A Bad Bank refers to a special bank which a government agency typically establishes in order to purchase the failing loans from one or more banks that possess a large number of non-performing assets. They purchase these at the market price in order to not wreck the bank. Through the action of transferring such toxic assets from the institution’s balance [...]

Bad Credit refers to the results of failing to stay current on credit agreements. In practice it leads to an incapability of being approved on new lines of personal (or business) credit. It usually results because the individuals or businesses in question have failed to pay prior credit obligations or loans in a timely fashion. It could also mean that [...]

Bad debts are those accounts receivable that simply can not be collected. Once businesses make the determination that they are not likely to be able to collect on such sums, then they actually write these off as complete losses for the company. A debt is not typically deemed to be un-collectable until every effort within reason has been made to [...]

Bailouts prove to be the action of handing money or other capital to a company, individual, or nation that will likely go down without help. This is done in an effort to keep the entity from financial insolvency, bankruptcy, or total failure. Sometimes bankruptcies are pursued to permit an organization to fail without panic, so that fear and systemic failure [...]

The balance of payments refers to a statement whose purpose is to explain the transactions of an economy with the other countries of the world. Such a statement covers a particular time frame. This is also referred to as the balance of international payments. It covers every transaction that occurs between the inhabitants of the nation with the remainder of [...]

Balance of Trade refers to a nation’s difference between the value of its exports and imports in a particular time frame. It also represents the biggest part of the nation’s BOP balance of payments. Economists often utilize the BOT as their statistical tool for grasping the comparative strength of any national economy against another national economy. It also helps them [...]

Balance Sheet refers to a corporate financial statement. The purpose of it is to thoroughly summarize the liabilities, assets, and shareholders’ equity in the firm at a fixed moment in time. The statement provides a revealing glimpse into the things the corporation owns and the money it owes, along with the total amount which shareholders have invested in the going [...]

The phrase balanced budget refers to the scenario within the world of financial planning or a government budgeting in which the aggregate revenues prove to be greater than or at least equal to the total expenses. Government budgets are called balanced after the fact, once a complete year’s expenses and revenues have been tallied up and reconciled. A firm’s operating [...]

A balloon loan is a kind of loan that does not divide its payments up evenly throughout the life of the loan. These kinds of loans are not fully amortized over the loan’s term. As a result of this, one time balloon payments are mandatory at the end of the loan’s time frame in order to pay off the loan’s [...]

Banco Santander is the largest Spanish banking group in the world. This giant financial institution boasts over 121 million customers among its various divisions. Founded in 1856, it maintains a staff of over 193,000 employees. For 2015, the group boasted a nearly six billion euros profit and a market capitalization of over 65.5 billion euros. Banco Santander and the entire [...]

The Bank for International Settlements proves to be the oldest entity in the world for international financial organization. Central banks of the world established this bank on May 17 of 1930. Today 60 different central banks are members of this bank of central banks. Their economies represent 95% of all the combined Gross Domestic Product of the globe. This Bank [...]

A bank note refers to a promissory note that can be negotiated by the bank which issues it. The holders of such bank notes will be paid on demand. The face of the note in question states the amount which is payable. As with coins, bank notes represent legal tender. They make up the modern forms of money along with [...]

The Bank of England is the prestigious and incredibly old central bank for the United Kingdom. The country founded this model central bank in 1694 to promote the good of the individuals in the U.K. through maintaining both monetary as well as financial stability. The bank is often affectionately referred to as the “Old Lady” of Threadneedle Street. The bank [...]

The Bank of Japan is the name of the central bank in Japan. The Bank of Japan Act established this entity. Unlike a number of central banks, Japan’s central bank is neither a private corporation nor a government agency. The bank has several key objectives. These are to create and issue the country’s banknotes, to handle monetary and currency control, [...]

A bank run is an event that happens when a bank or financial institution’s customers choose to withdraw all of their deposits at the same time. This happens because of fears of the solvency of a particular bank. The effect is like a snowball. The more individuals who pull out their funds the greater the default probability becomes. This in [...]

Bank stress tests are special analyses that a government authority or company runs to determine the strength of a bank to resist difficult economic times. They conduct such tests using economic conditions that are unfavorable to learn if the banks possess sufficient capital to survive the effects of negative financial environments. In the United States, the law requires that banks [...]

Bankruptcy is a term that refers to the elimination or restructuring of a person or company’s debt. Three principal different types of bankruptcy filing are available. These are the personal bankruptcy options of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 filings, and the business bankruptcy restructuring option of Chapter 11. Individuals avail themselves of Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings when [...]

