Knowledge Base

Financial terms, in plain English

Every metric, ratio, and filing that shows up on Quintarthai — defined clearly, with the formula and a link to see it on a real company. Built for cross-border (Canada + US) investors.

238 terms · 26 categories · 14 guided courses

Browse the full A-Z glossary → · Study with flashcards →

Courses

guided learning paths · start anywhere

How the market prices a stock — every multiple, what it means, and when to use it.

Intrinsic Value & DCF

Value a business from first principles — cash flows, discount rates, and a margin of safety.

Reading Financial Statements

Read an income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement with confidence.

Profitability & Quality

Separate great businesses from average ones — margins, returns on capital, and moats.

Options: The Mechanics

What an option contract actually is, what moves its price, and where the risk really sits.

Bonds, Rates & the Economy

How a bond's price answers to interest rates, and the economic readings that move them.

Distress & Quality Models

The published models that score financial distress and earnings quality — what each one measures, where it fails, and how to read it as a research signal.

Financial Health & Risk

Spot leverage, liquidity stress, and accounting red flags before they bite.

Growth & Capital Returns

Measure growth and how a company returns cash — dividends, buybacks, and per-share math.

Growth & SaaS Metrics

The recurring-revenue metrics that drive modern software and subscription businesses.

Cross-Border Investing (CA + US)

The Canada–US edge: dual listings, arbitrage, filings, and tax-smart account placement.

Filings, Ownership & Smart Money

Read the filings and follow the smart money — 10-Ks, insiders, and institutions.

Market & Trading Basics

The market-data basics every investor should know — beta, ranges, volume, momentum.

Sharia / Halal Investing

Faith-based screening, AAOIFI standards, and how compliant investing works on Quintarthai.

Comparisons

15

An ADR carries the foreign share's currency exposure into a US listing; a CDR wraps a mostly-US share in a daily-reset hedge and lists it in Canada in CAD.

Altman Z-Score vs Piotroski F-Score

The Z-Score estimates how likely a company is to go bankrupt; the F-Score grades whether its fundamentals got better or worse over the past year.

Capex vs Maintenance Capex

Capex is the total cash a company spends on long-lived assets; maintenance capex is only the slice needed to keep current capacity intact.

Current Ratio vs Quick Ratio

The current ratio counts inventory among the assets available to pay short-term bills; the quick ratio strips inventory out and counts only the most liquid assets.

Dividend Yield vs Buyback Yield

Dividend yield measures cash actually paid out to shareholders; buyback yield measures value returned by shrinking the share count instead.

EBITDA adds depreciation and amortization back as non-cash charges; EBIT leaves them in as a real cost of doing business, so EBITDA is always equal to or larger than EBIT.

Free Cash Flow vs Net Income

Free cash flow is the cash actually left after a company pays to maintain and grow its asset base; net income is the accounting profit that remains after every expense, interest, and tax.

Gross Margin vs Operating Margin

Gross margin subtracts only the direct cost of what a company sells; operating margin also subtracts the operating costs of running the business.

Market Cap vs Enterprise Value

Market cap prices only the equity, while enterprise value adds debt and subtracts cash to estimate what the whole business would cost.

Ohlson O-Score vs Zmijewski Score

Both estimate distress probability, but Ohlson weighs nine accounting factors through a logit model while Zmijewski uses three ratios through a probit.

Operating Cash Flow vs Free Cash Flow

Operating cash flow is the cash a business generates from its core operations; free cash flow subtracts capital spending to show what is actually left over.

P/E Ratio vs EV/EBITDA

P/E prices the equity against profit after interest and taxes; EV/EBITDA prices the whole business — debt included — against profit before them.

Price-to-Book vs Price-to-Sales

P/B prices a company against its balance-sheet net assets, while P/S prices it against its revenue — a stock of assets versus a flow of sales.

ROE measures profit against shareholders' equity alone, so leverage can lift it; ROIC measures after-tax operating profit against all capital, debt and equity together.

