Vocabulary

• Financial Crisis – A situation where the value of financial institutions or assets drops rapidly.
• Budget – An estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time.
• Debt – Money that is owed or due.
• Credit – The ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment, based on the trust that payment will be made in the future.
• Interest Rate – The proportion of a loan that is charged as interest to the borrower, typically expressed as an annual percentage of the loan outstanding.
• Investment – The action or process of investing money for profit or material result.
• Assets – A useful or valuable thing or person.
• Bankruptcy – The state of being bankrupt.
• Equity – The value of the shares issued by a company.
• Inflation – The action of inflating something or the condition of being inflated.
• Recession – A period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced.
• Stock Market – A market in which shares of stock are bought and sold.
• Bond – A certificate issued by a government or a public company promising to repay borrowed money at a fixed rate of interest at a specified time.
• Dividend – A sum of money paid regularly by a company to its shareholders out of its profits.
• Liquidation – The process of liquidating a business or a person's assets.
• Loan – A thing that is borrowed, especially a sum of money that is expected to be paid back with interest.
• Mortgage – A legal agreement by which a bank lends money at interest in exchange for taking title of the debtor's property.
• Portfolio – A range of investments held by a person or organization.
• Savings – The money one has saved, especially through a bank or official scheme.
• Tax – A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.
• Unemployment – The state of being unemployed.
• Yield – The income returned on an investment.
• Liability – The state of being responsible for something, especially by law.
• Capital – Wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available for a purpose such as starting a company or investing.
• Depreciation – A reduction in the value of an asset over time.
• Exchange Rate – The value of one currency for the purpose of conversion to another.
• Fiscal Policy – Government policy that attempts to manage the economy by controlling taxing and spending.
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – The total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year.
• Hedge – An investment to reduce the risk of adverse price movements in an asset.
• Insurance – A practice or arrangement by which a company provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment.
• Leverage – The use of borrowed money to supplement existing funds for purposes of investment.
• Options – Contracts that give the bearer the right, but not the obligation, to either buy or sell an amount of some underlying asset at a pre-determined price at or before the contract expires.
• Profit – A financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.
• Risk – The possibility of financial loss.
• Securities – Tradable financial assets such as shares, bonds and options.
• Treasury Bonds – Long-dated securities issued by the US government.
• Venture Capital – Capital invested in a project in which there is a substantial element of risk, typically a new or expanding business.
• Write-off – A reduction in the recognized value of something.
• Cash Flow – The total amount of money being transferred into and out of a business.
• Deflation – Reduction of the general level of prices in an economy.
• Derivatives – Financial securities with a value that is reliant upon or derived from, an underlying asset or group of assets.
• Earnings – The amount of profit that a company produces during a specific period.
• Fiscal Year – A year as reckoned for taxing or accounting purposes.
• Index Fund – A type of mutual fund with a portfolio constructed to match or track the components of a financial market index.
• Junk Bond – A high-yield or non-investment grade bond with a credit rating of BB or lower.
• Mutual Fund – An investment program funded by shareholders that trades in diversified holdings and is professionally managed.
• Pension – A regular payment made during a person's retirement from an investment fund to which that person or their employer has contributed during their working life.
• Real Estate – Property consisting of land or buildings.
• Short Selling – The sale of a security that the seller has borrowed.
• Volatility – The degree of variation of a trading price series over time.