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Charles James Haughey
Charles James Haughey , 1925-2006, Irish politician. A successful accountant and real estate investor, he entered Parliament as a Fianna Fáil member in 1957. After holding a succession of ministerial positions in the 1960s, he was dismissed as minister of finance in 1970 for alleged gunrunn...
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insider trading
insider trading stock market transactions made with knowledge of nonpublic information about corporate activity. In the United States, it has been illegal since 1934. The Securities and Exchange Commission regards it as unfair to investors who are not privy to such information. Several insider tr...
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John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor , 1763-1848, American merchant, b. Walldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany. At the age of 16 he went to England, and five years later, in 1784, he arrived in Baltimore, penniless. He later went to New York City, where in a few years he entered into business with a small shop for trade in...
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hedge fund
hedge fund in finance, a highly speculative, largely unregulated investment device. Originating in the 1950s, the funds "hedge" by offsetting "short" positions (borrowing a security and then selling it at a higher price before repaying the lender) against "long" positions (borrowing mon...
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savings and loan association
savings and loan association type of financial institution that was originally created to accept savings from private investors and to provide home mortgage services for the public.
The first U.S. savings and loan association was founded in 1831. In 1932, the Federal Home Loan Bank System was ...
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Black Monday
Black Monday Oct. 19, 1987, in U.S. history, day of financial panic. The Dow Jones Average fell 508.32 points, a drop of 22.6%, the largest since 1914. The point decline as well as the volume, 604.33 million shares, exceeded previous records. Among the possible causes were investors' anxiety abou...
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commodity market
commodity market organized traders' exchange in which standardized, graded products are bought and sold. Worldwide, there are 48 major commodity exchanges that trade over 96 commodities, ranging from wheat and cotton to silver and oil. Most trading is done in futures contracts, that is, agreements ...
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banking
banking primarily the business of dealing in money and instruments of credit. Banks were traditionally differentiated from other financial institutions by their principal functions of accepting deposits—subject to withdrawal or transfer by check—and of making loans.
Types of Banks...
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gross national product
gross national product (GNP), in economics, a quantitative measure of a nation's total economic activity, generally assessed yearly or quarterly. The GNP equals the gross domestic product plus income earned by domestic residents through foreign investments minus the income earned by foreign inves...
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money-market fund
money-market fund type of mutual fund that invests in high-yielding, short-term money-market instruments, such as U.S. government securities, commercial paper , and certificates of deposit. Returns of money-market funds usually parallel the movement of short-term interest rates. Some funds buy o...
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