A TFSA gives you no deduction today but tax-free withdrawals later; an RRSP gives you a deduction today and taxes every withdrawal as ordinary income.

Full glossary

every term, A–Z by category

Valuation & multiples

11

The annual dividend paid per share as a percentage of the current share price.

EV / EBITDA EV/EBITDA

A company's total value compared to its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

EV / Sales EV/Sales

A company's total value, including debt, compared to its annual revenue.

A company's earnings per share as a percentage of its share price, the inverse of P/E.

Forward P/E Ratio Fwd P/E

The P/E ratio using estimated future earnings instead of past earnings.

Free Cash Flow Yield FCF Yield

A company's free cash flow as a percentage of its market value, the inverse of P/FCF.

The P/E ratio divided by the earnings growth rate, to judge value against growth.

Price-to-Book Ratio P/B

How the stock price compares to the company's net accounting value per share.

Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio P/E

How many dollars investors pay for each dollar of a company's annual earnings.

Price-to-Free-Cash-Flow P/FCF

How many dollars investors pay for each dollar of cash a company generates after capital spending.

Price-to-Sales Ratio P/S

How many dollars investors pay for each dollar of a company's annual revenue.

Profitability & returns

9

Operating cash profitability as a percent of revenue, before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Economic Profit EP

Economic profit asks whether a company earns more on its invested capital than that capital costs to raise.

The share of revenue left after the direct cost of making or buying what a company sells, shown as a percentage.

Net Profit Margin

The share of revenue that becomes bottom-line profit after every cost, including interest and taxes.

Operating Margin

The share of revenue left after all operating costs, showing how profitable the core business is before interest and taxes.

Return on Assets ROA

How much profit a company earns for each dollar of total assets it controls, shown as a percentage.

Return on Capital Employed ROCE

Operating profit (EBIT) as a percentage of the long-term capital a company has put to work in its business.

Return on Equity ROE

How much profit a company generates for each dollar of shareholders' equity, shown as a percentage.

Return on Invested Capital ROIC

The after-tax operating return a company earns on all the capital (debt plus equity) invested in its business.

Growth

4

Compound Annual Growth Rate CAGR

The steady yearly growth rate that would take a starting value to an ending value over a number of years, as if it compounded smoothly.

The percentage change in earnings per share (net profit divided by share count) from one period to the same period a year earlier.

Free Cash Flow Growth

The percentage change in free cash flow (cash from operations minus capital spending) from one period to the same period a year earlier.

The percentage change in a company's total sales (revenue) from one period to the same period a year earlier.

Financial health & leverage

8

A weighted score that estimates a company's risk of bankruptcy within about two years.

Whether a company has enough short-term assets to cover its short-term bills.

Debt-to-Equity Ratio D/E

How much debt a company uses for every dollar of shareholder equity.

Interest Coverage Ratio

How many times a company's operating earnings can cover its interest payments.

A company's total debt minus the cash it holds, showing what it would owe after paying down debt with cash on hand.

Net Debt / EBITDA

How many years of core earnings it would take to pay off net debt, a key gauge of leverage burden.

Piotroski F-Score

A 0-to-9 scorecard of a company's fundamental strength based on nine pass/fail financial tests.

A strict liquidity test of whether a company can pay short-term bills using only its most liquid assets, excluding inventory.

Cash flow

7

Capital Expenditures CapEx

The cash a company spends to buy, build, or upgrade long-lived physical and intangible assets like property, plant, and equipment.

Free Cash Flow FCF

The cash left over after a company pays to maintain and grow its asset base — money it can return to investors or reinvest.

Free Cash Flow Conversion

The share of a company's profit that turns into actual free cash flow, showing how cash-efficient its earnings are.

Maintenance Capex

The portion of capital spending a company must make just to maintain its current productive capacity, not to grow it.

Operating Cash Flow OCF

The cash a company actually generates from its core day-to-day business, before financing and investing activities.