Barclays is a British based banking giant that calls its twin home markets both the United Kingdom and the United States. The bank is well known as a transatlantic consumer, investment, and corporate bank that provide financial services and products through investment, corporate, personal banking, wealth management, and credit cards. The banking group’s goal is to concentrate on its core [...]

The Barings Bank collapse is a tale of tragedy involving greed, poor banking oversight, and a complete failure of internal checks and balances that ruined the oldest bank in London and banker to the Queen. It took only several weeks for Nick Leeson the Singapore trading head of the bank to amass hundreds of millions of pounds in losses which [...]

Barristers are one of two types of lawyers used in many systems for different functions in the case law and courts arenas. The other designation of lawyer is a solicitor. Barristers’ roles prove to be one of simply representing clients as their personal advocate in the courts of the appropriate jurisdiction. Barristers’ duties include actually speaking in court. Here, they [...]

Barron’s refers to the weekly American-based newspaper that the Dow Jones & Company has published since 1921. It was then that the founder Clarence Barron launched the popular feature of American business which to this day still covers American market developments, financial information, and applicable supporting statistics. Every weekly issue delivers both an effective summary of the past week’s stock [...]

Barter is a concept that pre-dates the invention of money. It proves to be the practice of trading goods, products, or services for other such products, services, and goods. Barter is a simpler way of transacting business, commonly without using money. Although money systems have been in existence and well established for several thousand years, bartering for things as a [...]

Bear markets are periods in which stock markets drop for an extended amount of time. These pullbacks typically run to twenty percent or even greater amounts of the underlying stock values. Bear markets are the direct opposites of bull markets, when prices rise for extended amounts of time. Bear markets and their accompanying drastic drops in stock share prices are [...]

Bear Stearns was formerly among the biggest important securities trading outfits within the United States. At one point it boasted a total asset base of almost $400 billion. The investment bank pursued a wide variety of financial activities. Among these were the clearing and trading of derivatives and securities, investment banking, brokerage account services, and creating and packaging up residential [...]

Ben Bernanke served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors from February 1, 2006 until January 31, 2014. As the successor to former Chairman Alan Greenspan, Bernanke received his Congressional approval because of his expertise in the failed monetary policies led to the Great Depression and for his ideology of targeting inflation. Bernanke left many legacies from [...]

Benchmarking is a practice favored across many different industries and individual corporations. It refers to the idea of making a comparison between one’s own company, processes, and operations against competing businesses within the entire market or only the businesses’ own sector of the market. Companies can carry out this activity utilizing processes, products, approaches, or functions. There are a range [...]

Benjamin Graham was born in 1894 in London, the then British Empire to an importer. When he was still young, his family moved to the United States to open up an import business. Despite his father dying shortly thereafter and his mother subsequently losing the family savings in 1907 to a financial crisis, Graham excelled in school and attended Columbia [...]

Berkshire Hathaway represents the multinational American holding company that has been ranked among the largest five publically traded companies in the world by Forbes magazine. The conglomerate investment company has been controlled by Warren Buffet since the mid 1960s. Its headquarters are found in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally Berkshire Hathaway was involved with manufacturing textiles and cotton manufacturing. Its roots go [...]

Bernard Madoff used to be a nationally famous and admired stock broker and investment advisor. In the end, it turned out that he oversaw a multibillion dollar empire which he ran as an elaborate and far-flung Ponzi scheme. Madoff is presently serving out a 150 year prison sentence for his crimes in this endeavor. Bernard Madoff was born in Queens, [...]

The BG Group, or British Gas group, was once the largest multinational gas company headquartered in Britain. It was based in Reading, England. The company became acquired via an agreement announced on April 8th of 2015 by Royal Dutch Shell to take the company over in a friendly acquisition which saw 19% of the stock in the newly combined entity [...]

The Big Oil Super-majors are the six to eight companies which oil analysts utilize to talk about the world’s biggest publically owned gas and oil corporations. They are often just called the super-majors, oil majors, or big oil. Today’s super-majors are the following: British based BP plc and Royal Dutch Shell plc, American based Exxon Mobile Corporation and Chevron Corporation, [...]

Binary Options are a fairly new means of trading on the financial markets in the United States. They became a legal vehicle within the U.S. only back in 2008. Since then, they have rapidly evolved into what is now one of the quickest and simplest means of trading. These options are different from most other forms of trading since participants [...]

