Economies of scale are cost advantages reaped by companies when production becomes efficient. Companies can achieve economies of scale by increasing production and lowering costs. This happens because costs are spread over a larger number of goods. Costs can be both fixed and variable.
The business size generally matters when it comes to economies of scale. The larger the business, the more the cost savings. Economies of scale can be both internal and external. Internal economies of scale are based on management decisions, while external ones have to do with outside factors. Internal functions include accounting, information technology, and marketing, which are also considered operational efficiencies and synergies.

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An attorney-in-fact, also called an agent, is a person who is authorized to act on behalf of another person, known as the principal, typically to perform business or other official transactions.  
The principal usually designates someone as their attorney-in-fact by assigning them power of attorney, although a court may choose to assign it if the person being represented is incapacitated. The rules regulating power of attorney vary from state to state. 
An attorney-in-fact is not necessarily a lawyer. Power of attorney may also be granted to more than one person. 

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The Bank Bill Swap Rate, or Bank Bill Swap Reference Rate, is a short-term interest rate used as a benchmark for the pricing of Australian dollar derivatives and securities—most notably, floating rate bonds. 
The BBSW is an independent reference rate that's used for pricing securities. Fixed-income investors use BBSW since it's the benchmark to price floating-rate bonds and other securities. 
There is a risk premium added to the BBSW to compensate for the risk of the securities, as compared with the risk-free rate, which is typically based on government bonds. 
The BBSW is calculated and published by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), which maintains this rate. The bank bill swap rate is Australia's equivalent of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and is used as a reference rate in much the same way on an institutional level. 

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the comprehensive healthcare reform signed into law by then-President Barack Obama in March 2010. Formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and commonly referred to as Obamacare, the law includes a list of healthcare policies intended to expand access to health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans.1 
The law expanded Medicaid eligibility, created health insurance exchanges, mandated that Americans purchase or otherwise obtain health insurance, and prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions 
The ACA was designed to reform the health insurance industry and help reduce the cost of health insurance coverage for individuals who qualify. The law includes premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions to help lower expenses for lower-income individuals and families. 

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Kiting is the fraudulent use of a financial instrument to obtain additional credit that is not authorized. Kiting encompasses two main types of fraud: Issuing or altering a check or bank draft, for which there are insufficient funds and Misrepresenting the value of a financial instrument to extend credit obligations or increase financial leverage.kiting typically involves passing a series of checks at two or more banking institutions, using accounts that have insufficient funds. Relying on the float time required for a check deposited at one bank to clear at another, the kiter typically writes a check at the first bank against an account at the other. Before that check clears, they then withdraw the funds from the second bank account and deposit the funds back into the first. The process may then be repeated in the opposite order, sometimes repeatedly. The net result is a series of fraudulent withdrawals that rely on being a step ahead of the fraudulent check on which they are based having cleared.


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The term joint tenant with the right of survivorship (JTWROS) refers to a legal ownership structure involving two or more parties for any financial account or another asset. When one of the co-owners dies in a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship, then the surviving co-owner automatically owns the asset.
Each tenant has an equal right to the account's assets and is afforded survivorship rights if one of the account holder(s) dies.
A surviving member inherits the total value of the other member's share of property upon the death of that other member.

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A J Curve is an economic theory which states that, under certain assumptions, a country's trade deficit will initially worsen after the depreciation of its currency—mainly because in the near term higher prices on imports will have a greater impact on total nominal imports than the reduced volume of imports.
This results in a characteristic letter J shape when the nominal trade balance is charted as a line graph.

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A null hypothesis is a type of statistical hypothesis that proposes that no statistical significance exists in a set of given observations. Hypothesis testing is used to assess the credibility of a hypothesis by using sample data. Sometimes referred to simply as the "null," it is represented as H0.
The null hypothesis, also known as the conjecture, is used in quantitative analysis to test thA null hypothesis is a type of conjecture in statistics that proposes that there is no difference between certain characteristics of a population or data-generating process.eories about markets, investing strategies, or economies to decide if an idea is true or false.

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Hard skills are technical skills required for a job. They are learned abilities acquired and enhanced through education and experience. Hard skills are important for your resume, as employers look for them when hiring. Hard skills alone don’t translate into success, as employees also need other skills, such as soft skills. Unlike soft skills, hard skills can be quantified. For example, a hard skill might be proficiency in a second language, while a soft skill could be the ability to work well on a team.

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The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, measures income distribution across a population. Developed by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912, it often serves as a gauge of economic inequality, measuring income distribution or, less commonly, wealth distribution among a population.
The coefficient ranges from 0 (or 0%) to 1 (or 100%), with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing perfect inequality. Values greater than 1 are theoretically possible due to negative income or wealth
A country in which every resident has the same income would have an income Gini coefficient of 0. Conversely, a country in which one resident earned all the income, while everyone else earned nothing, would have an income Gini coefficient of 1

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A Giffen good is a low-income, non-luxury product that defies standard economic and consumer demand theory. Demand for Giffen goods rises when the price rises and falls when the price falls. In econometrics, this results in an upward-sloping demand curve, contrary to the fundamental laws of demand which create a downward-sloping demand curve.
The term "Giffen goods" was coined in the late 1800s, named after noted Scottish economist, statistician, and journalist Sir Robert Giffen.
The concept of Giffen goods focuses on low-income, non-luxury products that have very few close substitutes.
Giffen goods can be compared to Veblen goods which similarly defy standard economic and consumer demand theory but focus on luxury goods.

