Glossary

Here is a list of words you might find helpful when reading about investing:

Bear Market: when stock prices are doing poorly

Bull Market: when stock prices are doing well

Dividend: profit that you earn from an investment

Dow Jones: this is the average value of a certain group of big companies. There are stock averages for other markets too.

Going public: a term that means a company has decided to sell its stock in the market

Investor: someone who puts money into stocks, bonds or other funds

IPO: Initial Public Offering, or when a company first releases its stock to sell

OTC (Over-the-Counter): These stocks are riskier and come from smaller companies. They do not qualify for the major stock exchanges, like the New York Stock Exchange.

Portfolio: your collection of investments

Rate of return: the amount of money you earn

Return: how much your money grows

Risk: how safe your money is

Share: a stock, or a piece of a company that people can buy. A company makes a share when it divides its value into pieces and sells them to investors for cash. This is another word for stock.

Stock: a piece of a company that people can buy. This is another word for share.

Wall Street: this phrase refers to the stock market, and is named after a street in New York City where all financial business used to happen. Today, most of these financial institutions have moved to other locations in New York.

Yield: the money you make (or rate of return) on an investment every year, expressed as a percentage.