Stock-Based Compensation SBC

Pay given to employees in the form of stock or options rather than cash, recorded as an expense even though no cash leaves the company.

Working Capital

The short-term money a company has tied up in running its business, measured as current assets minus current liabilities.

Per-share & capital returns

9

Book Value Per Share BVPS

BVPS is the company's net assets attributable to common shareholders divided by common shares outstanding, the per-share accounting value of the business.

Buyback yield is the percentage of a company's market value returned to shareholders through net share repurchases.

Diluted EPS is earnings per share calculated as if all dilutive stock options and convertibles had been turned into shares.

Dividend Payout Ratio

The payout ratio is the share of a company's earnings paid out as dividends rather than kept for reinvestment.

Earnings Per Share EPS

EPS is a company's net profit divided by its shares outstanding, showing how much profit each share earned.

Free Cash Flow Per Share

FCF per share is the cash a company generates after capital spending, divided by its shares outstanding.

Share dilution is the drop in existing owners' percentage stake when a company issues new shares.

Shareholder Yield

Shareholder yield combines dividends, net buybacks, and net debt paydown to show total cash returned to owners.

Shares Outstanding

Shares outstanding is the total number of a company's shares currently held by all investors.

Market & trading

10

The lowest and highest prices a stock has traded at over the past 52 weeks (one year).

A measure of how much a stock tends to move relative to the overall market.

Corwin-Schultz Spread Estimator

A way to estimate a stock's bid-ask spread using only its daily high and low prices, when you don't have quote data.

Enterprise Value EV

The total value of a business — market cap plus debt minus cash — i.e. what it would cost to buy it outright.

The portion of a company's shares that is freely available for public trading, excluding locked-up or restricted holdings.

Market Capitalization Market cap

The total dollar value of a company's outstanding shares — share price times shares outstanding.

Moving Average (50 / 200-day)

The average closing price over a recent window (e.g. 50 or 200 days) that smooths out short-term noise to show trend.

Relative Strength Index RSI

A momentum oscillator from 0 to 100 that gauges whether a stock may be overbought or oversold.

The total number of a company's shares that have been sold short and not yet bought back to close the position.

The share of a day's reported trading volume that broker-dealers marked as short sales and reported to FINRA — a daily activity number, not a count of shares currently sold short.

Income statement

7

Cost of Goods Sold COGS

The direct costs of producing or buying the goods and services a company actually sold during the period.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — a rough proxy for operating cash generation.

Effective Tax Rate

The share of a company's pre-tax profit it actually pays in income tax, shown as a percentage.

What is left from revenue after subtracting the direct cost of the goods or services sold.

The company's bottom-line profit after all expenses, interest, and taxes have been subtracted from revenue.

Operating Income (EBIT) EBIT

The profit a company makes from its core business operations, before interest and taxes.

The total money a company earns from selling its products or services before any costs are subtracted.

Balance sheet

6

Cash & Equivalents

Cash on hand plus highly liquid short-term investments that can be turned into cash almost immediately.

An intangible asset recorded when a company pays more to acquire another business than the fair value of its identifiable net assets.

Intangible Assets

Non-physical assets with economic value — patents, trademarks, software, licenses, and customer lists.

Shareholders' Equity

The owners' residual stake in a company — what would be left for shareholders if all assets were sold and all debts paid.

Everything a company owns or controls that has economic value — cash, inventory, equipment, investments, and more.

The sum of a company's interest-bearing borrowings — short-term and long-term loans, bonds, and lease obligations.

Ownership & smart money

5

A quarterly US filing where large investment managers must disclose the public equity holdings they manage.

Form 4 (Insider Transaction) Form 4

A US filing that company insiders must submit to report their own purchases or sales of the company's stock.

Insider Cluster Buying

When several different insiders at the same company buy its stock within a short window, often read as a stronger signal than a single buy.

Insider Ownership

The percentage of a company's shares held by its own officers, directors, and large controlling shareholders.

