A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.
The savings and loan (S&L) crisis was a slow-moving financial disaster. The crisis came to a head and resulted in the failure of nearly a third of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States between 1986 and 1995.
Hidden taxes are taxes indirectly assessed on consumer goods without the explicitly knowledge of consumers who purchase the product. At the heart of the concept of a hidden tax is the notion that if you cannot see it, your purchasing behavior will be largely unchanged. With the advent of modern transactional systems, visibility into a variety of hidden taxes ranging from highway tolls paid using automatic transponders to music downloads is becoming more obscured.
The money market refers to trading in very short-term debt investments. At the wholesale level, it involves large-volume trades between institutions and traders. At the retail level, it includes money market mutual funds bought by individual investors and money market accounts opened by bank customers.
Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning change for the better or continuous improvement. It is a Japanese business philosophy regarding the processes that continuously improve operations and involve all employees. Kaizen sees improvement in productivity as a gradual and methodical process.
The declining balance method is an accelerated depreciation system of recording larger depreciation expenses during the earlier years of an asset’s useful life and recording smaller depreciation expenses during the asset’s later years.
A direct stock purchase plan (DSPP) is a program that enables individual investors to purchase a company’s stock directly from that company without the intervention of a broker. Some companies that offer DSPPs make the plans directly available to retail investors while others use transfer agents or other third-party administrators to handle these transactions. Such plans offer low fees and sometimes the ability to purchase shares at a discount. Not all companies offer DSPPs; and these plans may come with restrictions about when an individual may purchase shares. Such plans have lost some of their appeal over the last two decades as investing through online brokers has become less expensive and more convenient, though DSPPs still offer advantage for the long-term investor who doesn’t have much money to get started.
A trade deficit occurs when a country’s imports exceed its exports during a given time period. It is also referred to as a negative balance of trade (BOT).
A quantity discount is an incentive offered to a buyer that results in a decreased cost per unit of goods or materials when purchased in greater numbers. A quantity discount is often offered by sellers to entice customers to purchase in larger quantities.
Quarterly Income Debt Securities (QUIDS) are tradable debt instruments that pay a quarterly coupon.