Investing glossary
Look up a term or revisit a topic. Each short definition links to the explanation or example that shows how it works.
Revisit a topic
- Money and returns
Income, changing capital and purchasing power.
Read - Risk and portfolio construction
Losses, diversification and money available for a goal.
Read - Investment instruments and funds
What you own, who owes you and what a fund holds.
Read - Costs, prices and tracking
Quotes, trading costs and the cost of holding investments.
Read - Currencies and investment infrastructure
Currency exposure, hedging and custody arrangements.
Read - Evidence and investor behaviour
What the evidence supports and how decisions go astray.
Read - Bonds and interest-rate risk
Promised payments, yields and sensitivity to rates.
Read - Portfolio constructions and derivatives
Capital, exposure, collateral and contractual obligations.
Read - Additional assets and factor strategies
Different claims, return sources and selection rules.
Read - Withdrawals and spending
Payment rules, income dates and the capital left invested.
Read
Find a term A–Z
TER (total expense ratio) and OCF (ongoing charges figure) describe fund costs under different disclosure rules. Check what each figure includes; their coverage is not universally identical.
Try duration, TER or real estate investment trust.
A
B
C
- CAGRSee Annualised return and CAGR
- Callable bond
- Capital call
- Capital commitment
- Capital gain or loss
- Cash bucket
- Cash sweep
- Cash-backed futures exposure
- Collateral
- Commission
- Compounding
- Concentration risk
- Confirmation bias
- Contango
- Contribution
- Correlation
- Counterparty risk
- Coupon
- Credit rating
- Credit risk
- Crypto custody
- Cumulative return
- Currency conversion cost
- Currency exposure
- Currency hedge
- Current yield
- Custodian
D
E
F
G
H
I
- In-sample and out-of-sample
- Index
- Index fund
- Inflation and purchasing power
- Inflation-adjusted withdrawal
- Inflation-linked bond
- Initial capitalSee Principal (initial capital)
- Initial margin
- Interest-rate risk
- Interval fund
- Investing
- Investment factor
- Investment income
- Investment-grade bond
- Investor compensation
- IRRSee Money-weighted return (MWR)
- ISIN
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
- Safe withdrawal rate (research)
- Saving
- Secured debt
- Selection bias
- Sequence-of-returns risk
- Settlement
- Share (company)See Stock (share)
- Share class
- Size factor
- Speculation
- Spending currency
- Spending flexibility
- Spot price
- Spread (bid–ask)
- Stablecoin
- Staking
- Stock (share)
- Subcustodian
- Subordinated debt
- Survivorship bias
T
- Target-maturity bond fund
- Tax residence
- TERSee Expense ratio and ongoing charges
- Ticker
- Time horizon
- Time-weighted return (TWR)
- Total cost of ownership
- Total return
- Track record
- Tracking difference
- Tracking error
- Trading currency
- Transaction costs
- Treasury bill
- Trend following
- Turnover
- TWRSee Time-weighted return (TWR)