What Is Backing Away? The term backing away refers to the failure by a market maker in a security to honor the quoted bid and ask prices for a minimum quantity. Backing away constitutes a serious violation of industry regulations. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) uses an automated market surveillance system to enable the
What Is a Backlog? A backlog is a buildup of work that needs to be completed. The term “backlog” has a number of uses in accounting and finance. It may, for example, refer to a company’s sales orders waiting to be filled or a stack of financial paperwork, such as loan applications, that needs to be
What Are Back Months? In the commodity futures markets, the term “back months” refers to the futures contracts whose delivery dates are relatively far in the future. By contrast, so-called front months are those closest to the present date. Key Takeaways Back month futures contracts are those whose delivery date is among the latest available.They
What Is Back Office? The back office is the portion of a company made up of administration and support personnel who are not client-facing. Back-office functions include settlements, clearances, record maintenance, regulatory compliance, accounting, and IT services. For example, a financial services firm is segmented into three parts: the front office (e.g., sales, marketing, and
What Is a Back-Of-The-Envelope Calculation? A back-of-the-envelope calculation is an informal mathematical computation, often performed on a scrap of paper, such as an envelope. A back-of-the-envelope calculation uses estimated or rounded numbers to develop a ballpark figure quickly. The result should be more accurate than a guess, as it involves putting thought to paper, but
What Is a Backorder? A backorder is an order for a good or service that cannot be filled at the current time due to a lack of available supply. The item may not be held in the company’s available inventory but could still be in production, or the company may need to still manufacture more
What Is Backpricing? In finance, the term “backpricing” refers to the practice of entering into a commodities futures contract without initially specifying the price at which the commodity will be purchased. Instead, the parties to a backpriced futures contract will wait until a specified date before deciding on a fair price at which to buy
What Is a Back Stop? In corporate finance and investment banking, a back stop (or backstop) is to provide last-resort support or to make a bid in a securities offering for the unsubscribed portion of shares. When a company is trying to raise capital through an issuance—and wants to guarantee the amount received through the
What Are Back Taxes? Back taxes are taxes that have been partially or fully unpaid in the year that they were due. Taxpayers can have unpaid back taxes at the federal, state and/or local levels. Back taxes accumulate interest and penalties on a regular basis. Key Takeaways Back taxes are taxes that are due to
What Is Backtesting? Backtesting is the general method for seeing how well a strategy or model would have done ex-post. Backtesting assesses the viability of a trading strategy by discovering how it would play out using historical data. If backtesting works, traders and analysts may have the confidence to employ it going forward. Key Takeaways
