Afloats commodities that are on board a ship, shipshape and ready to sail. A 22 ADJUSTABLE-RATE NOTE 01 Essential Finance 10/11/06 2:21 PM Page 22 After-hours shares that are bought and sold after an official stock exchange has closed. After-hours trades are usually treated by the exchange as having been executed on the following day. Such trades not only influence the direction of trading the following day by setting the tone for future trading; they also help to boost liquidity at the outset of trading. Agent An individual or firm authorised to act on behalf 集運 美國集運 日本集運 女生的形體美在很大的程度上都集中在了 まだ闇属性を使えるもう一人の可能性もあるがof another (called the principal) in, say, buying a house, selling a security or executing any transaction. An important distinction between agent and principal is that, unlike a dealer, the former assumes no risk in the transaction. It is well known what a middle man is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other. Benjamin Disraeli AIM Short for Alternative Investment Market, the junior arm of the london stock exchange (lse). Launched in June 1995, the aim of the aim was to offer small companies a cheap and less onerous path to raising capital. In that it has succeeded better than its predecessor, the Unlisted Securities Market (usm), which failed to distinguish itself sufficiently from the main market of the lse, with the result that it was disbanded because of a lack of interest. To keep costs to a minimum, companies listed on the aim are (lightly) regulated by dealers licensed to trade in their shares, not by the exchange itself. Such companies do not have to provide nearly as much information to investors as those listed on the main exchange. A AIM 23 01 Essential Finance 10/11/06 2:21 PM Page 23 Allfinanz An Anglo-German neologism for the coming together of banking and insurance services under one institutional umbrella. Many such institutions have been formed by merger or by a joint venture between a bank and an insurance company. Some (like Deutsche Bank) started what they lacked from scratch (in this case forming an insurance company). The term has since been embraced by many companies from Ireland to New Zealand, offering everything from life assurance to tax planning. Allotment The amount of stock allocated to each participant of a syndicate formed by an investment bank to underwrite and distribute a new issue of shares. It can also be the amount of stock allocated to each subscriber when such an issue is oversubscribed. Alpha A mathematical estimate of the return to be expected from a particular stock based on such things as the rate of growth of the company’s earnings per share. To measure the performance of a particular stock, it is assumed that the return from the market as a whole is zero. So, for example, a stock with an alpha of 1.25 would be expected to rise by 25% during a year in which the market remained flat. A share whose price is low compared with its alpha may therefore be considered good value. Alpha can also be applied to a portfolio of investments, to measure how well or badly it has done compared with how much risk it holds. A stock with a high alpha may or may not also have a high beta, a measure of its volatility.