In the two party system found in the United States and other countries around the world, Bi-partisan signifies any resolution, act, or bill, as well as any action taken by a political governing body, where the two major political parties agree on the item or action in question. Compromises between two parties are referred to as bi-partisan when they bring [...]

Bitcoin Cash refers to the first split from the legendary crypto-currency market leading Bitcoin block chain. On August 1st the splinter group created its new crypto-currency Bitcoin Cash. The developer of this rival to the original behemoth is Calin Culianu. He explains that there are two principle noteworthy changes to the new bitcoin. These are an increase in the size [...]

The Bitcoin Crash refers to one of five different incidents when the decade old crypto-currency saw its prices plunge off a cliff, sometimes by more than 50 percent in only two trading days. The most recent crash in the BTC has happened in 2017. In this spectacular crisis of the world’s greatest and leading crypto-currency, the BTC price plunged from [...]

Bitcoin is the name of a new electronic currency. An unknown individual who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto created this currency in 2009. This world’s first widespread virtual currency appeals to many individuals because there are no banks or governments involved in issuing, trading, spending, or processing the transactions. There are also no transaction fees involved. Owners do not have to [...]

Black Monday refers to three separate stock market crashes that coincidentally happened on Mondays. These were the crashes of October 19 in 1987, the one on October 28 in 1929, and the stock market correction crash of August 24 in 2015. The Black Monday in 1987 proves to be the most common reference for the phrase. It was the biggest [...]

Black Thursday began the stock market crash of 1929. That Thursday saw the markets decline steeply by 11%. The following Black Monday of 1929 a few days later proved to be worse. Stocks crashed another 13% that Monday, October 28th. The following day became known as Black Tuesday as all of the remaining gains for the whole year were wiped [...]

Black Wednesday refers to September 16, 1992. This proved to be the day that Britain was forced to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism system of currency band pegs. The same day it had to allow the pound to be devalued by 15%. The catastrophe for the Bank of England and British government occurred only two years after British [...]

Blanket loans are those which cover multiple properties or parcels of land. They handle the costs for or can be secured by more than a single piece of real estate. These are most typically employed by commercial land developers or investors. For individual consumers, they can be utilized as a type of bridge between new and old properties and mortgages. [...]

Blockchain refers to a technology that serves as a means of structuring and storing data. As such it is the ultimate foundation of the revolutionary crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. The true breakthrough in coding capability permits participants to share digital ledgers back and forth over a computer network. Its genius and appeal lies in the fact that it [...]

Bloomberg is a multimedia news and financial data services provider company. It puts decision makers in touch with an enormous network of ideas, people, and information. Bloomberg rapidly deploys financial and business news, information, insight, and general news to people around the world. The company provides important decision makers with the necessary edge through financial and business information intelligence. The [...]

A blue chip stock proves to be the nickname given to a stock that belongs to a firmly established company. Blue chip stock companies commonly feature no major outstanding liabilities and incredibly stable earnings track records. These blue chips are believed to be in excellent financial condition, and are commonly referred to as safe investments. Blue chip company stocks feature [...]

BNP Paribas is the largest French-based bank in the world. It has strong roots in the banking history of Europe. Today it remains one of the leading banks on the continent and Euro zone as well as an important international banking group. The group claims 189,000 employees around the world, of which the overwhelming majority of 146,610 are based in [...]

A bond market is a financial market where investors buy and sell bonds. In practice this is mostly handled electronically over computers nowadays. There are two principal types of bond markets. These are primary markets where companies are able to sell new debt and secondary markets where investors are able to purchase and resell these debt securities. Companies generally issues [...]

Bonds are also known as debt instruments, fixed income securities, and credit securities. A bond is actually an IOU contract where the terms of the bond, interest rate, and date of repayment are all particularly defined in a legal document. If you buy a bond at original issue, then you are literally loaning the issuer money that will be repaid [...]

The book value refers to the tangible asset value of any company. Tangible value here is used to refer to any assets that can be felt, seen, or touched, such as inventory, plants, equipment, cash, offices, or properties. Because of this tangible factor to book value, it is often referred to as Net Tangible Assets. Finding a company’s book value [...]

A bookkeeper is an individual who maintains a business’ important financial records. These are typically kept in journals or ledgers format. This is where the word books derives from, which is used in the title of bookkeeper. Although bookkeepers typically engage in basic levels of accounting tasks, they are still not labeled as fully qualified accountants. This is because bookkeepers [...]

