Investment Glossary

Alpha
Alpha measures the difference between a fund's actual returns and its expected returns given its risk level as measured by its beta. A positive alpha figure indicates the fund has performed better than its beta would predict. In contrast, a negative alpha indicates a fund has underperformed, given the expectations established by the fund's beta. Some investors see alpha as a measurement of the value added or subtracted by a fund's manager.

Average effective maturity
A weighted average of all the maturities of the bonds in a portfolio, computed by weighing each maturity date (the date the security comes due) by the market value of the security.

Average effective duration
An estimate of how much a bond fund's share price will fluctuate in response to a change in interest rates. To see how the price could shift, multiply the fund's duration by the change in rates. If interest rates rise by one percentage point, the share price of a fund with an average duration of five years would decline by about 5%. If rates decrease by a percentage point, the fund's share price would rise by 5%.

Average weighted coupon
The average interest rate paid on the bonds held by a fund. It is expressed as a percentage of the stated maturity value of its bonds

Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index
A benchmark index made up of government, agency, corporate and mortgage bonds whose securities are investment-grade quality or higher, have at least one year to maturity, and have an outstanding par value of at least $100 million.

Benchmark
An unmanaged group of securities whose overall performance is used as a standard to measure investment performance.

Beta
A measure of the magnitude of a portfolio's past share-price fluctuations in relation to the ups and downs of the overall market (or appropriate market index). The market (or index) is assigned a beta of 1.00, so a portfolio with a beta of 1.20 would have seen its share price rise or fall by 12% when the overall market rose or fell by 10%.

Bond
A debt security (IOU) issued by a corporation, government, or government agency in exchange for the money the bondholder lends it. In most instances, the issuer agrees to pay back the loan by a specific date and make regular interest payments until that date.

Credit quality
A measure of a bond issuer's ability to repay interest and principal in a timely manner.

Debt to capital
Indicates the percentage that debt comprises of total capital; calculated by dividing each underlying fund holding's total debt by total capital. A large debt/capital ratio indicates that a company is highly leveraged.

Diversification
The strategy of investing in different asset classes and among the securities of many issuers in an attempt to lower overall investment risk.

Dividend
A payment of cash or stock from a company's earnings to each stockholder as declared by the company's board of directors.

Duration
A measure of the sensitivity of bond and bond mutual fund prices to interest rate movements. For example, if a bond has a duration of two years, its price would fall about 2% when interest rates rose one percentage point. On the other hand, the bond's price would rise by about 2% when interest rates fell by one percentage point.

Earnings growth
The average annual rate of growth in earnings over an indicated period of years for the stocks now in a fund.

Emerging markets fund
A mutual fund that invests primarily in countries with developing economies (that is, those that are becoming industrialised). Emerging markets funds tend to be more volatile than domestic stock funds due to currency fluctuation and political instability. Consequently, fund prices can fluctuate dramatically.

Emerging Countries
those countries that were not members of the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on 1 January 1995 and, in addition, Greece, Mexico, Portugal and Turkey.

Equity
In investing, ownership in a company. Often used as a synonym for stock.

Equivalent Rating
The rating employed by such other Rating Agency which is equivalent to the relevant rating by S&P or Moody's.

Expense ratio
The percentage of a portfolio's average net assets used to pay its annual expenses.

G7
Group of Seven - France, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada.

Growth and income fund
A mutual fund that seeks long-term growth of capital and current dividend income from stocks.

Growth fund
A mutual fund that emphasises stocks of companies believed to offer above-average prospects for capital growth due to their strong earnings and revenue potential. Growth stocks tend to offer relatively low dividend yields, because these companies prefer to reinvest earnings in the company.

Income fund
A mutual fund that seeks current income rather than growth of capital. Income funds typically invest in bonds and/or high-yielding stocks.

Income risk
The possibility that a portfolio's dividends will decline as a result of falling interest rates. Income risk is generally greatest for money market instruments and short-term bonds, and least for long-term bonds.

Index
See benchmark.

Index fund
A passively managed mutual fund that seeks to parallel the performance of a particular market index.

Indexing
A low-cost investment strategy that seeks to match, rather than outperform, the return and risk characteristics of an index, by holding all securities that make up the index or a statistically representative sample of the index. Also known as passive management.

Information ratio
In investing terminology, the ratio of expected return to risk. Usually, this statistical technique is used to measure a manager's performance against a benchmark. This measure explicitly relates the degree by which an Investment has beaten the Benchmark to the consistency by which the Investment has beaten the Benchmark.

Inflation
A general rise in the prices of goods and services.

Inflation risk
The possibility that increases in the cost of living will reduce or eliminate the returns on a particular investment.

