The Maastricht Treaty is the main treaty of the European Union. It was originally known as the TEU Treaty on European Union. This agreement was signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands on February 7, 1992. Members of the European Community debated it in their individual countries and then signed it. The treaty came about as an effort to fully integrate Europe [...]

Macroeconomics refers to the division within economics that concentrates its study on the workings of large national economies, or even regional economies, in their entirety. This field proves to be extremely general as a result. It is mostly concerned with big picture measurements like the rates of unemployment, as well as with the developing of models whose purpose is to [...]

The Madoff investment scam began as a legitimate stock brokerage business that ballooned into one of the largest hedge fund like structures before being discovered as the largest Ponzi scheme fraud in history. Auditors only uncovered the scam in 2008 when Bernie Madoff admitted to his sons what he had done. They promptly turned him into the authorities. At this [...]

Margin refers to a term used by companies and corporations in business. It is the spread between the firm’s product or service sales price and the cost to make it. Another way of putting this is the ratio of firm’s revenue to expenses. Margin can be utilized to refer to profit margins, operating margins, net margins, pretax profit margins, and [...]

Margin Call refers to a demand from a broker that the account holding investor (who is utilizing margin) deposit additional funds or securities in order to restore the margin account to a minimum preset maintenance margin level. This could occur with a stock, futures, or commodities margin account. Such margin calls happen as the account value falls to a ratio [...]

Margin trading is the practice of buying investments on margin. This is accomplished through borrowing money from your broker in order to buy stocks. Another way of understanding margin trading is taking out a loan from your broker to buy greater amounts of stock shares. Margin trading generally requires a margin account. Margin accounts differ from cash accounts that only [...]

Marine salvage operates as a special part of the law that has to do with the many international treaties as well as conventions that pertain to recovering goods and vessels which disappear in the sea. There are many reasons why ships and good could simply vanish in the ocean or sea. Among these is a breakdown of navigational equipment, unexpected [...]

Mario Draghi has worn many hats in his career. He is currently the Italian economist, banker, and manager who took over the role of European Central Bank President from his predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet on November 1, 2011. Before this, he has been professor, director at the World Bank, head of the Italian treasury, and board member at a number of [...]

Market capitalization refers to a company’s total value. Analysts determine it by multiplying the number of shares in existence times the price of the stock. This concept can also be utilized to measure the full value of a stock exchange. The New York Stock Exchange market capitalization would equal the value of all publicly traded companies on the exchange added [...]

Market failure refers to a scenario where rational behavior does not prevail and lead to optimal economic outcomes for the group involved. This break down occurs because the individual incentives are insufficient to lead the participants to do what is best for the greater common good. When such failure happens, every person will still make the ideal choices for himself [...]

Market sentiment refers to the all around attitude investors have with regards to a certain financial market or specific security. It is the tone and feeling in a market. This is displayed via the price movement and activity of various securities which trade in a given market. Some have called it the market crowd psychology or investor sentiment. Rising prices [...]

Market trends refer to the idea that financial markets tend to move in a given direction. Among the different types of these trends are secular, primary, and secondary kinds. Secular ones refer to longer time periods. Primary trends are those which happen over medium time frames. Secondary trends turn out to be those that occur over shorter time frames. Traders [...]

With regards to real estate, market value is the price which a real property seller can anticipate obtaining from the property purchaser in normal open and fair market negotiations. In general, appraisers value a home or other piece of real estate property utilizing a number of critical factors. When markets are volatile, such prices will vary significantly. Real estate agents [...]

In the world of business and finance, maturity stands for the last payment date of either a loan or some other form of financial instrument. It is also known as the maturity date. On this maturity date, both the outstanding principal and any remaining associated interest are owed and expected to be rendered for final payment. If they are not [...]

Mercantilism refers to the main international system of trade which the world utilized in the years ranging from the 1500s to the 1700s. The philosophers behind this trade system held the idea that the world wealth was fixed. This made trade and the acquisition of wealth a zero sum game in which there had to be a loser for every [...]

A Merger refers to a financial transaction which combines two preexisting companies into a single larger resulting firm. A few different kinds of mergers exist today. There are a variety of reasons for why companies engage in such mergers. These mergers and acquisitions often go through with an eye to extending a firm’s customer base and product reach, increasing its [...]

Merrill Lynch proves to be the global markets and commercial banking operations of Bank of American Corporation and all of its various affiliates around the world. They offer the largest network of bank branches in the United States. Among their national customer base are more than 47 million individual, business, corporate, and institutional accounts. This means that nearly one out [...]

MERS stands for the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. It is also a privately owned and operated company that maintains this electronic database and registry whose purpose is to follow the ownership of and servicing rights to American mortgage loans. This MERS represents a revolutionary way of vastly simplifying the means of keeping track of how both mortgage servicing and ownership [...]

