Investment Terms

Lame-duck is an out-of-use British term used with reference to a trader who had defaulted on their obligations or gone bankrupt due to an inability to cover trading losses.
Lame-duck was a British term used to describe members of the London Stock Exchange who were unable to meet their claims on settlement day.
The phrase lame duck can be traced to the London Stock Exchange. A member who was unable to meet their claims on settlement day was described as a "lame duck" and would lose their membership on the exchange.
The image of a financially injured trader waddling away from the exchange helps to illustrate how this colourful phrase came into usage. The terms bull and bear date from the same period.
The term lame ducks often appeared in newspaper accounts from the time, particularly when the market suffered losses. For example, this account was recorded on July 19, 1787.

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A Lady Macbeth strategy is a corporate takeover scheme in which a third party poses as a white knight to gain trust, only to then turn around and join forces with the unfriendly party in a hostile takeover bid. Behind the scenes, the hostile bidder and supposed white knight to the target company will collude to achieve their aim of acquiring a company that is trying to resist the attempt.
This particular strategy is named after Lady Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most frightful and ambitious characters, who devises a cunning plan for her husband, the Scottish general, to kill Duncan, the King of Scotland.
One of the biggest fears facing many companies is the prospect of getting taken over against their wishes by a 1980s-style corporate raider and then broken up and sold off in pieces. Sometimes, rebuffing the advances of these opportunistic investors is not enough. Refuse to negotiate and they could find a way to conquer anyway, such as by initiating a tender offer directly to shareholders, employing a proxy fight, or attempting to buy the necessary company stock in the open market.
If the hostile party succeeds in drumming up enough support and digging its claws in, the management’s only alternative might be to hope and pray that a white knight gallops onto the scene at the last minute to save the day.
In exchange for some incentives, such as paying a smaller premium to take control of the company than otherwise would be required under competitive bid conditions, a friendly white knight might be willing to play the role of saviour and rescue the target from the clutches of another prospective buyer with intentions to bleed it dry to make a quick profit.

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The 183-day rule is used by most countries to determine if someone should be considered a resident for tax purposes. In the U.S., the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses 183 days as a threshold in the substantial presence test, which determines whether people who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents should still be considered residents for taxation.
The 183rd day of the year marks a majority of the days in a year, and for this reason countries around the world use the 183-day threshold to broadly determine whether to tax someone as a resident. These include Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, for example. Generally, this means that if you spent 183 days or more in the country during a given year, you are considered a tax resident for that year.
Each nation subject to the 183-day rule has its own criteria for considering someone a tax resident. For example, some use the calendar year for its accounting period, whereas some use a fiscal year. Some include the day the person arrives in their country in their count, while some do not.
Some countries have even lower thresholds for residency. For example, Switzerland considers you a tax resident if you have spent more than 90 days there.

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The 2,000 Investor Limit is a stipulation required by the Securities & Exchange Commission that mandates a company that exceeds 2,000 individual investors. With more than $10 million in combined assets, it must file its financials with the commission.1 According to SEC rules, a company that meets these criteria has 120 days to file following its fiscal year's end.
The 2,000 investor limit or rule is a key threshold for private businesses that do not wish to disclose financial information for public consumption. Congress raised the limit from 500 individual investors in 2016 as part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act and Title LXXXV of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
The revised rules also specify a limit of 500 persons who have not accredited investors before public filing is required.2
The prior threshold had been 500 holders of record without regard to accredited investor status. Congress began debating an increase in the limit in the wake of the 2008 recession and an explosion in online businesses.

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The receivables turnover ratio is an accounting measure used to quantify a company's effectiveness in collecting its accounts receivable, or the money owed by customers or clients. This ratio measures how well a company uses and manages the credit it extends to customers and how quickly that short-term debt is collected or is paid. A firm that is efficient at collecting on its payments due will have a higher accounts receivable turnover ratio.
It is useful to compare a firm's ratio with that of its peers in the same industry to gauge whether it is on par with its competitors.
Companies that maintain accounts receivables are indirectly extending interest-free loans to their clients since accounts receivable is money owed without interest. If a company generates a sale to a client, it could extend terms of 30 or 60 days, meaning the client has 30 to 60 days to pay for the product.
The receivables turnover ratio measures the efficiency with which a company collects on its receivables or the credit it extends to customers. The ratio also measures how many times a company's receivables are converted to cash in a period. The receivables turnover ratio is calculated on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis.