Institutional Ownership

The percentage of a company's shares held by large professional investors like mutual funds, pension funds, and asset managers.

Filings & disclosure

12

Form 10-K (Annual Report) 10-K

A 10-K is the comprehensive annual report a US public company files with the SEC, covering its full-year financials, business, and risks.

Form 10-Q (Quarterly Report) 10-Q

A 10-Q is the quarterly financial report US public companies file with the SEC for each of the first three fiscal quarters.

Form 8-K (Current Report) 8-K

An 8-K is the filing US companies use to disclose major events to the SEC promptly, between scheduled quarterly and annual reports.

A short SEC notice a company files after selling stock privately, without registering the offering publicly.

Greenshoe (Over-Allotment) Option

A clause in an IPO prospectus letting the underwriters sell up to about 15% more shares than the deal officially offers.

IPO Lock-Up Expiry

The date when insiders and early investors of a newly public company are first contractually allowed to sell their shares.

Management Discussion & Analysis MD&A

MD&A is the section of a financial filing where management explains, in plain language, the company's results, trends, risks, and outlook.

NI 43-101 (Mining Disclosure)

NI 43-101 is the Canadian standard governing how mining companies disclose mineral resources and reserves to investors.

A public PCAOB filing that names the accounting firm and the individual partner who signed off on a company's audited financial statements.

Proxy Statement (DEF 14A)

A proxy statement (DEF 14A) is the document a US company sends shareholders before its annual meeting, detailing votes, pay, and board matters.

EDGAR is the SEC's free public database where all US company filings (10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, proxies, insider forms) are stored.

SEDAR+ is Canada's official online system for filing and viewing public-company disclosures, the Canadian counterpart to US EDGAR.

Dividends & corporate actions

6

A cash (or sometimes stock) payment a company distributes to shareholders out of its profits, usually on a regular schedule.

Ex-Dividend Date

The cutoff date on which a stock begins trading without the right to the next declared dividend; buyers on or after it do not receive it.

Reverse Stock Split

A corporate action that combines shares into fewer, higher-priced shares without changing the total value of a holding.

A company repurchasing its own shares from the market, which reduces shares outstanding and returns cash to shareholders.

A corporate action where a company separates a business unit into a new, independent public company whose shares go to existing shareholders.

A corporate action that increases the share count and proportionally lowers the price per share, leaving total value unchanged.

Cross-border & specialty

15

AAOIFI Standards

A widely used set of Islamic finance standards that define the rules for screening stocks and other investments for Sharia compliance.

American Depositary Receipt ADR

A US-traded certificate that represents shares of a foreign company, letting Americans buy non-US stocks in USD on US exchanges.

Cross-Listed Arbitrage

Profiting from a temporary price gap between the same stock's two listings, after accounting for the currency exchange rate.

Currency-Hedged ETF

An ETF that uses currency forward contracts to cancel the exchange-rate effect, so returns track the foreign assets without the FX swing.

Dividend Tax Credit DTC

A Canadian tax credit that offsets corporate tax already paid, lowering personal tax on dividends from taxable Canadian corporations.

When the same company's shares trade on two stock exchanges at once, such as both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

Flow-Through Shares

A Canadian share type that lets mining and energy exploration companies pass certain tax deductions through to investors.

Passive Foreign Investment Company PFIC

A US tax label for foreign corporations that are mostly passive-income vehicles, triggering punitive tax and heavy filing for US owners.

Registered Retirement Savings Plan RRSP

A Canadian retirement account where contributions are tax-deductible and growth is tax-deferred until you withdraw the money.

Sharia Stock Screening

Filtering stocks against Islamic-law rules to identify which companies are considered permissible for Muslim investors to own.

Superficial Loss Rule

A Canadian rule that denies your capital loss if you or an affiliated person rebuy the identical property within 30 days and still hold it.

Tax-Free Savings Account TFSA

A Canadian registered account where investment growth and withdrawals are completely tax-free, within an annual contribution limit.

