Numbers dressed up in fancy suits pretending to be words.
The accounting principle determining when revenue should be recorded, which sounds simple until you encounter multi-year contracts, partial deliveries, and customers who might return products. Getting this wrong is how good companies become accounting scandals.
A trader who believes that staring at price charts and drawing lines on graphs can predict the future, also known as a technical analyst. They're basically financial astrologers with better software.
Reserves that companies stash away during good times to smooth out earnings during bad quarters, like a financial rainy day fund that violates accounting principles. It's earnings management dressed up in respectable terminology.
The auditing equivalent of a failing grade, where auditors formally declare that financial statements are materially misstated and unreliable. It's the corporate kiss of death that sends investors running for the exits.
A backup financing arrangement that provides liquidity if primary funding sources fail, like a financial safety net nobody hopes to use. It's insurance that you're paying for just in case everything goes wrong.
A simulation that models how financial institutions would perform under adverse economic scenarios, like asking 'what if everything goes wrong at once?' The results are somehow always better than reality when crises actually hit.
Latin for 'equal footing,' meaning creditors or securities rank equally in priority for payment. If the ship sinks, you all go down together—very democratic, if not particularly comforting.
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.
A bond provision allowing holders to demand early repayment at par if certain events occur, like a change of control or credit downgrade. The bondholder's nuclear option when they don't like new management's plans.
The prices charged between subsidiaries of the same multinational corporation for goods or services, theoretically based on arm's-length principles but conveniently used to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions. Tax authorities are not amused.
Money given before it's technically due, whether as a loan, a payment against future earnings, or corporate optimism in physical form. It's the financial equivalent of borrowing from tomorrow, often appearing in employee expense scenarios or publishing deals. Not to be confused with romantic advances, though both can lead to awkward HR conversations.
A day trader or stockbroker who buys and sells the same stock within a single trading session, pocketing quick profits faster than you can say "capital gains tax." Named for the rapid flip, not the aquatic mammal, though both are equally slippery.
Breaking down financial results by business unit, geography, or product line to show which parts of the company are actually making money. It's where corporate winners and losers get exposed despite management's attempts at averaging.
Business dealings between a company and its insiders, subsidiaries, or affiliates, requiring disclosure because the potential for self-dealing is obvious. It's where conflicts of interest get documented rather than avoided.
A lease treated as a rental agreement rather than an asset purchase, historically kept off the balance sheet in a beautiful accounting loophole. Airlines loved these for planes; retail loved them for stores.
The master accounting record containing all financial transactions, organized by account. It's the single source of truth for a company's finances, assuming someone entered everything correctly.
Financial contracts obligating parties to buy or sell assets at predetermined future dates and prices, essentially allowing traders to bet on tomorrow's commodity prices today. These derivatives let farmers hedge against price drops and speculators gamble on market movements without ever touching an actual bushel of wheat. The futures market adds liquidity and price discovery to markets while giving financial news anchors something to dramatically discuss at market close.
The difference between the present value of cash inflows and outflows over time, discounted because a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow—thank you, inflation and opportunity cost. If it's positive, invest; if negative, run away.
The annual fee expressed as a percentage that mutual funds and ETFs charge for the privilege of managing your money. It seems small until you realize how much that 1% compounds against you over decades.
Money given to organizations or individuals, usually with more strings attached than a marionette convention and enough paperwork to deforest a small nation. Unlike loans, grants don't require repayment—just your soul, quarterly reports, and the ability to justify every pencil purchase. In the nonprofit and academic worlds, securing grants is essentially a full-time job that determines whether your actual job continues to exist.
Costs incurred but not yet paid, recorded as liabilities on the balance sheet because accrual accounting insists on acknowledging unpleasant realities before the bills arrive. Financial statements' way of saying 'don't get too excited, you owe money.'
Abbreviated slang for cryptocurrency, used by people too busy day-trading Dogecoin to type out the full word. It's the linguistic equivalent of buying low and selling lower while pretending you understand blockchain technology.
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.
In finance, the prudent strategy of spreading your investments across multiple assets so you can lose money in several different ways simultaneously instead of just one. It's the investing equivalent of not putting all your eggs in one basket, which sounds wise until you realize you now have twelve baskets to worry about. Portfolio managers love to brag about how diversified they are, right up until everything crashes at the same time anyway.