature and use of uranium.

Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. Modern value investing derives from the investment philosophy taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd at Columbia Business School starting in 1928 and subsequently developed in their 1934 text Security Analysis.

The velocity of money measures how many times one unit of currency is used to purchase goods and services within a given time period. In other words, it represents how many times per period money changes hands, or circulates to other owners in return for valuable goods and services. The concept relates the size of economic activity to a given money supply. The velocity of money is one of

A world currency, supranational currency, or global currency is a currency that is widely used in international finance or in international trade to price goods or other transactions. It is generally a currency which is stable in terms of inflation and has a high demand on the foreign exchange market. Greek and Roman coins were the first world currency, followed by Dutch guilders in the

In mathematical finance, X-Value Adjustment (XVA, xVA) is an umbrella term referring to a number of different "valuation adjustments" that banks must make when assessing the value of derivative contracts that they have entered into. The purpose of these is twofold: primarily to hedge for possible losses due to other parties' failures to pay amounts due on the derivative contracts; but al

A yield curve shows the relationship between yields and time to maturity for a set of comparable debt securities. In practice the term usually refers to curves built from a single issuer or market segment so that credit quality and other features are as similar as possible, for example the U.S. Treasury curve for government bonds.

In finance, a zero coupon swap (ZCS) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD, that in its specification is very similar to the much more widely traded interest rate swap (IRS).

A zombie bank is a financial institution that has an economic net worth of less than zero but continues to operate because its ability to repay its debts is shored up by implicit or explicit government credit support.