A boom is an economic expansion that happens when the economy of a country is growing at a rapid economic pace. Booms are more precisely commonly defined as periods in which the Gross Domestic Product expands at a faster rate pace than the long term economic growth trend rate. Total demand of goods and merchandise proves to be high in [...]

The Bretton Woods agreement represents the outcomes of a three week conference that the United Nations held to set up a new monetary system at the end of World War II. The U.N. organized this meeting called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference for July 1 to July 22 of 1944. They held it at Bretton Woods in New [...]

The Bretton Woods agreement failed in 1973 with President Richard Nixon unilaterally abandoning the gold standard. Other countries soon followed suit, first with Switzerland and other European nations and eventually the rest of the world. The death of the Bretton Woods agreement did not end dreams of restoring a semblance of order and low volatility to the since-then troubled currency [...]

Brexit refers to the Jun 23, 2016 referendum on the future of Britain in the European Union. The term comes from the Grexit reference to the potential for Greece to leave the Eurozone shared currency area in past years. In this historic referendum, British voters have to answer the question “Should the UK remain a member of the EU or [...]

A bridge loan is a temporary short term loan whose purpose is to help a home owner to afford to buy a new house before they are able to sell their present house. They might do this to avoid having to move into a rental in between houses. The home buyer’s existing house secure these loans.  The money that comes [...]

The British Bankers Association turns out to be the members’ representative for the biggest international banking cluster in the world. This main trade association for the British banking sector boasts over 200 member banks headquartered in both the U.K. and more than 50 other countries that run operations in over 180 jurisdictions around the globe. As such fully 80% of [...]

The British World Economic Order has also been called the Pax Britannica, or “world peace of Britain.” What is often overlooked amidst the grandeur, splendor, and sheer military power of the Empire was that it was essentially an approximately 150 year lasting economic order that held sway over most of the planet in one form or another from 1763 at [...]

Brokers are professional intermediaries that work on behalf of both a seller and a buyer. When brokers function as agents on behalf of only a buyer or seller, they become representatives and principal parties in any deal. Brokers should not be confused with agents, who instead work on the behalf of a single principal. In the financial world, there are [...]

In economic terms, a bubble is high volume levels of trade at prices that are significantly out of line with actual intrinsic values. A simpler definition is the trading of assets that have over inflated values. Bubbles are also called market bubbles, speculative bubbles, balloons, financial bubbles, and speculation mania. Prices within bubbles can vary wildly. At times, they are [...]

Budget deficits are accounting positions in which revenues are not sufficient to cover expenditures. As such they involve spending more than the entity takes in from receipts. This term is most often utilized to address government accounting and spending instead of individual or business spending. This concept can also be applied to a number of government deficits that have been [...]

A bull market is one in which an entire financial market or a select grouping of securities sees rising prices over an extended period of time. It is also used to describe a scenario in which prices are expected to rise. While the phrase bull market is most frequently utilized to address the stock markets, it can similarly reference any [...]

Bullion refers to gold, silver, platinum, or palladium that is officially government-recognized and -approved for its purity of minimally 99.5 percent by expert assayers. It generally comes in the form of either ingots or bars instead of collectible coins. Bullion is created by mining companies unearthing the precious metals then extracting them from rock either through extreme heat separation or [...]

The central bank of Germany is the Deutsche Bundesbank. The Federal Republic of Germany established it as the German central bank in 1957. The bank headquarters reside in Frankfurt in the state of Main. The bank maintains regional offices throughout nine cities in the country. These regional offices have a total of 35 different branches. This bank is different from [...]

The Bureau of Economic Analysis is also known by its acronym the BEA. It is a bureau within the United States Department of Commerce. This BEA develops and publishes statistics for economic accounts that help a variety of groups to make decisions and to understand the economic performance of the U.S. Among the parties that follow their publications and statistics [...]

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the Treasury Department entity that actually makes the United States’ currency. Their mission centers on creating and producing American currency notes which are trusted around the world. They have a vision to be considered the world standard for securities printing. This is so that they can deliver the public and their customers with [...]

Business Cycle refers to changes in economic activity which economies around the globe undergo in a certain time-frame. Such cycles are generally framed under the concepts of recession or expansion. When an economy is expanding, it is growing in true terms, which means faster than inflation. This is demonstrated with economic indicators such as industrial production, personal income levels, employment [...]