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What does “Breaking the Buck” mean? Breaking the buck means that a money market fund’s value has dropped to less than $1. This happens becaus...

What is Collateralized Mortgage Obligation (CMO)? A CMO is a mortgage bond that consists of a large number of different individual mortgages bundle...

What is Above Full Employment Equilibrium? Above Full Employment Equilibrium happens when an economy is basically doing more than it realistically...

What is a High Alpha Investor? A high alpha investor invests in securities with alpha values of 1 or higher. This means that the mutual fund or sto...

Maturity is, quite simply, the date when a debt becomes due. As for our maturity, well... we're still giggling about the word "due."

When a bond is secured, it means it's protected, i.e. there are assets that would be forfeited if repayment is not made. When it's unsecured... it'...

What is Counterparty Risk? Counterparty risk is the risk to either party within a transaction that the other will not or be unable to abide by the...

What are Bond Anticipation Notes (BANS), Revenue Anticipation Notes (RANS), and Tax Anticipation Notes (TANS)? BANS, RANS and TANS are all short-te...

What do you need to retire? Retirement - think: 401k, pension fund, IRA, roth IRA, etc. All of these savings socked away while you worked hard are...

What is an Agency Bond? Agencies bonds are issued by government agencies, not the treasury. The typical government bonds (T-bills, T-notes, and suc...

What is the primary market? Hit play to find out.

Term to maturity is kind of the life cycle of a bond, but luckily for the bond, it gets to skip puberty.

What is Contingent Liability? Contingent liability refers to a possible liability in the future contingent upon some other event being the trigger....

Power of attorney refers to the authorization to conduct business on legal and financial matters on behalf of another party. So...choose wisely.

Repossession is what happens when you can't make payments on a loan. It's only slightly less terrifying than demonic possession.

"Investment grade" indicates the quality of an investment. If it's investment grade, it's, well...worth investing in. Highly rated, and not too risky.

What are lenders? Lenders are parties which can be individuals, groups or institutions that are engaged in making liquid funds that they either own...

Subsidies are government donations given to industries who cannot operate profitably with the goal of keeping American citizens employed on the tax...

Painting the tape is an illegal way to manipulate stock prices. And yes, it’s still illegal, even if you paint it super pretty.

When-issued is a trading condition that applies to structural changes in companies that result in a new entity with its own set of trading rules.