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Daily Margin
The amount that has to be deposited at the Stock Exchange on a daily basis for the purchase or sale of a security. This amount is specified by the Stock Exchange.

Daily trading limit
The daily trading limit is the most that the price of a futures or options contract can rise or fall in a single session before trading in that contract is stopped for the day. Trading limits are designed to protect investors from wild price fluctuations and the potential for major losses. They're comparable to the circuit breakers established by stock exchanges to suspend trading when prices fall by a specific percentage.

Date of maturity
The date of maturity, or maturity date, is the day on which a bond's term ends, and its issuer repays the principal and makes the final interest payment. When the phrase is used in connection with mortgages or other personal loans, the date of maturity is the day your last payment is due and your debt is repaid.

Day Order
An order that is placed for execution if possible, during only one trading session. If the order cannot be executed in that trading session then it is automatically cancelled.

Debentures
Bonds issued by a company bearing a fixed rate of interest usually payable half yearly on specific dates and principal amount repayable on a particular date on redemption of the debentures.

Debt-to-equity ratio
You find a company's debt-to-equity ratio by dividing its total long-term debt by its total assets minus its total debt. The ratio indicates the extent to which a company is leveraged, or financed by credit. A higher ratio is a sign of greater leverage, which may mean a fast-growing company or one that is overextended. Average ratios vary significantly from one industry to another, so what is high for one company may be normal for another company in a different industry. From an investor's perspective, the higher the ratio, the greater the risk you take in investing in the company. But your potential return may be greater as well if the company uses the debt efficiently to expand its sales and earnings.

Deflation
The opposite of inflation, deflation is a gradual drop in the cost of goods and services, usually caused by a surplus of goods and a shortage of cash. Although deflation seems to increase your buying power in its early stages, it is generally considered a negative economic trend because it is typically accompanied by rising unemployment, falling production, and limited investment.

Delivery Order
Data given to each member of the Stock Exchange at the end of a settlement period containing particulars such as number of shares, value of shares, names of the receiving members etc. to enable him to deliver such shares in time.

Depreciation
Certain assets, such as buildings and equipment, depreciate, or decline in value, over time.You can amortize, or write off, the cost of such an asset over its estimated useful life, thereby reducing your taxable income without reducing the cash you have on hand.

Depression
A depression is a severe and prolonged downturn in the economy. Prices fall, reducing purchasing power. There tends to be high unemployment, lower productivity, shrinking wages, and general economic pessimism. Since the Great Depression following the share market crash of 1929 in U.S., the governments and central banks of major industrialized countries have carefully monitored their economies and adjusted their economic policies to try to prevent another financial crisis of this magnitude

Dirty price
A price for a bond which includes the amount of interest that has accrued on the bond since the date of the last interest payment.

Dividend
Corporations may pay out part of their earnings as dividends to you and other shareholders as a return on your investment. Share dividends, which are generally paid yearly, are in the form of cash.

Dividend payout ratio
You can calculate a dividend payout ratio by dividing the dividend a company pays per share by the company's earnings per share.

Dividend yield
If you own dividend-paying shares, you figure the current dividend yield on your investment by dividing the dividend being paid on each share by the share's current market price. Dividend yield, which increases as the price per share drops and drops as the share price increases, does not tell you what you're earning based on your original investment or the income you can expect to earn in the future. However, some investors seeking current income or following a particular investment strategy look for high-yielding shares.

Dow Jones Global Indexes
Dow Jones Global Indexes are market capitalization weighted indexes that track the share market performance of more than 3,000 companies in 34 countries. Together they represent more than 80% of the equity capital on share markets throughout the world. Eventually, the indexes will include every country where shares can be purchased. Market capitalization weighting means that those companies with higher market capitalizations, figured by multiplying the current price per share by the number of existing shares, have a greater impact on the index than shares with smaller capitalizations. Global market performance is also tracked in eight geographically defined regional indexes and in the Dow Jones World Share Index, a composite of the global indexes.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), sometimes referred to as the Dow, is the best known and most widely followed market indicator in the world. It tracks the performance of 30 blue chip U.S. shares. Though it is called an average, it is actually a price-weighted index, which means the gains and losses of the highest priced shares are counted more heavily than gains and losses of lower priced shares. Quoted in points, not dollars, the DJIA is computed by totaling the weighted prices of the 30 shares and dividing by a number that is regularly adjusted for share splits, spin-offs, and other changes in the shares being tracked. The companies that make up the DJIA are changed from time to time. For example, in 1999 Microsoft, Intel, SBC Communications, and Home Depot were added and four other companies were dropped. The changes were widely interpreted as a reflection of the emerging or declining impact of a specific company or type of company on the economy as a whole.

Dow Jones Total Market Index
This benchmark index measures price changes in approximately 2,200 U.S. shares, representing more than 100 industries, that trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and the Nasdaq Share Market (Nasdaq). Representing approximately 80% of the U.S. equity market, this index is market capitalization weighted. That means a share's influence on the movement of the index is in proportion to its current price multiplied by the total number of shares that investors own. The higher the capitalization, the greater the influence.

Dow Jones Transportation Average
The Dow Jones Transportation Average tracks the performance of the shares of 20 airlines, railroads, and trucking companies, and is one of the components of the Dow Jones 65 Composite Average.

Dow theory
Dow theory maintains that a major market trend — up or down — will continue only if both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the Dow Jones Transportation Average move simultaneously in the same direction until they both hit a new high or a new low. Some experts discount the relevance of this approach as a useful guideline, arguing that waiting to invest until a trend is confirmed can mean losing out on potential growth.