Glossary

Short, plain definitions of the money terms used across Puls.

APR (annual percentage rate): The yearly interest rate charged on a loan or card balance. A 30% APR means roughly 2.5% interest a month on what you still owe.
Avalanche method: A debt payoff strategy: pay minimums on everything, then put all your extra money toward the debt with the highest interest rate. It costs the least interest overall.
Bonus shares: Free new shares given to shareholders in proportion to what they own. You get more shares, but the price adjusts, so the total value stays the same.
Brokerage: A company licensed to buy and sell shares on an exchange for you. Each country's securities regulator licenses brokerages and usually publishes a register you can check.
Buy/sell spread: The gap between the price a dealer sells at and the price they buy back at. You pay it every time you buy and later sell.
Certificate of deposit (CD) / term deposit: A deposit you lock with a bank for a fixed term (often 3 months to 5 years) in exchange for a set interest rate, paid monthly, yearly or at maturity.
Coast FI: Having enough invested that, without saving more, it will grow to your FI number by your target retirement age.
Compound interest: Interest earned (or charged) on both the original amount and the interest already added. It makes savings grow faster over time, and debt grow faster if left unpaid.
Custodian: A licensed firm, often your broker or a bank, that keeps the record of the shares you own and collects dividends for you. Your shares stay registered in your name at the central depository.
Devaluation: A fall in a currency's value against other currencies. When a local currency devalues against the dollar, imported goods and dollar savings cost more in that currency.
Diversification: Spreading money across many companies, sectors or asset types, so one bad result hurts less. It lowers risk; it doesn't remove it.
Dividend: Part of a company's profit paid to shareholders, usually in cash. Companies decide whether and how much to pay; dividends are never guaranteed.
Dividend yield: The yearly dividend per share divided by today's share price. A $2 dividend on a $40 share is a 5% yield.
Dollar-cost averaging (DCA): Investing a sum in equal parts at regular intervals instead of all at once. A fixed amount buys more units when prices are low and fewer when they are high.
Emergency fund: Cash set aside for surprises such as job loss or medical bills, usually 3–6 months of essential expenses, kept somewhere safe and easy to reach.
Ex-dividend date: The first day a share trades without its next dividend. If you buy on or after this day, the seller gets the dividend.
FI number: The invested amount you need for financial independence: your yearly expenses divided by your safe withdrawal rate (e.g. ×25 at 4%).
FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early: saving and investing enough that your investments cover your living costs, so work becomes optional.
Fixed vs variable rate: A fixed rate stays the same for the whole term. A variable rate moves with the central bank's policy rate, so it rises and falls over time.
Herd behaviour: Buying or selling because everyone else is, not because of your own reasons. It drives prices up in a rush and down in a panic.
Income statement: A company's report of revenue, costs and profit over a period, such as a quarter or a year.
Index fund: A fund that holds all the stocks in a market index, such as the S&P 500 or MSCI World, so you own a small slice of many companies at low cost.
Inflation: The rate at which prices rise. If inflation is 4% a year, something that costs $100 today costs about $104 next year.
IPO (initial public offering): When a company first sells shares to the public and lists on the exchange. The price is set before trading starts, so it can rise or fall once trading begins.
Karat: A measure of gold purity out of 24. 24K is about 99.9% gold, 22K is 91.7%, 18K is 75% and 14K is 58.3%. Bars and most bullion coins are 24K or 22K.
Lifestyle creep: When spending rises every time income rises, so a raise never turns into extra savings.
Limit order: An order to buy at a set price or lower, or sell at a set price or higher. It caps the price, but it may never fill.
Liquidity: How easily you can buy or sell something quickly at a fair price. A share that trades little can be hard to sell without dropping the price.
Loss aversion: Feeling a loss more strongly than a gain of the same size. It makes people hold losers too long and sell winners too early.
Management fee: A yearly fee a fund charges, as a percentage of what you hold, taken from the fund before returns reach you. Small differences add up over many years.
Margin (buying on margin): Buying shares with money borrowed from your brokerage. It multiplies gains and losses, you pay interest, and a fall can force a sale at a loss.
Minimum payment: The smallest amount a lender accepts each month to keep an account in good standing. Paying only the minimum keeps you in debt much longer and costs far more interest.
Mutual fund: A pool of money from many investors, managed by a licensed company that buys a mix of assets. You own units of the fund, not the assets directly.
NAV (net asset value): The value of everything a fund owns, minus what it owes, divided by the number of units. It is the price at which you buy or redeem fund units.
Oversubscription: When investors ask for more shares in an offering than are on sale. Each applicant then gets only part of what they asked for.
P/E ratio (price to earnings): The share price divided by profit per share. It shows how many years of current profit buyers are paying for. Low or high alone says little without context.
Payout ratio: The share of profit a company pays out as dividends: dividend per share divided by earnings per share. Above 100% means it pays more than it earned.
Policy rate: The interest rate a central bank sets for overnight lending and deposits between banks. Bank savings and loan rates in that currency tend to follow it.
Purification (tathir): Giving away the small share of income that came from non-compliant sources, such as interest a company earned, so the rest of the return is permissible.
Real return: Your return after inflation: roughly the interest or growth rate minus the inflation rate. A positive real return means your money buys more over time.
Rotating savings group (ROSCA): An informal savings group, known by many local names: members pay a fixed amount every month and each takes the whole pot once, in turn. It charges no interest, but inflation changes the real value of each turn.
Safe withdrawal rate: The share of your portfolio you take out in the first year of retirement, then adjust for inflation. 4% is a common rule of thumb from US historical data.
Share (stock): A small unit of ownership in a company. Shareholders own part of the company's assets and future profits, and the share price moves with what buyers will pay for that part.
Sharia-compliant investing: Investing that follows Islamic rules: no companies whose main business is forbidden (such as interest-based banking or alcohol), and limits on debt and interest income, checked by a sharia board.
Snowball method: A debt payoff strategy: pay minimums on everything, then put all your extra money toward the smallest balance. Quick wins help many people stay motivated.
Speculation: Buying in the hope of selling soon at a higher price, based on price moves rather than the business's long-term profits. Gains and losses come fast, and costs add up with every trade.
Stock index: A number that tracks the prices of a group of shares, such as the S&P 500 for 500 large US companies. It shows how the market or a part of it moved, and serves as a benchmark.
Workmanship fee (making charge): The extra charged on top of the gold price for making jewellery or bars. It is usually not refunded when you sell, so it's a cost of buying gold.