An action that attempts to inflate transaction volumes through the continuous and frequent purchase and sale of a particular security, commodity or asset. Round-trip trading can be used to refer to the practice of a business selling an unused asset to another company while agreeing to buy back the same asset for about the same price. This type of market manipulation has been seen in the energy and telecom business. This is a market-manipulation practice used to misrepresent the number of transactions occurring on any given day. Round-trip trading artificially inflates volume and revenues, but in reality adds no profit. Enron was a company that engaged in round-trip trading, and, by doing so, was able to increase revenues (and expenses) without changing its net income.
The illegal practice of issuing stock options at artificially low prices shortly before an initial public offering. Often underwriters will require a company to have more qualified management before they can go public. They attract these qualified individuals by giving options with a low exercise price. Taobiz explains Cheap Stock Any option granted at a price that turns out to be only a small fraction of the actual IPO price will likely be regarded as cheap.
A foreign-based corporation that has one of the following attributes:1. At least 75% of the corporation's income is considered "passive", which is based on investments rather than standard operating business.2. At least 50% of the company's assets are investments that produce interest, dividends and/or capital gainsPFICs include foreign-based mutual funds, partnerships and other pooled investment vehicles that have at least one U.S. shareholder. Most investors in PFICs must pay income tax on all distributions and appreciated share values, regardless of whether capital gains tax rates would normally apply. |||PFICs are subject to complicated and strict tax guidelines by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which covers treatment of these investments in Sections 1291 through 1297 of the income tax code. Both the PFIC and the shareholder must keep accurate records of all transactions, including share basis, dividends and any undistributed income earned by the company.The strict guidelines are set up to discourage ownership of PFICs by U.S. investors. PFIC shares won't even receive a step-up in cost basis as is the case with nearly all other marketable, appreciable assets. An option that investors have is to seek qualification of a PFIC investment as a qualified electing fund (QEF). This may reduce the tax rate on certain transactions but also forces the investor to pay taxes even on income earned by the foreign company that is not distributed to shareholders.
A type of tax credit available to students of a post-secondary educational institution, such as a college or university. Education credits may be claimed by those who incur qualifying educational expenses, such as tuition and fees. Parents who pay these expenses for their children may be able to claim this type of credit on their tax returns, subject to certain income restrictions. There are two types of education credits, the Hope Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit. The Hope Credit applies to first and second year postsecondary students, with certain restrictions. The Lifetime Learning Credit applies to all students at the undergraduate or graduate level. You cannot claim both the Hope and Lifetime Learning Credits for the same student in the same year.
An exchange network that coordinates the trading of stock options between both institutional and individual investors. |||Formed in 1882, the PCX is one of the first exchanges in the world to develop and adopt an electronic trading system.
The unexpected optimism market observers sometimes experience during a recession. A rose-colored recession reflects the sometimes unwarranted positivity of the general public following news or data released during a recession; it is still considered bad news, but is better than expected. The term rose-colored recession was coined during the financial crisis of 2008-2009 in reference to optimism shown by market observers and government officials following bad economic data, such as corporate earnings announcements and unemployment numbers, that were "not as bad as feared" or "bad, but not that bad". Quite often these events led to bear market rallies and predictions of an end to the recession.
A fraudulent trading scheme where sell orders are entered by a broker who knows that offsetting buy orders, the same number of shares at the same time and at the same price, either have been or will be entered. Taobiz explains Circular Trading These trades do not represent a real change in the beneficial ownership of the security.
P to P can mean one of two things: 1. Peer to peer allows internet users to transfer files directly, rather than through the use of a website or directory. File transfers are done directly from the users' computers. 2. An abbreviation of "path to profitability". This refers to the roadmap a startup company follows in order to propel its operations from its current state of losing money to becoming profitable. |||A perfect example of peer to peer is the internet file swap sites that allow users to transfer audio, video and other types of files for free.