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What is a warrant? Hit play to find out.

Rights offerings are essentially hostile takeover defenses. Unfortunately, they're not as cool as swords and shields.

What is speculation? Speculation refers to a high risk, high reward scenario in investing. When an investor engages in a speculation, they take on...

What is Disinflation? Disinflation is a term used for an interim slowdown of inflation rate. For example, a reduction of inflation growth from 3.5%...

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 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 is Arbitrage? Arbitrage is a trading strategy used to make risk-free money. The investor buys a security in one market and sells it in another...

What is interest? In order to create an incentive for a lender, a borrower usually repays debt with interest, a percentage of overpayment for the l...

What is a Business Cycle? A business cycle refers to the ups and downs in GDP or output over a period of time. Business cycles show times when the...

A REIT is a mini-mutual fund for real estate investments. Aw. Sounds cute.

What is ordinary income versus long-term gain income? Hit play to find out.

NAV isn't a cool new navigation app...it's how mutual fund shares are valued or priced at the end of each trading day.

What is a Holding Company? A holding company is a company that controls enough voting stake in another company to have control over operations. Usu...

What are the types of income tax? Federal income tax. State income tax. Real estate tax. Value Added Tax (VAT). Some tax is progressive, some tax i...

What is Capital Gains Tax? Capital gain taxes are taxes collected by the IRS on trading profits from investments in equities, real estate, or any o...

What is tax loss carry-forward? We promise it's a real thing, not just a bunch of words strung together.

What is term life insurance, and variable life insurance? Hit play to find out, and, uh...let's hope you live long enough to figure out the answers.

What are operating profits, net profits and gross profits? Profits for a company can be calculated several different ways depending on what metric...

What are systematic and unsystematic risk? Take a risk on this video and hit play.

A wrap account is an account that wraps into one annual fee all of the services you'd normally pay for a la carte at a given brokerage.

An omnibus account is an investment account in which a collection of investors have invested their capital to own a pro rata share of that cooperative investment. Either that, or it’s a lot of buses.

In trying to assess the value of a company, market capitalization refers to the number of stock shares times the stock price. Perceived value in this case is predicated upon the price that buyers are willing to pay for the stock in the market. When referring to equity, it is a more detailed calculation of worth, as it subtracts liabilities from assets to determine the company’s break up value, i.e, if everything in the company had to be sold. An analogy would be what a diamond necklace might be worth at an auction at Sotheby’s vs. its breakup individual stone value per karat weight at a pawnshop jeweler.

What is recapitalization? Pay attention the first time, there won't be a recap.

What is inflation, and if we poke it with a pin, will it pop?

What is the process of a loan? Collateral. Do you have it? The bank lending you money wants to be sure that A) they get paid back, and B) they charge you enough rent or interest on the money you are borrowing such that it matches the risk the bank is taking.

What is Discounted Cash Flow? Discounted Cash Flow is a model that’s used to determine the value of an investment or company. It’s pretty complicated, so it’s not the first thing most people would consider calculating when deciding whether or not to make an investment. It also uses future cash flow predictions, so it is a bit helpful when estimating growth. If it’s found that the expected future cash flows will create an increase in value as compared to current value, it’s probably a good investment.

With a reverse mortgage, payments go in the opposite direction of a normal mortgage, where you pledge your home as an asset, and receive $ each month.

What is a mortgage? A mortgage is a loan on property. Obviously not many individuals, or companies for that matter, can or want to pay cash for their homes or business buildings, so mortgages exist. They act like other loans, in that banks charge interest on them. A typical home mortgage lasts 30 years and can have a wide range of interest rates depending on the owner’s ability to pay back the loan, as is standard in any loan. If someone owns a house or building, they almost always have a mortgage.

What is Debt-to-EBITDA? Debt to EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is a ratio that calculates Debt to net earnings before the accountants step in. EBITDA divided into debt gives a very quick estimate of a borrower’s ability to service debt principal as then interest can quickly be calculated and debt is deductible against taxes.

What is Capital Gains Distribution? Owners of equity based mutual funds which are successful in investing will inevitably be the recipients of their prorated portion of trading profits in the form of capital gains distributions. These gains are subject to capital gains taxes, and may be in the form of cash or additional shares.

What are Carrying Charges? Unlike with electronic ledger or paper certificate stocks and bonds, trading in commodities at the end of the day have a tangible and often container sized shipment asset that requires storage, insurance, and possibly interest if funds are borrowed until the contract is due. These additional costs above the actual commodity itself are called the Carrying Charges.

How does depreciation affect taxes? Depreciation accounts for a company’s assets losing their value over time. Companies are able to factor this in when calculating their taxable income, which leads to them paying less in taxes.

Double declining balance sheet depreciation is a structure of formula under which companies assess the depreciating value of an asset that loses value.

What does it mean to die intestate, and have your estate go into probate? Whatever it means, it'd make a decent rhyme in a financial rap.

What is a Bubble? In markets and economic cycles, any kind of rapid run up trend characterized by over exuberance and emotion over fundamentals that is followed by a collapse and subsequent contraction is called a bubble. The analogy is not unlike that of a soap bubble: it expands rapidly and its fragility inevitably leads to the bubble bursting when it gets too large.

Who invests in stocks? 401k plans, pension funds, institutional investors, banks, traders, clients of Schwab, Fidelity, and Franklin. Joe Blow buys stocks. It's likely you own stocks. They are the retirement investment vehicle of the masses.

What rights does a public stockholder have? Common shareholders elect the board of directors. They vote. They have the right to quarterly financial disclosures in GAAP. 10Qs, 10Ks, annual reports... audited... are all obligations of the company.

A residual claim to assets is a preferred stock investor's right to the financial remains of a company that's... gone the way of the dodo.

What is the Free Rider Problem? The free rider problem occurs when people take more than their contributed fair share of a common resource. In the case of public services that are supported by taxpayer dollars, such as schools, medical treatment, and food stamps, those that do not pay any taxes who collect on these services are essentially free riding.

How are interest rates determined? In short, the Federal Reserve plays the main role in determining interest rates. To do this, they use information from the economy and banks. When banks set their interest rates, they look at factors like the borrower’s ability to pay back the loan and inflation risk.