Preferred Stock
Preferred stock, also known as preference shares, is a special class of shares issued by joint stock companies. Preferred stock is a hybrid financial instrument that combines the properties of a debt instrument and...
Euro Crisis
Path of Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe The world markets had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the sub prime crisis when news began to surface of a debt crisis faced by...
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
In the United States, the subprime mortgage crisis involved a series of happenings and environmental factors that eventually culminated in the financial crisis of the late 2000s. This was characterized by steadily rising rates...
Euro-EUR
The euro is the legal tender of the euro zone area which is comprised of 17 nations out of total 27 member European Union (EU) states. The Institutions of European Union also use this...
Stock Exchange
A stock exchange facilitates the trading of stocks, bonds and other securities in an organized manner. The exchange also helps in the issuance and redemption of securities. Shares issued by a company, bonds, unit...
Stock Market Crash
A swift simultaneous price decline in a significant number of securities in a stock market leads to a stock market crash. Such crash generally causes a huge loss of paper wealth. There can be...
Binary options
Binary options have become one of the fastest growing sectors of the finance industry. While the basics of binary options can be learned within a few minutes, there are numerous advanced strategies that traders...
Money market fund
Money market funds are registered investment companies that seek to maintain a stable net asset value of $1.00 per share. They are heavily regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) under Rule 2a-7...
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
The OCC’s primary mission is to charter, regulate, and supervise all national banks and federal savings associations. They also supervise the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Their goal in supervising banks and...
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
Congress created the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 1974 as an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States. The agency’s mandate has been renewed...
Pattern day trader
Pattern Day Trader: This is a day trader who day trades 4 or more times in 5 business days within a single margin account. The term “pattern Day-Trader” is defined as any customer who...
Day trader
The IRS defines day traders to be those who meet the following three characteristics: 1) Traders maintain substantial trading activity. (10-20 daily trades should be sufficient.) 2) The trader’s trading activity is sustained on...
Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS)
The original national banking laws essentially forbade national banks from making residential mortgage loans. Savings institutions—variously known as savings and loans, savings banks, and building associations—helped fill the gap. The U.S. thrift industry’s roots...
Gold Standard
Gold Standard Introduction A Monetary system in which economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold is called as gold standard. A gold standard system can be classified in various kinds. The gold...
Stock Market Index
A stock market index is an aggregate value arrived at by combining several stocks or other investment vehicles and expressing their total values against its value as on a specified base year. It is...