Month: March 2020

External economies of scale occur outside of an individual company but within the same industry. Remember that in economics, economies of scale mean that the more units a business produces, the less it costs to produce each unit.

Net investment is the total amount of money that a company spends on capital assets, minus the cost of the depreciation of those assets. This figure provides a sense of the real expenditure on durable goods such as plants, equipment, and software that are being used in the company’s operations.

The Four Asian Tigers are the high-growth economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Fueled by exports and rapid industrialization, the Four Asian Tigers have consistently maintained high levels of economic growth since the 1960s, and have collectively joined the ranks of the world’s wealthiest nations.

A dividend recapitalization (also known as a dividend recap) happens when a company incurs a new debt in order to pay a special dividend to private investors or shareholders. This usually involves a company owned by a private investment firm, which can authorize a dividend recapitalization as an alternative to the company declaring regular dividends, based on earnings.

An outstanding check is a check payment that is written by someone, but has not been cashed or deposited by the payee. The payor is the entity who writes the check, while the payee is the person or institution to whom it is written. An outstanding check also refers to a check that has been presented to the bank but is still in the bank’s check-clearing cycle.

Uncollected funds are the amount of a bank deposit that comes from checks that have yet to be cleared by the bank from which the checks are drawn. Essentially, uncollected funds are sums of money that the bank needs to account for prior to releasing the funds to the depositor.

The ‘hot hand’ is the notion that because one has had a string of successes, an individual or entity is more likely to have continued success. For example, if one flipped a (fair) coin and guessed correctly that it would land on heads three times in a row, it might be said that they have a hot hand. Under such circumstances, a person believes that their odds of guessing which side the coin will land on next are greater than the 50% they actually are. When there is a series of failures, the same concept works as the ‘cold hand’.

A group universal life policy (GULP) is universal life insurance offered to a group that is less expensive than what is typically offered to an individual. A group universal life policy is most commonly purchased by businesses looking to provide life insurance coverage for their employees.

A high-water mark is the highest peak in value that an investment fund or account has reached. This term is often used in the context of fund manager compensation, which is performance-based. The high-water mark ensures the manager does not get paid large sums for poor performance. If the manager loses money over a period, he must get the fund above the high-water mark before receiving a performance bonus from the assets under management (AUM).