Tax-Loss Harvesting

Deliberately selling a losing holding to realize a capital loss that offsets taxable gains, lowering your tax bill while staying invested.

A US tax rule that disallows a capital loss if you rebuy a substantially identical security within 30 days before or after selling it.

Withholding Tax

Tax a country deducts at source from dividends or interest paid to a foreign investor before the money reaches you.

Risk & quality scores

16

Beneish M-Score

A statistical model that flags the likelihood a company has manipulated its reported earnings.

CHS Failure Hazard CHS

A statistical model that turns eight accounting and market inputs into an estimated probability that a company hits financial failure within the next 12 months.

A risk-adjusted return measure: annualized return divided by the absolute value of the worst peak-to-trough loss, usually over 36 months.

The chance that a stock gets removed from its exchange, often after breaching listing rules like a minimum price or market cap.

Information Ratio IR

Active return (return above a benchmark) divided by tracking error, measuring a manager's skill at outperforming per unit of active risk.

Maximum Drawdown MDD

The largest peak-to-trough percentage drop an asset or portfolio suffered over a period, before a new high was reached.

Merton Distance-to-Default DD

A structural model that measures how many standard deviations a company's asset value sits above its default point.

Ohlson O-Score O-Score

A nine-factor statistical model that turns a company's financials into a model-estimated probability of bankruptcy.

Quintarthai's risk-first composite score that summarizes a company's overall risk and quality in one number.

A measure of how much return an investment earns for each unit of risk (volatility) it takes on.

Sloan Accrual Ratio

A measure of how much of a company's reported profit comes from accounting entries rather than cash actually collected.

A risk-adjusted return measure like the Sharpe ratio, but it penalizes only downside volatility instead of total volatility.

Tracking error is the standard deviation of a fund's return minus its benchmark's return; it measures how tightly the fund follows its index.

Measures excess return earned over the risk-free rate per unit of systematic market risk, using beta as the denominator.

Value at Risk VaR

A statistical estimate of the worst loss expected over a set period at a chosen confidence level, under normal conditions.

Zmijewski Score X-Score

A three-ratio statistical model from 1984 that turns profitability, leverage, and liquidity into a model probability that a company is financially distressed.

Intrinsic value & DCF

19

Capital Asset Pricing Model CAPM

A model that estimates required return from one factor: how much a stock moves with the overall market.

The annual return shareholders expect for the risk of owning a company's stock.

Discounted Cash Flow DCF

Valuing a business by projecting its future cash flows and discounting them back to today's dollars.

Dividend Discount Model DDM

Valuing a stock as the present value of all the dividends it is expected to pay.

EV / EBIT EV/EBIT

Enterprise value divided by operating profit — a debt-aware way to compare how expensive companies are.

Earnings Power Value EPV

A no-growth valuation that capitalizes a company's sustainable after-tax operating earnings by its cost of capital.

Free Cash Flow to Equity FCFE

The cash left for shareholders after the business reinvests and meets its debt obligations.

Free Cash Flow to the Firm FCFF

The cash a business generates for all its investors — both debt and equity — after reinvestment.

Benjamin Graham's rough maximum 'fair' price a defensive investor should pay, from a stock's earnings and book value.

Intrinsic Value

What a company is actually worth based on its fundamentals, independent of its current market price.

Invested Capital

The total money put into a business by lenders and shareholders that is funding its operations.

Joel Greenblatt's rules-based strategy that ranks stocks by cheapness (earnings yield) and quality (return on capital), then buys the best combined scorers.

Margin of Safety

The discount between a stock's price and your estimate of its intrinsic value — a buffer against being wrong.

Net Operating Profit After Tax NOPAT

A company's core operating profit after taxes, before any effect of how it is financed.

Net-Net Working Capital NCAV

Benjamin Graham's deep-value floor: current assets minus all liabilities, ignoring fixed assets, as a conservative estimate of liquidation value.

