A cottage industry is a small-scale, decentralized manufacturing business often operated out of a home rather than a purpose-built facility. Cottage industries are defined by the amount of investment required to start, as well as the number of people employed. They often focus on the production of labor-intensive goods but face a significant disadvantage when competing with factory-based manufacturers that mass-produce goods.
Baptism by fire is a phrase commonly used to describe a person or employee who is learning something the hard way through a challenge or difficulty. In many cases, someone who starts a new job must undergo a baptism by fire, meaning they must immediately deal with one or more difficult situations. No one is immune to a baptism of fire, which means new and old employees, members of a company’s management team and others can experience one. The phrase, which has its roots in the Bible, originated in Europe.
An incentive stock option (ISO) is a company benefit that gives an employee the right to buy stock shares at a discounted price with the added allure of a tax break on the profit. The profit on incentive stock options is taxed at the capital gains rate, not the higher rate for ordinary income.
The L share annuity class is a version of a variable annuity that starts paying out earlier than most but has relatively high administrative costs. It is designed for investors who want to be able to begin withdrawing funds from an account after a comparatively short period of time. Other share classes offered by variable annuities are A share, B share, C share, O share, and X share annuity classes.
The spot price is the current price in the marketplace at which a given asset—such as a security, commodity, or currency—can be bought or sold for immediate delivery. While spot prices are specific to both time and place, in a global economy the spot price of most securities or commodities tends to be fairly uniform worldwide when accounting for exchange rates. In contrast to the spot price, a futures price is an agreed upon price for future delivery of the asset.
An option chain, also known as an option matrix, is a listing of all available option contracts, both puts and calls, for a given security. It shows all puts, calls, strike prices, and pricing information for a single underlying asset within a given maturity period.
The Guppy Multiple Moving Average (GMMA) is a technical indicator that identifies changing trends, breakouts, and trading opportunities in the price of an asset by combining two groups of moving averages (MA) with different time periods. There is a short-term group of MAs, and a long-term group of MA. Both contain six MAs, for a total of 12. The term gets its name from Daryl Guppy, an Australian trader who is credited with its development.
A vanishing premium policy is a form of permanent life insurance in which a consumer can use the dividends from such a policy to pay the premium. Over time, the cash value of the policy increases to the point where dividends earned by the policyholder equal the premium payment. At this point, the premium is said to disappear, or vanish.
A shooting star is a bearish candlestick with a long upper shadow, little or no lower shadow, and a small real body near the low of the day. It appears after an uptrend. Said differently, a shooting star is a type of candlestick that forms when a security opens, advances significantly, but then closes the day near the open again.
The Guppy Multiple Moving Average (GMMA) is a technical indicator that identifies changing trends, breakouts, and trading opportunities in the price of an asset by combining two groups of moving averages (MA) with different time periods. There is a short-term group of MAs, and a long-term group of MA. Both contain six MAs, for a total of 12. The term gets its name from Daryl Guppy, an Australian trader who is credited with its development.