Mezzanine Financing refers to an unusual form of hybrid financing. This is a combination of equity and debt financing which provides lenders with the opportunity to convert their ownership and equity interest in the firm. They would want to do this to protect themselves from default possibilities. They would be third in line after both venture capitalists and other types [...]

Microeconomics is an economic social science that examines the results of individual human behavior. Unlike the big picture macroeconomics, it is most concerned with how peoples’ choices impact distribution and utility of scarce economic resources. The science demonstrates and explains the ways that various goods possess different values from each other. It also considers how people engage in more productive [...]

In the United States, the Middle Class is a broadly defined social group found throughout America. There are no exact definitions of what comprises the middle class. Depending on whose standard you use, the middle class in the U.S. is made up of from twenty-five to sixty-six percent of families. The middle class in America have been responsible for many [...]

Milton Friedman proved to be one of the leading proponents of monetarism. He stood as opposition to the dominant thought of the day Keynesian economics. Today’s supporters of the ideas of free markets owe Friedman and his followers the Chicago School economists a great debt of gratitude for their successful efforts. Friedman opposed Keynes from the very beginning. Keynes had [...]

Modern portfolio theory proves to be a model for investing invented by Harry Markowtiz. He outlined many of the ideas in his 1950s book Portfolio Selection. The economist and mathematician claimed that investors could successfully reduce their amount of market risk and still maximize their portfolio returns for that given level of investments. This is actually accomplished by mixing different [...]

Monetarism is an idea that Milton Freedman developed and expounded upon. It centers on the idea found in monetary economics that money supply changes lead to huge impacts on short term national outputs and on long term price levels. It argues that the goals of monetary policy are most effectively achieved when the money supply is carefully and appropriately expanded [...]

This is one of the two tools the government has to influence the overall economy. With monetary policy, a nation’s central bank takes action to influence the economy. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Board is the central bank. They regulate the interest rates and money supply available in the country to stabilize the national currency and to control [...]

Money laundering refers to the methods for taking income from corruption and crime and turning them into legal assets. Many countries and jurisdictions have re-defined the term to focus on financial or business crime, often used to support drug dealing empires or terrorism financing. The phrase can also refer to improperly utilizing the financial system for a variety of reasons. [...]

Money Market Account refers to a type of savings account which commonly includes advantages such as a debit card and check writing privileges. Besides this, it usually has interest rates which are higher than those which normal savings accounts provide. Such money markets generally have a higher minimum account balance than the average savings accounts do. These accounts are sometimes [...]

Money market funds are investment vehicles with a unique objective of keeping a consistent NAV net asset value of $1 each share while they provide interest for their investing share holders. To accomplish this, the portfolio of a money market fund is made up of securities that are short term in nature with maturities which are under a year. These [...]

Money of zero maturity represents a way of measuring the money supply. This measurement for money which is circulating in an economy only covers money that is available to be spent and utilized. As such, this MZM is really a counting of all of the money supply that is liquid in a given economy. Individuals can figure up the money [...]

Money Purchase Plans are another type of retirement vehicle that some traditional for profit companies offer their employees. In these plans, employees and their employers both make contributions. These contributions from the employers are figured from a yearly earnings percentage. The plans are different from Profit Sharing Plans in which the annual basis of profitability determines how large the contributions [...]

Where business and economics are concerned, the money supply proves to be the complete quantity of money that is available throughout the economy at any given moment in time. Money can be defined in a few different ways. The commonly accepted definitions are comprised of both circulating currency and demand deposits. Demand deposits are the assets of depositors in banks [...]

Money Gram is the name of the money transfer firm headquartered within the U.S. in Dallas, Texas. Its full name is MoneyGram International. The company’s operations center is located in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The corporation maintains both regional and locally based offices throughout the globe. The company divides its various businesses along the lines of two different groups. These [...]

Monopolies refer to markets where a single producer or supplier controls all or nearly all of the market. This means that they have the ability to set prices for the good or service they produce. For there to be a true monopoly, there can not be any near substitutes for the product in question. The term monopoly has also come [...]

Monte dei Paschi di Sienna Bank is the oldest bank in Italy, Europe, and the world. It is also among the most important financial institutions in Italy as the third largest Italian bank. As the flagship brand of the MPS Group (Monte Paschi Sienna), it leads the domestic market and lending market in market share percentages. It trades on the [...]

Moody’s is a company that creates credit ratings, analysis, research, and tools which help to make markets easier to understand and more transparent for investors and clients around the world. Moody’s Corporation acts as parent company to the two divisions of Moody’s Investors Service and Moody’s Analytics. The Investors Service offers research and credit ratings on securities and debt instruments [...]

