A category of stocks relating to medical and healthcare goods or services. The healthcare sector includes hospital management firms, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), biotechnology and a variety of medical products. Taobiz explains Healthcare Sector Stocks in the healthcare sector are often considered to be defensive because the products and services are essential. Even during economic downturns, people will still require medical aid and medicine to overcome illness. Having a consistent demand for goods and services makes this sector less sensitive to business cycle fluctuations.
A program trading platform that uses powerful computers to transact a large number of orders at very fast speeds. High-frequency trading uses complex algorithms to analyze multiple markets and execute orders based on market conditions. Typically, the traders with the fastest execution speeds will be more profitable than traders with slower execution speeds. As of 2009, it is estimated more than 50% of exchange volume comes from high-frequency trading orders. Taobiz explains High-Frequency Trading - HFT High-frequency trading became most popular when exchanges began to offer incentives for companies to add liquidity to the market. For instance, the New York Stock Exchange has a group of liquidity providers called supplemental liquidly providers (SLPs), which attempt to add competition and liquidity for existing quotes on the exchange. As an incentive to the firm, the NYSE pays a fee or rebate for providing said liquidity. As of 2009, the SLP rebate was $0.0015. Multiply that by millions of transactions per day and you can see where part of the profits for high frequency trading comes from. The SLP was introduced following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, when liquidity was a major concern for investors.
When the sale of a mortgage in the secondary mortgage market requires that the seller, usually a mortgage originator, make a "best efforts" attempt to deliver the mortgage to the buyer. This type of trade exists to transfer the risk that a loan will not close from the originator to the secondary market. |||Mortgage originators who hedge their own mortgage pipelines and assume fallout risk usually sell their mortgages into the secondary mortgage market through mandatory or assignment of trade transactions, both of which generally command better pricing than best efforts locks or trades because hedge risks are not transferred to the buyer.
A stock that has seen its share price - and subsequently its valuation - rise to high multiples on metrics such as current earnings and current sales. Usually, the rise will happen quickly, with the stock well outpacing the gains in the overall market during the same time period. Also, higher levels of volatility are usually found in high-flying stocks to go along with frequent spikes in trade volume. Taobiz explains High Flier Many internet stocks were high fliers in the late 1990s, even though most had never turned a net profit. Investors were sold on the story of what kind of money the companies could earn in the future based on the ultra-rapid growth rates seen at the time. Many high-flying stocks tumble quickly; expectations can get well ahead of actual revenues and profits and as soon as a chink in the armour appears, short-term investors leave the stock in droves, sending shares plummeting.
A tactic used by stock manipulators; they make small trades at high prices during the final minutes of trading to give the impression that the stock did very well. Taobiz explains High Close Since the closing prices are widely quoted, stock manipulators hope to create a buzz on a particular stock in order to attract investors to the it.
A bond that provides a standard against which the performance of other bonds can be measured. Government bonds are almost always used as benchmark bonds. Also referred to as "benchmark issue" or "bellwether issue". |||More specifically, the benchmark is the latest issue within a given maturity. For a comparison to be appropriate and useful, the benchmark and the bond being measured against it should have a comparable liquidity, issue size and coupon.
A slang term for a short-term disruption within a longer-term plan, goal, or trend. A hiccup can be used to describe the business actions of a particular company, a stock price downturn, or the stock market as a whole. Generally, a hiccup is not indicative of a larger trend, but is considered an aberration. Taobiz explains Hiccup One of the biggest challenges for investors is determining what is merely a hiccup, and what is a harbinger of things to come. If a company misses sales estimates one quarter, this may be an isolated event, or it may be the first of several misses highlighting a core problem in the business model.
In statistics, when the standard deviations of a variable, monitored over a specific amount of time, are non-constant. Heteroskedasticity often arises in two forms, conditional and unconditional. Conditional heteroskedasticity identifies non-constant volatility when future periods of high and low volatility cannot be identified. Unconditional heteroskedasticity is used when futures periods of high and low volatility can be identified. Taobiz explains Heteroskedasticity In finance, conditional heteroskedasticity often is seen in the prices of stocks and bonds. The level of volatility of these equities cannot be predicted over any period of time. Unconditional heteroskedasticity can be used when discussing variables that have identifiable seasonal variability, such as electricity usage.