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The Chartered Financial Analyst designation is regarded by most to be the key certification for investment professionals, especially in the areas of research and portfolio management. It is, however, just one of many designations used today. This can cause some confusion, as investors and professionals alike puzzle out what each designation means and which is best.
Professionals with the designation stand out to employers and may receive higher salaries than those without it.
Candidates are required to pass three levels of exams to become chaterholders.
CFA charter holders often work at institutional investment firms, broker-dealers, insurance companies, pension funds, banks, and universities.


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An endowment is a donation of money or property to a nonprofit organization, which uses the resulting investment income for a specific purpose. An endowment can also refer to the total of a nonprofit institution’s investable assets, also known as its “principal” or “corpus,” which is meant to be used for operations or programs that are consistent with the wishes of the donor(s). Most endowments are designed to keep the principal amount intact while using the investment income for charitable efforts.
Endowments are typically organized as a trust, private foundation, or public charity. Many endowments are administered by educational institutions, such as colleges and universities. Others are overseen by cultural institutions, such as art museums, libraries, religious organizations, private secondary schools, and service-oriented organizations, such as retirement homes or hospitals

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Alpha is a term used in investing to describe an investment strategy's ability to beat the market, or its "edge." Alpha is thus also often referred to as “excess return” or the “abnormal rate of return” about a benchmark, when adjusted for risk. Alpha is often used in conjunction with beta , which measures the broad market's overall volatility or risk, known as systematic market risk.
Alpha is used in finance as a measure of performance, indicating when a strategy, trader, or portfolio manager has managed to beat the market return or other benchmark over some period. Alpha, often considered the active return on an investment, gauges the performance of an investment against a market index or benchmark that is considered to represent the market’s movement as a whole.

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Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company for a multitude of businesses, including GEICO and Fruit of the Loom. It's run by chair and CEO Warren Buffett.
Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally, it was a company comprised of a group of textile milling plants. Buffett assumed control of the struggling New England company in 1965.
Since that time, Berkshire has grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, based on market capitalization. Today, it is one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization.
As of May 2023, Berkshire Hathaway had a market capitalization of over $715 billion, making it one of the largest publicly traded companies worldwide.


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Junk bonds are bonds that carry a higher risk of default than most bonds issued by corporations and governments. A bond is a debt or promises to pay investors interest payments along with the return of invested principal in exchange for buying the bond. Junk bonds represent bonds issued by companies that are financially struggling and have a high risk of defaulting or not paying their interest payments or repaying the principal to investors.
Junk bonds are also called high-yield bonds since the higher yield is needed to help offset any risk of default.
A high-yield, or "junk" bond is very similar to regular corporate bonds. Both represent debt issued by a firm with the promise to pay interest and to return the principal at maturity. Junk bonds differ because of their issuers' poorer credit quality

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Creative destruction is the dismantling of long-standing practices in order to make way for innovation and is seen as a driving force of capitalism.
Creative destruction is most often used to describe disruptive technologies such as the railroads or, in our own time, the internet.
The term was coined in the early 1940s by economist Joseph Schumpeter, who observed real-life examples of creative destruction, such as Henry Ford’s assembly line.
Creative destruction can be seen across many different industries such as technology, retail, and finance.
Creative destruction often has unintended consequences such as temporary losses of jobs, environmental issues, or inequity.

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Business cycles are a type of fluctuation found in the aggregate economic activity of a nation -- a cycle that consists of expansions occurring at about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similarly general contractions (recessions).
This sequence of changes is recurrent but not periodic.
Business cycles are comprised of concerted cyclical upswings and downswings in the broad measures of economic activity—output, employment, income, and sales.
The alternating phases of the business cycle are expansions and contractions (also called recessions).
Business cycles are marked by the alternation of the phases of expansion and contraction in aggregate economic activity, and the movement among economic variables in each phase of the cycle.
Aggregate economic activity is represented by not only real GDP but also the aggregate measures of industrial production, employment, income, and sales, which are the key coincident economic indicators used for the official determination of U.S. business cycle peak and trough dates.

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An amalgamation is a combination of two or more companies into a new entity. Amalgamation is distinct from a merger because neither company involved survives as a legal entity. Instead, a completely new entity is formed to house the combined assets and liabilities of both companies.
The term amalgamation has generally fallen out of popular use in the United States, being replaced with the terms merger or consolidation even when a new entity is formed. But it is still commonly used in countries such as India.
Amalgamation is a way to acquire cash resources, eliminate competition, save on taxes, or influence the economies of large-scale operations. Amalgamation may also increase shareholder value, reduce risk by diversification, improve managerial effectiveness, and help achieve company growth and financial gain.
On the other hand, if too much competition is cut out, amalgamation may lead to a monopoly, which can be troublesome for consumers and the marketplace.

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Adverse selection refers generally to a situation in which sellers have information that buyers do not have, or vice versa, about some aspect of product quality. In other words, it is a case where asymmetric information is exploited.
Asymmetric information, also called information failure, happens when one party to a transaction has greater material knowledge than the other party.
Typically, the more knowledgeable party is the seller. Symmetric information is when both parties have equal knowledge.
In the case of insurance, adverse selection is the tendency of those in dangerous jobs or high-risk lifestyles to purchase products like life insurance. In these cases, it is the buyer who actually has more knowledge.
To fight adverse selection, insurance companies reduce exposure to large claims by limiting coverage or raising premiums.

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