What Is Below Par? Below par is a term describing a bond whose market price is trading below its face value or principal value, usually $1,000. Bonds are debt instruments that are usually issued by corporations and governments to raise money. When an investor purchases a bond, the price paid for it is called the
What Is Below-the-Line Advertising? Below-the-line advertising is an advertising strategy where products are promoted in media other than mainstream radio, television, billboards, print, and film formats. The main types of below-the-line advertising systems include direct mail campaigns, social media marketing, trade shows, catalogs, and targeted search engine marketing. Below-the-line advertising methods tend to be less expensive and
What Is Belt and Suspenders? In finance, “belt and suspenders” is a colloquial phrase used to describe conservative lending practices. It is based on the idea that wearing a belt and suspenders gives the user two redundant methods for holding up their pants. By analogy, cautious bankers will seek redundant layers of risk mitigation when
Ben Bernanke was the chair of the board of governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. Bernanke took over the helm from Alan Greenspan on Feb. 1, 2006, ending Greenspan’s 18-year leadership at the Fed. A former Fed governor, Bernanke was chair of the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisors prior to
What Is a Benchmark? A benchmark is a standard against which something is compared. Investors use benchmarks to measure the performance of securities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, portfolios, or other investment instruments. Generally, broad market and market-segment stock and bond indexes are used for this purpose—even cryptocurrencies have benchmarks, hallmarking the importance of having something to compare
What Is a Benchmark Bond? A benchmark bond is a bond that provides a standard against which the performance of other bonds can be measured. Government bonds are almost always used as benchmark bonds such as on-the-run U.S. Treasuries. A benchmark bond is sometimes referred to as an example of a benchmark issue or bellwether
What Is Benchmark Crude Oil? Benchmark crude oil is the petroleum that serves as a pricing reference for other types of oil and oil-based securities. The benchmark or crude oil markers make it easier for traders, investors, analysts, and others to determine the prices of multiple grades of crude oil varieties and blends. The management of
What Is a Benchmark for Correlation Values? A benchmark for correlation values is a benchmark, or specific point of reference, that an investment fund or individual investor uses to measure important correlation values of their portfolios, such as beta, which measures the volatility of a security to the market as a whole, or R-squared, a
What Is Beneficial Interest? A beneficial interest is the right to receive benefits on assets held by another party and is often evident in matters concerning trusts. Most beneficial interest arrangements are in the form of trust accounts, where an individual, the beneficiary receives income from the trust’s holdings but does not own the account.
What is a BAX Contract? A BAX contract is a short-term investment instrument that tracks the nominal value of a Canadian bankers’ acceptance (BA). The specific BA behind the contract has a nominal value of C$1 million and a maturity of three months. They were first launched in 1988 by the Montreal Exchange and has since gained traction