Warren Buffett's measure of the real cash an owner can take out of a business each year.

A reverse DCF takes today's share price as given and solves for the growth rate the market must be assuming to justify it.

The estimated value of all a company's cash flows beyond the explicit forecast period, in one figure.

Weighted Average Cost of Capital WACC

The blended return a company must earn to satisfy all its investors — both lenders and shareholders.

Quality & efficiency

14

Measures how much of reported earnings is accounting estimates rather than cash — high accruals are a red flag.

Revenue generated per dollar of assets — how efficiently a company uses its asset base to produce sales.

Capital Intensity

How much a company must invest to generate its sales, most often capital expenditures divided by revenue.

Cash Conversion Cycle CCC

The number of days cash is tied up in operations — from paying suppliers to collecting from customers.

Days Inventory Outstanding DIO

The average number of days a company holds inventory before it is sold.

Days Payable Outstanding DPO

The average number of days a company takes to pay its suppliers, computed from accounts payable relative to cost of goods sold.

Days Sales Outstanding DSO

The average number of days a company waits to collect cash after making a credit sale.

A durable competitive advantage that lets a company protect profits and high returns on capital for years.

Gross Profitability

Gross profit divided by total assets — a quality signal that often predicts returns better than earnings-based ratios.

Inventory Turnover

How many times a company sells and replaces its inventory in a period — a measure of inventory efficiency.

Receivables Turnover

How many times a year a company collects its average accounts receivable — the inverse view of DSO.

Return on Incremental Invested Capital ROIIC

The after-tax return a company earns specifically on the NEW capital it deploys, not on its whole capital base.

Return on Tangible Equity ROTE

Profit earned on shareholders' equity after stripping out goodwill and intangibles — a stricter return measure.

A growth-plus-profit health check for software firms: revenue growth % plus profit margin % should be at least 40.

Growth & SaaS metrics

8

Annual Recurring Revenue ARR

The value of a subscription business's recurring revenue normalized to a full year, excluding one-time fees.

The percentage of customers or recurring revenue lost over a period.

Customer Acquisition Cost CAC

The average total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer.

Customer Lifetime Value LTV

The total gross profit a company expects to earn from an average customer over the entire relationship.

Gross Revenue Retention GRR

The share of recurring revenue kept from existing customers, excluding any expansion, so it caps at 100%.

Net Revenue Retention NRR

How much recurring revenue a cohort of existing customers generates a year later, after upgrades, downgrades, and churn.

Remaining Performance Obligation RPO

The total contracted revenue a company has signed but not yet recognized, including both billed and unbilled amounts.

Same-Store Sales

Revenue growth from locations open for a full prior year, stripping out the effect of opening new stores.

Income statement (deeper)

8

Contribution Margin

Revenue left over after variable costs — the amount each sale contributes toward fixed costs and profit.

Depreciation & Amortization D&A

Non-cash charges that spread the cost of long-lived assets over the years they are used.

Earnings Before Interest & Taxes EBIT

Profit from a company's core operations before financing costs and income tax are deducted.

Two inventory cost-flow methods: FIFO expenses the oldest costs first, LIFO the newest — and IFRS bans LIFO entirely.

Operating Leverage

How much profit amplifies (up or down) when sales change, driven by the mix of fixed vs. variable costs.

Pre-Tax Income EBT

A company's profit after all expenses except income tax — the base that income tax is applied to.

Research & Development Expense R&D

Spending to create new products and technology — usually expensed now, with payoffs hoped for later.

Selling, General & Administrative Expense SG&A

The overhead of running and selling — salaries, marketing, rent, and admin costs not tied to making the product.

Balance sheet (deeper)

9

Accounts Receivable AR

Money customers owe a company for goods or services already delivered but not yet paid for.

Deferred Revenue

Cash collected for goods or services not yet delivered — a liability, not income, until earned.

