What Are PowerShares? PowerShares is the branded name of a family of domestic and international exchange traded funds (ETFs) managed by the investment management company Invesco Ltd. One of the first popular index ETFs, the PowerShares QQQs, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index, launched in 1999. Founded in 2003, PowerShares ETFs trade like stocks on both
What Is Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E)? Property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) are long-term assets vital to business operations. Property, plant, and equipment are tangible assets, meaning they are physical in nature or can be touched; as a result, they are not easily converted into cash. The overall value of a company’s PP&E can range from very low
What Is the Producer Price Index (PPI)? The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the prices domestic producers receive for their output. It is a measure of inflation at the wholesale level that is compiled from thousands of indexes measuring producer prices by industry and product category. The index is
The Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) was a plan created by the U.S. Treasury Department in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 to value and remove toxic assets from the balance sheets of troubled financial institutions. The Public-Private Investment Program’s goal was to create partnerships with private investors to buy toxic assets and restart the market for
What Is Pixels Per Inch (PPI)? Pixels per inch (PPI) is the measure of resolution in a digital image or video display. A pixel is an area of illumination or color on a screen or computer image. PPI measures the display resolution, or pixel density, of a computer monitor or screen. The measure is also
What Is Pre-Provision Operating Profit—PPOP? Pre-provision operating profit (PPOP) is the amount of income a bank or similar type of financial institution earns in a given time period, before taking into account funds set aside to provide for future bad debts. A bank will reduce the PPOP once it deducts the dollar amount it determines
What Are Portable Benefits? Portable benefits are those that have been paid into or accrued in an employer-sponsored plan. Portable benefits can transfer to a new employer’s plan or to an individual who is leaving the workforce. Portable benefits apply to benefits from health plans, retirement plans, and most other defined-contribution (DC) plans. For example, most
What Are Porter’s Five Forces? Porter’s Five Forces is a model that identifies and analyzes five competitive forces that shape every industry and helps determine an industry’s weaknesses and strengths. Five Forces analysis is frequently used to identify an industry’s structure to determine corporate strategy. Porter’s model can be applied to any segment of the
What Is the Porter Diamond? The Porter Diamond, properly referred to as the Porter Diamond Theory of National Advantage, is a model that is designed to help understand the competitive advantage that nations or groups possess due to certain factors available to them, and to explain how governments can act as catalysts to improve a
What Is a Financial Portfolio? A portfolio is a collection of financial investments like stocks, bonds, commodities, cash, and cash equivalents, including closed-end funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). People generally believe that stocks, bonds, and cash comprise the core of a portfolio. Though this is often the case, it does not need to be