Interest rate
The amount charged for borrowing money.

Latin America
The countries of Central and South America (including Mexico, but excluding the Caribbean countries).

Maturity/maturity date
The date when the issuer of a money market instrument or bond agrees to repay the principal, or face value, to the buyer.

Market capitalization
A determination of a company's value, calculated by multiplying the total number of company stock shares outstanding by the price per share. Also called capitalisation. Market cap breakdown: large-cap (over $12 billion), medium-cap (under $12 billion; over $1 billion), small-cap (under $1 billion).

Market risk
The possibility that stock or bond prices overall will decline over short or even extended periods. Stock and bond markets tend to move in cycles, with periods of rising prices and periods of Falling prices.

Member State
Member state of the European Union, that is Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Moody's
Moody's Investors Services, Inc. and its successors. Moody's rates most of the publicly held corporate and municipal bonds and many Treasury and government agency issues. Moody's also rates commercial paper, preferred and common stocks and municipal short-term issues. Its parent company is Dun & Bradstreet.

Net Assets
The net asset value of a Fund, plus all other assets, minus liabilities.

Passive management
See indexing.

Portfolio
The securities of a Fund.

Price-to-book ratio
The price per share of a stock divided by its book value (i.e., net worth) per share. For a portfolio, the ratio is the weighted average price/book ratio of the stocks it holds.

Price/cash flow
Supplements price/earnings ratio as a measure of relative value; represents a weighted average of the price/cash flow ratios for the underlying fund holdings.

Price/earnings ratio (P/E)
The share price of a stock, divided by its per-share earnings over the past year. For a portfolio, the weighted average P/E ratio of the stocks in the portfolio. P/E is a good indicator of market expectations about a company's prospects; the higher the P/E, the greater the expectations for a company's future growth in earnings.

Prospectus
A legal document that gives prospective investors information about an investment, including discussions of its investment objectives and policies, risks, costs, and past performance. A prospectus must be provided to a potential investor before he/she can establish an account and must also be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Recognized Market.

1. any stock exchange in a Member State of the European Union which operates regularly and is recognised and open to the public, any market organised by the International Securities Markets Association and any market comprising listed money market institutions described in the Bank of England Publication, The regulation of the wholesale cash and OTC derivatives markets (In sterling, foreign currency and bullion) dated December 1995, as amended or superceded or replaced from time to time;
2. any stock exchange established within the United States, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Norway;
3. any market comprising dealers regulated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or any market comprising dealers regulated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers; and
4. any stock exchange or regulated market which is provided for in the Trust Deed.

Return on assets
Measures profitability by reporting the percentage earned on assets calculated by dividing 12 months of net income by total assets.

Return on equity
An amount, expressed as a percentage, earned on a company's common stock investment for a specific time frame. This figure tells shareholders how effectively their money is being utilised.

Risk tolerance
An investor's ability or willingness to endure declines in the prices of investments while waiting for them to increase in value.

R-squared
A measure of how much of a portfolio's performance can be explained by the returns from the overall market (or a benchmark index). If a portfolio's total return precisely matched that of the overall market or benchmark, it's R-squared would be 1.00. If a portfolio's return bore no relationship to the market's returns, its R-squared would be 0.

S&P 500® (Standard & Poor's® composite index of 500 stocks).
An index of many of the 500 largest capitalised stocks in the United States that is widely recognised as a guide to the overall health of the U.S. stock market.

Sector
A group of stocks, often related to a particular industry that have certain shared characteristics.

Securities
Stocks, bonds, money market instruments, and other investment vehicles.

Sharpe ratio
A measure of risk-adjusted return. To calculate a Sharpe ratio, an asset's excess returns (its return in excess of the return generated by risk-free assets such as Treasury bills) are divided by the asset's standard deviation.

Sovereign Debt
A debt obligation of any government, including political sub-divisions, local authorities, government agencies, government-owned, controlled, sponsored or guaranteed corporations and supra-nationals.

Standard deviation
A measure of the degree to which a fund's return varies from its previous returns or from the average of all similar funds. The larger the standard deviation, the greater the likelihood (and risk) that a security's performance will fluctuate from the average return.

Stock/common stock
A security that represents part ownership, or equity, in a corporation. Each share of stock is a proportional stake in the corporation's assets and profits, some of which could be paid out as dividends.

Tax-deferred income
Dividends, interest, and realised/unrealised capital gains on investments in an account such as a qualified retirement plan, where returns are not subject to taxation until a withdrawal is made.

Volatility
The degree of fluctuation in the value of a security, mutual fund, or index, volatility is often expressed as a mathematical measure such as a standard deviation or beta. The greater a fund's volatility, the wider the fluctuations between its high and low prices.