Deferred Tax DTA/DTL

Balance-sheet accounts that capture timing differences between accounting (book) profit and taxable profit, recorded as a future tax saving (asset) or future tax bill (liability).

Goodwill Impairment

A non-cash write-down recorded when acquired goodwill is worth less than its carrying value, signaling an acquisition was overpaid or has underperformed.

Minority Interest

The share of a partly owned subsidiary's equity that belongs to outside shareholders, not the parent.

Net Working Capital NWC

Current assets minus current liabilities — the short-term cash cushion that funds day-to-day operations.

Retained Earnings

Cumulative profits a company has kept and reinvested rather than paid out as dividends.

Tangible Book Value

Shareholders' equity minus goodwill and other intangibles — what's left if you ignore non-physical assets.

Shares a company has bought back and holds itself — a contra-equity account that reduces shareholders' equity.

Dividend investing

6

Dividend Aristocrat

A company with a long, unbroken record of annual dividend increases, typically 25+ years in the U.S.

Dividend Coverage Ratio

How many times a company's earnings (or cash flow) can cover its dividend payments.

Dividend Growth Rate

The annualized rate at which a company raises its dividend per share over time.

Dividend Reinvestment Plan DRIP

A program that automatically uses your cash dividends to buy more shares of the same stock.

Forward Dividend

The expected total dividend per share over the next 12 months, based on the current rate.

Special Dividend

A one-time, non-recurring dividend paid outside a company's regular schedule.

Cross-border (deeper)

11

Canada–US Tax Treaty

The income-tax convention between Canada and the US that cuts cross-border withholding, prevents double taxation, and protects RRSP and IRA deferral.

Canadian Depositary Receipt CDR

A Canadian-listed receipt that holds a fraction of a U.S. stock, priced in Canadian dollars with a built-in currency hedge.

Canadian Securities Exchange CSE

A Canadian exchange focused on emerging and early-stage companies, with lighter listing requirements than the TSX.

Cboe Canada (NEO Exchange)

A senior Canadian stock exchange, formerly NEO Exchange, now owned by Cboe and a major home for ETFs and CDRs.

Foreign Tax Credit

A credit that offsets tax already paid to another country, so the same income is not fully taxed twice.

Form NR301 NR301

A CRA form on which a non-resident certifies eligibility for a treaty-reduced rate of Canadian withholding tax on dividends and interest.

Form T1135 (Foreign Income Verification) T1135

A CRA form Canadians must file when their foreign property cost more than CAD 100,000 at any point in the year.

Form W-8BEN W-8BEN

US IRS form a non-US individual files to certify foreign status and claim a treaty-reduced rate of US tax withholding.

IFRS vs US GAAP

The two main accounting rulebooks: Canada uses IFRS, U.S. companies use US GAAP, so some numbers are not directly comparable.

Multijurisdictional Disclosure System MJDS

A Canada–U.S. arrangement letting eligible issuers file in the other country largely using their home-country disclosure documents.

Qualified Small Business Stock QSBS

A US tax break (IRC §1202) letting eligible holders of qualifying C-corporation stock exclude most or all capital gain after a multi-year hold.

Options & derivatives

10

A contract giving its holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy an asset at a fixed price on or before a set date.

An options position where someone who already owns shares sells a call option on those same shares, capping the upside in exchange for the premium received.

Delta (Options) Δ

Delta estimates how much an option's price changes when the underlying stock moves $1 — a model-derived sensitivity, not a market quote and not a measure of risk.

Implied Volatility IV

The volatility figure backed out of an option's market price — what the market's pricing implies about the size of expected future moves, not their direction.

Moneyness describes where an option's strike price sits relative to the underlying's current price — in the money, at the money, or out of the money.

Open Interest OI

The total number of option contracts in a given series that are still outstanding — not yet closed, exercised, or expired.

Option Premium Premium

The price of an option contract: what the buyer pays and the writer receives, quoted per share and multiplied by the contract size.

