Capital & Conflict Editor

Like all innovations, cryptocurrencies were dragged into the investment world. It has turned curious university students into multi-millionaires by surprise. It ruined investors caught up in the craze when the price crashed on many occasions. There’s no question bitcoin regularly goes…

What are Treasuries? Treasuries are the common name for the United States Treasury securities. These are government debt instruments issued to finance the national debt of the US, the equivalent of British gilts or German bunds. US Treasuries are considered…

What is fiscal policy? Fiscal policy refers to ways of using government revenue collection, namely taxes, and spending it with the aim of influencing the economy. By altering the levels of taxation and public expenditure, a government’s goal is to…

What is a swap? A swap is a derivative in which two parties exchange financial instruments, in most cases involving cash flows between them. These cash flows are calculated over a notional principal amount. Each cash flow is commonly referred…

What is a defensive stock? A defensive stock is a type of stock that generates a constant dividend and stable earnings independently of the state of the stockmarket performance. Defensive stocks are typical of firms that produce or distribute consumer…

What is correlation? In the finance and investment industries, correlation is a statistic that measures the degree to which two securities move in relation to each other. Correlation is computed into what is known as the correlation coefficient, which has…

What is deleveraging? Deleveraging is when a firm or individual aims to decrease its total financial leverage. The simplest way for achieving deleverage is to pay off any existing debt on its balance sheet. When this is not possible, the…

What is a short in finance? In finance, short selling, shorting or going short is the practice of selling any financial instruments or securities without owning them, and subsequently repurchasing them after their price decline, obtaining profits off the price…

What is private equity and how does it work? In finance, a private equity is a way of raising investment capital from high net worth individuals and institutions for the purpose of investing and acquiring equity ownership in companies. A…

There are many ways to invest in gold, from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to gold stocks, but the simplest way is to just buy physical gold – or bullion – outright. But what’s the best way to invest in gold bullion? We…

What is a CFD trade? In finance, a contract for difference, or CFD, is a type of financial derivative that allows traders to profit from movements in asset prices. Speculations on prices moving up are known as long positions, and…

What is a ‘handle’ in trading? In trading, a handle is the whole number part of a price quote, disregarding the decimal. For example, if a quote for a stock is £78.42, the handle will be £78. Traders often refer…

What is the DAX? The Deutscher Aktienindex, commonly referred to as the DAX index, or simply DAX, is a blue-chip stockmarket index consisting of the 30 largest German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Big names like Adidas, BMW,…

What is Deflation? In economics, deflation is a sustained decrease in the prices of goods and services and a contraction in the supply of circulated money within an economy. It is the opposite of inflation – in fact, deflation only…

What is Money Supply? The ‘money supply’ is the total amount of monetary assets available, like currency in circulation and demand deposits convertible into cash, in an economy at a specific time. This definition may vary, as sometimes it is…

What is liquidity? In economics, liquidity refers to the amount of cash, cash equivalents or other assets that can be converted into cash without difficulty. Money, or cash, is the most liquid asset out there. It can be easily exchanged…

What is a dividend? In finance, dividends are company profits that are paid to its shareholders. Usually, they can be distributed as cash deposited into a bank account (cash dividend) or in the form of further shares (stock dividend), if…

What is Volatility? In finance, volatility refers to the fluctuation of an asset or financial instrument’s price over time, measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns. Volatility quantifies the variations in the price of a commodity, currency, index or…

What is an Index? In finance, an index is a statistical indicator for a change in value of a securities market. It is computed by weighting the prices of all stocks or bonds within a certain sector in order to…

What is an option? In finance, an option is a contract that gives the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a quantity of an asset or instrument – be that a bond, commodity, stock, or currency –…

What is a Bond Yield? A bond yield is the return that an investor expects when buying a bond. A commonly used term is “yield to maturity” (YTM). The YTM is expressed as a figure which takes into account the…

What is Quantitative Easing? Quantitative easing (QE) is a radical form of monetary policy where a central bank generates new money electronically to purchase financial assets, such as government bonds. The aim is to increase private sector spending to stimulate…

What is a Moving Average? Moving averages, also known as rolling averages or running averages, are a way of examining an asset’s price action while ignoring short term noise. They let an investor look at the general direction of an…

What is spread betting? Spread betting is a way of making a profit from the price action of an asset, like a share, an index (such as the FTSE 100), or even a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin without ever owning the…

What is Leverage? In finance, leverage refers to the use of borrowed funds to purchase an asset, with the aim that its price appreciation and/or income it generates after taxes from the asset will exceed the borrowing cost. Leveraging is…

What is an investment trust? An investment trust is a public limited company. Its goal is to invest and generate a return for its shareholders, through the supervision of a fund manager. Investment trust shares can be purchased and sold…

What is the cost-to-income ratio? In finance, the cost-to-income ratio (also called the cost/income ratio or C/I ratio) is the measure of the costs of running a company in relation to its operating income. It is an important financial tool,…