Descriptionary

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines dollar

Samoa tala

San Marino euro

Sao Tome and Principe dobra

Saudi Arabia riyal

Senegal franc

Serbia and Montenegro dinar; euro

Seychelles rupee

Sierra Leone leone

Singapore dollar

Slovakia euro

Slovenia euro

Solomon Islands dollar

Somalia shilling

Somaliland shilling

South Africa rand

Spain euro

Sri Lanka rupee

Sudan Sudanese pound

Suriname Surinamese dollar

Swaziland lilangeni

Sweden krona

Switzerland franc

Syria pound

Taiwan dollar

Tajikistan somoni

Tanzania shilling

Thailand baht

Togo franc

Tonga pa'anga

Trinidad and Tobago dollar

Tunisia dinar

Turkey lira

Turkmenistan manat

Tuvalu dollar

Uganda shilling

ukraine hryvnia

united Arab Emirates dirham

United Kingdom pound

united States and its territories dollar

Uruguay peso

Uzbekistan som

Vanuatu vatu

Venezuela bolivar

Vietnam dong

Virgin Islands dollar

Yemen rial

Zambia kwacha

Zimbabwe dollar

stocks, bonds, commodities, and market terms

acquisition the purchase of a controlling interest in one company by another.

across the board stock market activity in which prices move in the same direction.

air pocket stock any stock that plummets sharply, as an aircraft hitting an air pocket.

American Stock Exchange the stock exchange second in trading volume to the New York Stock Exchange. It is located in New York and handles mostly small to medium-size companies. Also known as Amex and the curb.

analyst a person who analyzes companies and their securities and makes buy and sell recommendations.

arbitrage earning a profit by buying a security from one market and selling it back to another market at a higher price. The practice of taking advantage of price discrepancies between two markets. Also, speculating in the stock of a company that is about to be acquired by another company.

arbitrageur one who uses arbitrage to turn a profit. Also known as an arb.

baby bond a bond with a face value of less than $1,000, for small investors.

back-end load a service fee paid by an investor when withdrawing money from an investment, such as a mutual fund.

back off of a stock that has suddenly dropped in price after rising.

bailout a large infusion of cash, loans, stocks, or bonds from an institution or government to a strug­gling company to rescue it from going bankrupt or out of business.

barometer stock a large stock, such as General Motors, whose market activity reflects the market as a whole. Also known as a bellwether.

bear a person who is pessimistic about the stock market and who believes prices will continue to fall. Opposite of a bull.

bear market a pessimistic market with falling prices over an extended period of time. Opposite of a bull market.

bear raid the practice of selling a large quantity of a stock to force its price down and then rebuying it at the depressed price.

bellwether a security, such as IBM stock, whose price activity indicates which direction the rest of the market will go.

belly up of a company that is going or has gone bankrupt.

bid and asked respectively, the highest price offered for a share of stock at a given time and the lowest price a seller will sell it for. The disparity between the two is known as the spread.

Big Blue nickname for IBM, International Business Machines.

Big Board the New York Stock Exchange.

Black Friday any sharp drop in a financial market. Also known as a Black Monday.

blue chip a common stock of a large corporation, such as IBM, that has had a long history of strong management and profit growth.

blue sky laws laws protecting the public from secu­rities fraud.

boiler room a room or enterprise in which sales­people use high-pressure tactics to sell high-risk or fraudulent securities to investors over the tele­phone.

bond an interest-bearing certificate of debt, a form of corporate or government security; a formal IOU.

bond ratings a rating system ranging from AAA (very safe; not likely to default) to D (in default) that illustrates a bond issuer's financial health and predicts the probability of default.