Investment and Finance

A brokered Certificate of Deposit is a certificate of deposit issued by a bank or thrift institution bought by a brokerage firm in bulk for the purpose of reselling to their brokerage customers. A broker Certificate of Deposit features a higher interest rate, usually 1 percent higher, and is FDIC insured and do not usually have commissions.

Bullion coins are metal coins consisting of gold, silver, platinum, or palladium that are actively traded on exchanges. Some examples include the American eagle and the Canadian maple leaf. Their price is directly connected to the underlying price of their metal.

A "block" is a large quantity of stock or large dollar amount of bonds held or traded. Generally, 10,000 shares or more of stock and $200,000 or more worth of bonds would be described as a block.

An Intercommodity spread in the commodities market is a spread consisting of a long position and a short position in different but related commodities. An investor might be speculating that the price relationship between the two commodities will change for example gold and silver commodities.

The Intermarket Trading System is the electronic communications network linking the trading floors of 7 registered exchanges to permit trading among them in stocks listed on either the New York Stock Exchange or Amex and one or more regional exchanges.
Through the Intermarket Trading System , any broker or market maker on the floor of any participating exchange can reach other participants for an execution whenever the nationwide quote shows a better price available.
A floor broker on the exchange can enter an order to assure execution of all of an Intermarket Trading System offering or bid, instead of splitting it with competing brokers.

An Investment letter is a letter of intent between the issuer of new securities and the buyer, in the private placement of these new securities. The letter of intent establishes that the securities are being bought for a minimum time period and are treated as an investment, not for resale. If no such letter exists, the securities must be registered with Securities and Exchange Commission.

Yes. Italian Stock Exchange is based in Milan. It came into effect after the unification of Italy's 10 national exchanges in 1991. All listed securities are traded electronically. The main indexes are the MIB and the MIBTEL, based on the prices of all listed shares, and the MIB Thirty, based on a sample of the thirty most liquid and highly capitalized shares.

The January barometer is a statistic from "The Stock Traders Almanac" reflecting, with 85-90% accuracy, that the overall stock market rises in a year when the Standard and Poors is up in the month of January and drops when the index for that month is down.
The January effect refers to the historical pattern that stock prices rise in the first few days of January.
Studies have suggested this holds only for small capitalization stocks. In recent years, there has been less evidence of a January effect.

Leveraged buyout is a strategy used to take a public corporation private that is financed through debt such as bank loans and bonds. Because of the large amount of debt relative to equity in the new corporation, the bonds are typically rated below investment grade, properly referred to as junk bonds or high yield bonds. Investors can participate in an leveraged buyout through either the purchase of the debt (purchase of the bonds or participation in the bank loan) or the purchase of equity through an Leveraged buyout fund that specializes in such investments.