Business Basics (1)

در حالیکه با چند تن از دوستان بحث اقتصادی می کردم متوجه شدم که تا حدودی برداشت آنها از "باند" و "استاک" و ... با آنچه که من میدانم تفاوت میکند . بنابراین تعریف آنچه میدانم را مینویسم تا موشکافانه تر به بررسی موضوع بپردازم:

Bond - A bond is a debt obligation (often in the form of a negotiable "note") by a borrower - typically a government. For example, the Government of Canada may issue a 10 year bond, paying interest at 6%, in denominations of $100. Corporations sometimes issue bonds, too. These are much riskier than bonds backed by government guarantees and are often referred to as "Junk Bonds" and bear much higher rates of interest. Bonds often trade in the market. When prices drop, it means that the effective interest rate is higher - e.g. if a $100 bond paying $6 per year interest, trades at $95, the effective interest rate is 6/95 percent.

Stock Exchange: An organization, usually a non-government corporation, that manages the trading (ie the buying an selling) of shares of companies is called a stock exchange. It provides a market (i.e. the "stock market") place (physical or electronic) where buyers and sellers go to trade shares in corporations. Stock exchanges differentiate themselves by the quality of companies that they list for trading. Some exchanges will only list large, highly valued firms while others, such as junior exchanges, may list fledgling companies looking for speculative investors.

Stock Index: Stock Indices like the DOW or the SP500 or the T-Net20 are designed to track a particular, defined market - e.g. top blue chip companies, broad market, or a specific group like the 20 most valuable BC tech companies. Instead of following specific stocks, this let's us see how "the market" is performing - like a weighted price average.

Mutual Fund: Also known as an open-end investment company, to differentiate it from a closed-end investment company. Mutual funds invest pooled cash of many investors to meet the fund's stated investment objective. Mutual funds stand ready to sell and redeem their shares at any time at the fund's current net asset value: total fund assets divided by shares outstanding.
(http://www.trippco.com/glossary/index.htm#M)

Angels: Angel investors are successful entrepreneurs who are willing to invest some of their gains in new ventures. They typically also act as mentors to the founding entrepreneurs. What differentiates angels from other investors is that a) they invest their own money (not other peoples' money which they manage) and b) they have been an entrepreneur themselves.

other definitions come from http://www.sfu.ca/~mvolker/biz/glossary.htm.

Also there are some good investing games and tutorials such as:

1- http://simulator.investopedia.com/

2-http://www.howthemarketworks.com/trading/join.php?src=goog&a=6

or even you can buy and sell shares, stokes, bonds, options, and commodities on almost all portals like Yahoo to find out how its look like.

To know how to read the indexes or interpret the data, you can use the following sites:

1- chartSchool

2- MedHunters

I personally believe it's a must for any individual to know a little bit of business basics.