Key Terms

10-K- A comprehensive summary report of a company's performance that must be submitted annually to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Typically, the 10-K contains much more detail than the annual report. It includes information such as company history, organizational structure, equity, holdings, earnings per share, subsidiaries, etc.

Bear- An investor who believes that a particular security or market is headed downward. Bears attempt to profit from a decline in prices. Bears are generally pessimistic about the state of a given market.
 
Bull- An investor who thinks the market, a specific security or an industry will rise.

Dividend- A distribution of a portion of a company's earnings, decided by the board of directors, to a class of its shareholders.

Dow Jone Industrial Average (DJIA)- The DJIA is a price-weighted average of 30 significant stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq.  It was invented by Charles Dow back in 1896.

Initial Public Offering (IPO)- The first sale of stock by a private company to the public. IPOs are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking the capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately owned companies looking to become publicly traded.

Insider Trading- The buying or selling of a security by someone who has access to material, nonpublic information about the security.

Pig- An investor who is often seen as greedy, having forgotten his or her original investment strategy to focus on securing unrealistic future gains. After experiencing a gain, these investors often have very high expectations about the future prospects of the investment and, therefore, do not sell their position to realize the gain.

Preferred Stock-  A class of ownership in a corporation that has a higher claim on the assets and earnings than common stock. Preferred stock generally has a dividend that must be paid out before dividends to common stockholders and the shares usually do not have voting rights.

Pullback- A falling back of a price from its peak. This type of price movement might be seen as a brief reversal of the prevailing upward trend, signaling a slight pause in upward momentum.

Quote- The last price at which a security or commodity traded, meaning the most recent price on which a buyer and seller agreed and at which some amount of the asset was transacted.

Short Selling- The selling of a security that the seller does not own, or any sale that is completed by the delivery of a security borrowed by the seller. Short sellers assume that they will be able to buy the stock at a lower amount than the price at which they sold short.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500)- An index of 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry grouping, among other factors. The S&P 500 is designed to be a leading indicator of U.S. equities and is meant to reflect the risk/return characteristics of the large cap universe.  It is a market value weighted index - each stock's weight is proportionate to its market value.

Stock- A type of security that signifies ownership in a corporation and represents a claim on part of the corporation's assets and earnings.

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