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Basis point
Yields on bonds, notes, and other fixed-income investments fluctuate regularly, typically changing only within hundredths of a percentage point. These small variations are measured in basis points, or gradations of 0.01%, or one-hundredth of a percent, with 100 basis points equaling 1%. For example, when the yield on a deposit changes from 6.72% to 6.65%, it has dropped 7 basis points.

Bear market
A bear market is sometimes described as a period of falling securities prices and sometimes, more specifically, as the point at which prices have fallen 20% or more from a high. A bear market in shares is triggered by investors selling off shares because they anticipate worsening economic conditions and falling profits. A bear market in bonds is usually brought on by rising interest rates.

Bearer Securities/Bearer Bonds
Securities which do not require registration of the name of the owner in the books of the company. Both the interest and the principal whenever they become due are paid to anyone who has possession of the securities. No endorsement is required for changing the ownership of such securities.

Benchmark
Originally a benchmark was a surveyor's mark indicating a specific height above sea level. But it has come to have a much broader meaning in the world of investing. A share market benchmark, for example, is an index or average whose movement is considered a general indicator of the direction of the overall market, against which investors and financial professionals often gauge their market expectations and judge the performance of individual shares or market sectors. For example, the National Stock Exchange’s NIFTY (share Index of 50 companies) and the Bombay Stock Exchange’s SENSEX (share index of 30 companies) are the most widely followed benchmarks, or indicators, of the Indian stock market. There are also benchmarks for international markets, and for other types of investments such as bonds, mutual funds, and commodities.

Beta
Beta is a measure of an investment's relative volatility. The higher the beta, the more sharply the value of the investment can be expected to fluctuate in relation to a market index. Betas as low as 0.5 and as high as 4 are fairly common, depending on the sector and size of the company. However, in recent years, a number of experts have disputed the validity of assigning and using a beta value as an accurate predictor of share performance.

Bid
An offer price to buy. Business on the Stock Exchange is done through bids. Bid also refers to the price one is willing to pay for a security.

Bid-Ask spread
The difference between the bid price and the ask price.

Big Board
The Big Board is the nickname of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the oldest and largest stock exchange in the U.S. and the largest in the world. Common and preferred share, bonds, warrants, and rights are all traded on the Big Board, which dates back to 1792.

Blue chip share
Blue chip shares are the share of large, well-regarded companies. Blue chips, which take their name from the most valuable poker chips and in the U.K. are known as alpha shares, have a reputation for quality products and services and a long-established record of earning profits and investor friendliness

Boiler room
A boiler room is a share brokerage firm that uses aggressive tactics to sell risky, and sometimes falsified, shares to willing investors. Boiler rooms often use sales methods that violate Sebi rules requiring brokers to recommend investments that are appropriate for each investor's portfolio. For example, a broker working in a boiler room might try to sell very speculative share to retired investors whose portfolios cannot tolerate such high risk. Many boiler room brokers may also try to create investor interest in companies that don't actually exist in order to profit from the sale of fraudulent shares.

Bond
A negotiable certificate evidencing indebtedness for e.g. debt security issued by a company, government agency etc. A bond investor lends money to the issuer and, in exchange, the issuer promises to repay the loan amount on a specified maturity date. The issuer usually pays the bondholder periodic interest payments over the life of the loan.

Bonus Shares
Shares issued by companies to their shareholders free of cost by captialisation of accumulated reserves from the profits earned in the earlier years.

Book Closure
The periodic closure of the Register of Members and Transfer Books of the company, to take a record of the shareholders to determine their entitlement to dividends or to bonus or right shares or any other related corporate benefits.

Book Value
Book value of shares is calculated by adding up Share Capital, reserves and surplus of a company which is then divided by the number of equity shares issued by the company.

Bottom fishing
Investors using a bottom-fishing strategy look for shares that they consider undervalued because the prices are low. The logic of bottom fishing is that share prices sometimes fall further than a company's actual financial situation warrants, especially in the aftermath of bad news, and can rebound dramatically, providing a healthy profit.

Bottom-up investing
When you use a bottom-up investing strategy, you focus on the potential of individual shares, bonds, and other investments. Using this approach, for example, means you pay less attention to the economy as a whole, or to the prospects of the industry a company is in, than you do to the company itself. In making decisions based on bottom-up investing, you read research reports, examine the company's financial stability, and evaluate what you know about its products and services in great detail.

Bourse
Bourse is the French term for a stock exchange, meaning, literally, purse. The national share market of France, a totally electronic market, is known as the Paris Bourse. The term is used throughout Europe and worldwide as a synonym for stock exchange, though it generally isn't used in India.

Breakout
Share prices fluctuate constantly, but each share typically moves within a fairly narrow range. That means the share's average price changes gradually, if at all. But sometimes a share's price breaks out of its limits, and jumps or tumbles suddenly. Usually the breakout is fueled by a particular event. The company may realize a commercial success, such as a drug company discovering a new cure. Or a breakout may reflect a financial development, such as a new alliance with a successful partner

Broker Broker
Broker is a member of a Stock Exchange who acts as an agent for clients and buys and sells shares on their behalf in the market. Though strictly a stock broker is an agent, yet for the performance of his part of the contract both in the market and with the client, he is deemed as a principal, a peculiar position of dual responsibility.

Bull market
A prolonged period when share prices as a whole are moving upward is called a bull market, although the rate at which those increases occur can vary widely from bull market to bull market. So can the length of time a bull market lasts.

Business Day
A day on which the Stock Exchange is open for business.

Buyback
When a company purchases shares of its own publicly traded share or its own bonds in the open market, it's called a buyback. The most common reason a company buys back its share is to make the share more attractive to investors by increasing its earnings per share. While the actual earnings stay the same, the earnings per share increase because the number of shares has been reduced. Companies may also buy back shares to pay for acquisitions that are financed with share swaps, to make shares available for employee share option plans, to decrease the risk of a hostile takeover by reducing the number of shares available for sale, or to discourage short-term trading in its share by driving the price of the shares upward. Companies may buy back bonds when they are selling at discount, which is typically the result of rising interest rates. By paying less than par in the open market, the company is able to reduce the cost of redeeming the bonds when they come due.