A contract giving its buyer the right, but not the obligation, to sell a stock at a fixed price on or before a set expiry date.

The fixed price written into an option contract at which the holder may buy or sell the underlying asset if the option is exercised.

Theta (Options) Θ

Theta is a model estimate of how much an option's theoretical value changes as one day passes, with every other input held constant.

Bonds & fixed income

8

Convexity measures how much a bond's price-yield relationship curves, correcting duration's straight-line estimate of price moves.

The annual interest a bond promises to pay, stated as a percentage of its face value rather than of the price paid for it.

The extra yield a bond with default risk pays over a government bond of the same maturity, quoted in basis points as compensation for that risk.

Duration (Bonds) Duration

Duration measures how sensitive a bond's price is to a change in interest rates — roughly the percent the price moves per 1% shift in yield.

Investment Grade vs High Yield IG vs HY

A credit-quality dividing line: bonds rated in the safer tiers are investment grade; everything rated below that line is high yield.

Par value is the face amount of a bond — the fixed principal the issuer promises to repay at maturity, and the base its coupon rate is applied to.

A line plotting the yields of bonds that share a credit quality but differ in maturity, showing what the market charges for lending over different spans of time.

Yield to Maturity YTM

Yield to maturity is the single annualized rate that makes a bond's remaining coupon and principal payments worth exactly its current market price.

Macro & the economy

8

Consumer Price Index CPI

A published index tracking the average price level of a basket of consumer goods and services; its percentage change is the headline inflation rate.

Gross Domestic Product GDP

The total market value of all finished goods and services produced inside a country's borders during a set period, usually a quarter or a year.

Policy Interest Rate Policy rate

The interest rate a central bank sets as its main lever on the economy, targeting what banks charge each other to borrow overnight.

Purchasing Managers Index PMI

A monthly survey of purchasing managers, scaled so that above 50 means the sector expanded versus the prior month and below 50 means it contracted.

Quantitative Tightening QT

Quantitative tightening is a central bank shrinking its bond portfolio, mainly by letting bonds mature without reinvesting, draining cash from the system.

Real vs Nominal

Nominal figures are measured in the dollars of the day; real figures are adjusted for inflation so amounts from different years can be compared.

Unemployment Rate

The share of the labour force that is without a job but actively looking for one and available to work, published monthly by government statisticians.

Yield Curve Inversion

When shorter-term government bonds yield more than longer-term ones, flipping the yield curve's normal upward slope.

REITs & real estate

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Adjusted Funds From Operations AFFO

AFFO takes a REIT's Funds From Operations and subtracts the recurring spending needed just to keep its buildings earning rent.

Capitalization Rate Cap Rate

A property's annual net operating income divided by its value — the unleveraged yield a building produces at its current price.

Funds From Operations FFO

Funds From Operations is a REIT earnings measure that adds real-estate depreciation back to net income and strips out gains or losses from property sales.

Net Operating Income NOI

A property's rental and other income minus the cost of running it — measured before mortgage interest, income tax, depreciation and capital spending.

The share of a property's leasable space that is actually rented out, shown as a percentage of total square footage, suites or rooms.

A REIT is a company or trust that owns, operates or finances income-producing real estate and must pass most of its taxable income out to investors.

Guides & how-tos

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Accounting Red Flags

Warning signs in financial statements that earnings may be overstated, low-quality, or hiding trouble.

DCF Valuation Basics DCF

Estimate a company's worth today by projecting its future cash and discounting it back to present value.

Growth vs Value Investing

Two styles: growth buys fast-expanding companies at higher prices; value buys cheaper companies the market overlooks.

How to Read a Balance Sheet

A snapshot of what a company owns and owes on one day: assets = liabilities + equity, always in balance.

How to Read a Cash Flow Statement

Tracks actual cash in and out across three sections — operating, investing, financing — to show if profit is real cash.

How to Read an Income Statement

Read top to bottom: revenue minus costs at each step, ending in net income — the company's profit over a period.