Morgan Stanley is one of the two major American investment banks (along with Goldman Sachs) that survived the financial crisis of 2008/2009. It is an international financial services company that has headquarters in New York City in the Morgan Stanley Building. The firm has over 1,300 offices and employs around 60,000 staff. The group has operations in 24 countries. The [...]

Mortgages are loans made on commercial or residential properties. They commonly use the house or the property itself as collateral. These mortgages are paid off in monthly installments over the course of a pre determined amount of time. Mortgages commonly come in fifteen, twenty, and thirty year periods, though both longer ones and shorter ones are available. A variety of [...]

Mortgage Backed Obligations are also called mortgage backed securities, or MBS. These are real estate-based financial instruments. They represent an ownership stake in a pool of mortgages. They can also be called a financial security or obligation for which mortgages underlie the instrument. Such a security offers one of three different means for the investor getting paid. It might be [...]

Mortgage backed securities turn out to be a special kind of asset which have underlying collections of mortgages or individual mortgages that back them. To be qualified as an MBS, the security also has to be qualified as rated in one of two top tier ratings. Credit ratings agencies determine these ratings levels. These securities generally pay out set payments [...]

A mortgage broker is a firm or sole proprietorship that performs a role as an intermediary between banks and businesses or individuals who are looking for mortgage loans. Even though banks have always vended their own mortgage products, mortgage brokers have gradually taken a larger and larger share of the loan originating market as they seek out direct lenders and [...]

Mortgage costs are fees that real estate transactions incur when it is time for them to close. The point for closing comes as the seller transfers the title to the property over to the buyer. Mortgage costs can be absorbed by the seller or the buyer. A number of different expenses go into these overall costs. The amount for mortgage [...]

Mortgage Insurance refers to a policy that helps would-be homeowners to buy a house with a smaller amount of down payment than traditional bank mortgages require upfront. It is these large typically 20 percent down payments that keep many people from the American dream of home ownership. Such insurance is also known by its popular acronym MI. Thanks to private [...]

Mortgage Modification Package refers to an agreement that reduces the homeowners’ mortgage payments and possibly overall mortgage debt when they are suffering from significant financial struggles. The idea is to help the borrowers become capable of making their loan payments. This way they can keep their home and not forfeit it in costly foreclosure proceedings. This does not mean that [...]

Mortgage servicing refers to the organization that handles the administration of a given mortgage loan. When many individuals obtain a mortgage, they mistakenly believe that their lender is going to keep and service this loan until they repay it in full or alternatively sell the house. This is not true much of the time, if not most of the time. [...]

Moving Averages are an indicator that is heavily used in technical analysis. They represent average prices spread out over a period of time. They are more useful because the changes in price action are smoothed out as any random price movements become filtered out. There are a number of different variations. Two of them prove to be the most commonly [...]

MSCI refers to an investment research company that is well known around the world. The firm is most famous for producing indices on a range of international stocks and benchmarks for other countries outside of the United States. It also engages in ascertaining performance analytics and portfolio risk. The company delivers tools for governance to hedge funds and institutional investors [...]

The MSCI EAFE is a stock market index. The acronym of EAFE means Europe, Australasia, and the Far East. It was first conceived of as a way to measure the developed equity markets of the world besides Canada and the United States. The manager of this index is MSCI Barra, whose combined indices have over $1.9 trillion in total ETFs, funds, [...]

Until 2014, Mt. Gox used to be the largest bitcoin exchange operator in the history of virtual digital currency and its poster boy bitcoin. The Japanese-based company arose in July of 2010. By the year 2013, it had grown to dominate the bitcoin exchange market by handling an astonishing 70 percent of all bitcoin transaction in the world. In less [...]

Municipal bonds prove to be counties’, cities’, and states’ debt obligations. They issue these in order to raise money against future tax revenues for building highways, schools, sewer systems, hospitals, and numerous other public welfare projects. When you as an investor buy a municipal bond, you are actually loaning a state or local government or agency money. They agree to [...]

Murray Rothbard has been called the last of the great universally influential Austrian School of Economics champions. He was a personal disciple and student of the legendary economist Ludwig von Mises, attending his lectures at New York University in the 1960s and 1970s until Mises eventual retirement and death. In 1963, Rothbard released his still widely read Man, Economy, and [...]

Mutual funds prove to be collective investment pools that are managed professionally. They derive their sometimes enormous capitals from the contributions of many different investors. These monies are then invested in a variety of investments and securities comprised of bonds, stocks, other mutual funds, money markets, and commodities like silver and gold. Mutual funds all have a fund manager. His [...]

MyRA Account is a new form of retirement plan that the government set up under the auspices of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. They intended it for workers who do not have access to any other form of retirement plan through their workplace and who do not have a convenient vehicle of their own for saving for retirement. It [...]