Trading Industry Definitions

PIIGS

PIIGS is an acronym used in the financial world that stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. PIIGS countries have been grouped and identified as weaker members of the euro zone. See also: BRIC Countries

Quant

Quant is an abbreviation of Quantitative Analyst, and refers to a specialist in developing mathematical models to assist traders and risk managers at financial institutions.

Qualified Investor

Qualified Investors are individuals, trust accounts or institutional funds with at least $5 million in assets to invest with. See also: Accredited Investor, Hedge Fund, Securities and Exchange Commission

Curb Trading

Trading by telephone or by other means that takes place after the official market has closed and that originally took place in the street on the curb outside the market. Under the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC rules, curb trading is illegal. Also known as kerb

Public

In trade parlance, non-professional speculators as distinguished from hedgers and professional speculators or traders.

Cross-Margining

A procedure for margining related securities, options, and futures contracts jointly when different clearing organizations clear each side of the position.

Proprietary Trading Group

An organization whose owners, employees and/or contractors trade in the name of accounts owned by the group and exclusively use the funds of the group for all of their trading activity. See Also: Proprietary Trading Firms

Private Equity

Private Equity refers to an asset class of equity capital that is available to investors, but not publicly traded on a financial exchange.

Credit Rating

A rating determined by a rating agency that indicates the agency’s opinion of the likelihood that a borrower such as a corporation or sovereign nation will be able to repay its debt. The rating agencies include: Standard & Poor’s, Fitch, and Moody’s.

Credit Event

An event such as a debt default or bankruptcy that will affect the payoff on a credit derivative. ISDA has published a definition of a credit event: http://www.credit-deriv.com/isdadefinitions.htm