99 Investment Terminology for Beginners

Read this 99 common investment terminology for beginners to expand your vocabulary in finance, investing, stocks, real estate and banking. In investing, sometimes you need to know different investment terms used by many financial or investment analyst. To succeed in investing, a simple “know-how” is fine. The key to successful investing isn’t how much you know, it’s not how much investment terminologies you know, but how much money and time you want to take risks and how willing are you to apply what you have learned. There are many investment terms you should know. Some are common (familiar) and some are uncommon or unfamiliar words. These terminologies can be used when studying an investment opportunity. In accounting and finance career, these lists of words are also be useful. When I am new to investment world, there are only few words I am familiar with. The words I am familiar with are return on investment, dividends, assets, profits, yield and risks. And those words are my stepping stone to start investing in stocks.

The list starts from A-Z. There are 99 investment terminology for beginners written here useful for stock market investing, mutual funds, bonds, real estate, savings account, retirement accounts and taxes. I will provide list of terminologies useful in studying the insurance industry. If you are an insurance agent, these lists may help you. Wait for the list of insurance terms in my next post.

Start searching the meaning and definition of these investment and financial terms. If you have an accounting book, these words have been defined on your book glossary.

Image Credit: Kit on Creative Commons 2.0 – The Worlds Smallest Dictionary

99 Common Investment Terminology for Beginners You Should Familiar With

1. Adjusted Gross Income
2. Annual Percentage Rate
3. Annuity
4. Asset Allocation
5. Asset-Management Accounts
6. Assets
7. Balance Sheet
8. Balanced Funds
9. Bear Market
10. Bond Buyer Municipal Bonds
11. Bond Rating (Debt Rating)
12.  Break the Buck
13.  Brokerage Firm
14.  Book Value
15.  Bull Market
16. Capital Gain
17.  Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
18. Charitable Lead Trust
19. Charitable Remainder Trust
20. Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC)
21. Closed-End Funds
22. Closing Costs
23. Compounding (see compound interest)
24. Conservation Easement
25. Convertible Bonds
26. Credit-Shelter or Bypass Trust
27. Disclaimer Trusts
28. Diversification
29. Dividend Yield
30. Dollar-Cost Averaging
31. Dow Jones Average
32. Earnings Yield
33. Expense Ratio
34. Federal Funds Rate
35. Federal Open Market Committee
36. Flexible Spending Account
37. 401k Plan
38. 403b Plan
39. Futures Contract
40. General-Obligation Bond
41. Generation Skipping Trust
42. Growth
43. Guaranteed Investment Contracts
44. Guaranteed-Replacement-Cost Average
45. Hard Assets
46. Hedge and Hedge Fund
47. Home-Equity Debt
48. Index Funds’
49. Individual Retirement Account (IRA)
50.  Initial Public Offering (IPO)
51. Junk Bonds
52. Liabilities
53. Liquidity
54. Living Trust
55. Load Funds
56. Loan-to-Value Ratio
57. Margin Debt
58. Marginal Tax Rate
59. Market Timing
60. Market-Value Coverage
61. Money Market Account
62. Money Market Fund
63. Municipal Bonds
64. Mutual Funds
65. NASDAQ Composite
66. NASDAQ Stock Market
67. NASD – National Association of Securities Dealers
68. Net Asset Value (NAV)
69.  Net Worth
70. No-Load Funds
71. Option
72. Penny Stocks
73. Pension Maximization
74. PFS Personal Financial Specialist
75. Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
76. Price –to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
77. Prime Rate
78. PMI Private Mortgage Insurance
79.  Profit-Sharing Plan
80. QDOT Qualified Domestic Trust
81. QPRT Qualified Personal Residence Trust
82. Q-TIP Qualified Terminable Interest Property Trust
83. REITs Real Estate Investment Trusts
84. Revenue Bond
85. Risk
86. Russell 2000
87. Sector Funds
88. SEC Securities and Exchange Commission
89. S&P 500 Standard & Poor’s 500
90. Stock Split
91. Total Return (also Return On Investment)
92. Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds
93. Unified Credit
94. Unit Investment Trust
95. Value Investing
96. Willshire 500 Index
97. Wrap Account
98. Yield
99. Zero Coupon Bond

Readers of Return On Investment blog (InvestmentTotal.com) are familiar with the other investment terms. I defined some of the investment words like “capital gain”, “stock split”, “return on investment”, “meaning of investment”, etc.

Stay tune to investmenttotal.com for more important vocabulary words used in investing. From time to time, I will write about the meaning and definition of this list of investment terms. Happy investing!