Numbers dressed up in fancy suits pretending to be words.
Shares that a company has issued and later repurchased, sitting in corporate limbo—not quite cancelled but no longer outstanding. The equity equivalent of taking back your gift because the recipient didn't appreciate it enough.
The company that promises to pay you when disaster strikes, in exchange for regular payments that feel like protection money for responsible adults. They employ armies of actuaries to calculate risk and legions of adjusters to find reasons why maybe they shouldn't pay after all. Think of them as professional bet-takers who are wagering that your house won't burn down.
Cash from operations minus capital expenditures—the actual money left over after keeping the business running that can be used for dividends, buybacks, or acquisitions. It's the ultimate 'show me the money' metric that cuts through accounting games.
When one party acquires a controlling stake in a company by purchasing enough shares to tell everyone else to pack their desk plants. It's the corporate equivalent of buying out your roommate's lease, except with more lawyers, bigger numbers, and significantly less drama about who gets the couch. Can be friendly (management buyout) or hostile (surprise, you work for someone else now).
An accounting entry recognizing that an asset is now worth less than its book value, forcing companies to admit their expensive acquisition was actually terrible. It's the corporate version of finding out your vintage comic book collection is worthless.
Operating income divided by revenue, showing what percentage of sales remains after covering operating expenses but before interest and taxes. It's the profitability measure that reveals whether your business model works or you're just moving money around creatively.
The time between paying suppliers and collecting from customers, measured in days. Negative is magical—you get paid before paying bills, turning working capital into a profit center. Positive means you're funding your customers' purchases with your own money.
The financial maneuver of moving retirement funds from one account to another without triggering tax penalties, or in web design, that satisfying hover effect that proves a button is actually clickable. In finance, it's how you avoid giving Uncle Sam a premature cut of your 401(k). The term doing double duty in completely unrelated industries, because why make jargon simple?
Loans with few or no maintenance covenants that would normally protect lenders, essentially trusting borrowers to be responsible without supervision. It's the financial equivalent of lending your car to a teenager with no curfew.
The meticulous art of recording every financial transaction in a systematic way, traditionally done by people who enjoy spreadsheets more than human interaction. It's the foundation of accounting, involving ledgers, journals, and an obsessive attention to making sure debits equal credits. The only profession where 'excitement' means finding a balanced account.
A method that front-loads depreciation expenses in early years of an asset's life, providing larger tax deductions sooner. It's the accounting equivalent of eating dessert first, with the IRS's blessing.
The polite accounting term for 'the numbers don't match and someone's either incompetent or stealing.' These are inconsistencies between what should be and what actually is in financial records, inventory counts, or data sets. Finding discrepancies is either the start of a really boring afternoon of reconciliation or a really exciting fraud investigation.
The corporate euphemism for 'stealing,' typically involving someone with fiduciary responsibility who decided that 'other people's money' is really more of a suggestion than a rule. It's the white-collar crime of choice for accountants, executives, and nonprofit board members who convinced themselves they were just 'borrowing' the funds temporarily. Unlike shoplifting a candy bar, this usually involves spreadsheets, offshore accounts, and a lawyer explaining why technically it's 'misappropriation' not 'theft.'
The magical percentage retailers add to their costs to create what they optimistically call a "selling price," essentially the difference between what they paid and what they're convinced you'll pay. In tech, it's the invisible code that tells computers how to format text without making it look like a ransom note. Both definitions involve making something look more expensive or prettier than it actually is.
The tedious audit procedure of tracing numbers from one document to another and reconciling totals, involving literal tick marks on paper. It's as exciting as it sounds and explains why auditors develop that distinctive glazed expression.
The accounting equivalent of 'it's building up whether you like it or not'—when money, benefits, or consequences accumulate over time like interest or regret. It's the gradual increase that happens in the background while you're not paying attention, eventually becoming a number on a financial statement. The reason your vacation days or debt mysteriously grow without you doing anything.
The fee you're about to pay that wasn't mentioned upfront, or the accounting entry that makes your expenses look worse than they already are. It's money levied for services, penalties for existing, or the formal recognition of costs on financial statements. Also, what your credit card company loves to add in mysterious increments.
In finance, it's when you finally get your money back from investments, bonds, or that pawn shop guitar you regret selling. In real estate, it's your last-chance opportunity to reclaim property before foreclosure becomes permanent. Basically, it's the 'never mind, I'd like that back' clause in various financial and legal agreements, usually with a fee attached because nothing's ever free.
The practice of rolling over short-term loans continuously to make them function as long-term financing, or cosmetically refreshing products to extend their revenue life. It's kicking the can down the road with extra steps.
In finance, a security that's having an identity crisis—it starts as one thing (usually a bond) but can transform into something else (usually stock) like a financial Transformer. Investors love them because they get the safety of debt with the upside potential of equity. It's also a car with a roof that comes off, but that's significantly less exciting to accountants.
The passive income dream where creators get paid every time someone uses their work, like a toll booth on the highway of intellectual property. These recurring payments flow to authors, musicians, inventors, and landowners who've figured out how to make money while sleeping. It's the closest thing to free money that still requires you to have created something valuable first, which is why most people just get regular jobs instead.
The predetermined order in which cash flows are distributed among different classes of investors, with senior investors getting paid before junior ones. It's like a literal waterfall—money flows down until each tier is satisfied.
Someone who takes money or property with the solemn promise to return it, a promise that banks document in triplicate just in case. In real estate, this is the person signing away their financial future for the privilege of owning a home. Also known as the person who will be seeing a lot of mortgage statements for the next 30 years.
Wall Street shorthand for arbitrage, the art of buying low in one market and selling high in another while everyone else is too slow to notice the price difference. It's basically legal financial alchemy practiced by traders who've figured out how to profit from inefficiencies before algorithms do it faster. The dream job for people who think finding a quarter on the sidewalk is exciting, except scaled up to millions of dollars and requiring a Bloomberg terminal.