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Unappropriated retained earnings consist of any portion of a company's retained earnings that are not classified as appropriated retained earnings. Appropriated retained earnings are set aside by the board and are assigned to a specific purpose, such as factory construction, hiring new labour, buying new equipment, or marketing. They will not be distributed to shareholders as dividend payments. Unappropriated retained earnings can be passed on to shareholders in the form of dividend payments.
Unappropriated retained earnings help to determine the number of dividends that will be paid to shareholders. They are not directed towards a specific purpose by the board so are available to be paid out as dividends. The greater the unappropriated retained earnings, the higher the dividend that can possibly be paid. Unappropriated retained earnings are divided among all of the outstanding shares of the company and paid as dividends according to a predetermined dividend payment schedule.

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A kangaroo bond is a type of foreign bond issued in the Australian market by non-Australian firms and is denominated in Australian currency. The bond is subject to the securities regulations of Australia. A kangaroo bond is also known as a matilda bond.
Bond issuers that want access to investors and lenders in the Australian debt market would issue a bond referred to as a kangaroo bond, named in recognition of the country’s national animal emblem. A kangaroo bond is a foreign bond issued in Australian dollars by non-domestic entities, including corporations, financial institutions, and governments.
Simply put, a foreign bond is issued in a domestic market by a foreign issuer in the currency of the domestic country. Foreign bonds are mainly used to provide issuers with access to another capital market outside of their own to raise capital.
Major corporations and/or investment firms looking to diversify their holdings and improve their overall currency exposures can use kangaroo bonds to raise funds in Australian dollars. Kangaroo bonds are typically issued when interest rates in Australia are low relative to the foreign corporation's domestic rates, thus, lowering the foreign issuer's overall interest expense and cost of borrowing.

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Zombies are companies that earn just enough money to continue operating and service debt but are unable to pay off their debt. Such companies, given that they just scrape by meeting overheads (wages, rent, interest payments on debt, for example), have no excess capital to invest to spur growth. Zombie companies are typically subject to higher borrowing costs and maybe one just event away from insolvency or a bailout. Zombies are especially dependent on banks for financing, which is fundamentally their life support. Zombie companies are also known as the living dead or zombie stocks.
Zombies often fail, falling victim to the high costs associated with debt or certain operations, such as research and development. They may lack the resources for capital investment, which would create growth. If a zombie company employed so many people that its failure would become a political issue, it may be deemed too big to fail, as was the case with many financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis.
Given that many analysts expect that zombies will eventually be unable to meet their financial obligations, such companies are considered riskier investments and will, therefore, see their share prices suppressed.

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White-collar crime is a nonviolent crime committed for financial gain. According to the FBI, a key agency that investigates these offenses, these crimes are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust.
The motivation for these crimes is "to obtain or avoid losing money, property, or services or to secure a personal or business advantage.
Examples of white-collar crimes include securities fraud, embezzlement, corporate fraud, and money laundering. In addition to the FBI, entities that investigate white-collar crime include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), and state authorities.
White-collar crime has been associated with the educated and affluent ever since the term was first coined in 1949 by sociologist Edwin Sutherland, who defined it as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.
White-collar workers historically have been the shirt and tie set, defined by office jobs and management, and not getting their hands dirty.
This class of workers stands in contrast to blue-collar workers, who traditionally wore blue shirts and worked in plants, mills, and factories.

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Quadruple witching refers to a date on which stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single stock futures expire simultaneously. While stock options contracts and index options expire on the third Friday of every month, all four asset classes expire simultaneously on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December.
Quadruple witching is similar to the triple witching dates, when three out of the four markets expire at the same time, or double witching when two markets out of the four markets expire at the same time.
Quadruple witching refers to a date on which derivatives of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single stock futures expire simultaneously.
While it may result in increased volume and arbitrage opportunities, quadruple witching does not necessarily translate to increased volatility in the markets.
Quadruple witching days witness heavy trading volume, in part, due to the offsetting of existing futures and options contracts that are profitable.

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