- Accumulation units
- Fund units that reinvest dividends automatically rather than paying them out.
- Asset allocation
- How a portfolio is split between shares, bonds, cash and other assets.
- Bear market
- A fall of 20% or more from a recent high.
- Blue chip
- A large, established company with a long record.
- Bond
- A loan to a government or company that pays interest.
- Bull market
- A sustained period of rising prices.
- Capital gain
- The profit from selling an asset for more than you paid.
- Compounding
- Earning returns on previous returns, the engine of long-term growth.
- Dividend
- A cash payment from a company's profits to shareholders. See dividends.
- Dividend yield
- Annual dividends per share divided by the share price.
- Earnings per share (EPS)
- A company's profit divided by the number of shares.
- ETF
- Exchange-traded fund: a fund whose shares trade on an exchange like a stock.
- Ex-dividend date
- Buy on or after this date and you do not receive the next dividend.
- Expense ratio
- A fund's annual running cost as a percentage of assets; also called the ongoing charge.
- Index
- A measure of a group of securities, such as the S&P 500.
- Index fund
- A fund that aims to match the return of an index.
- IPO
- Initial public offering: when a company first sells shares to the public.
- Limit order
- An order to buy or sell only at a set price or better.
- Liquidity
- How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving the price.
- Market capitalisation
- Share price multiplied by the number of shares; a company's market value.
- Market order
- An order to trade immediately at the best available price.
- P/E ratio
- Share price divided by earnings per share.
- Pip
- The standard unit of movement in a currency pair. See the pip calculator.
- Portfolio
- All the investments a person holds.
- Rebalancing
- Adjusting holdings back to a target mix. See diversification.
- Sector
- A group of companies in the same industry, such as healthcare or energy.
- Share buyback
- When a company buys its own shares, reducing the number outstanding.
- Spread
- The gap between buying and selling prices.
- Stablecoin
- A crypto token designed to track a currency. See USDT.
- Stock split
- Dividing each share into several, lowering the price per share without changing total value.
- Ticker
- The short code that identifies a listed security.
- Total return
- Price change plus reinvested dividends.
- Volatility
- How much a price moves up and down over time.
- Withholding tax
- Tax deducted at source on dividends paid to foreign investors.