Customer Reviews

Wall Street Lingo: Thousands of Investment Terms Explained Simply

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I found the title of this book deceiving in the best way possible. Wall Street Lingo is more a guided tour of Wall Street and its inner workings than a simple glossary of investment terms and lingo. Any novice to intermediate investor will benefit from Peterson's backstage pass to one of the world's most lucrative investment forums.

Peterson keeps an otherwise dry and heavy read manageable with her extremely user-friendly format; on top of dividing the over 1000 defined investment terms into logical chapters, a full index at the back of the book makes for quick referencing. At first glance, the sheer number of topics covered seems intimidating to the financially untrained eye. However, the step-by-step approach demystifies every aspect of investment, from the basics of exchange operations to interpreting financial statements to paying the tax man. Charts, tables and explanations of key strategies interspersed throughout the definitions in each chapter help to drive home important points. Those in need of extra investment help will find plenty of additional resources tucked into the back of the book, with lists of acronym definitions, investor resources and relevant publications.

Wall Street Lingo delivered all that it promised and more. The up to date instruction and information is sure to benefit any potential or practicing investor wise enough to develop their investment knowledge before hitting the market. The way the information is presented is the icing on the cake, as even a beginner can navigate the guide and come out confident in their financial prowess in the end.

I wouldn't go to a foreign country without a phrase dictionary and I wouldn't consider doing investment research without Wall Street Lingo by my side. As author Nora Peterson points out, what happens on Wall Street doesn't stay on Wall Street. If you want to put your hard-earned money to work earning a solid ROI (return on investment) rather than taking a Random Walk and hoping for the best, you need this dictionary.

With the wealth of information available on the internet, there is no reason why you can't make informed decisions about how and where to put your money to work for you. Fortunes are made by understanding the details involved in corporate investing but those all-important details are frequently hiding behind special terms and techniques that investors need to learn. Wall Street Lingo bridges the gap with quick, easy-to-understand definitions and related terms so that you can cut to the chase and make good choices.

The bottom line is that if you want to know what people are up to, you have to understand their language. Investors, business students and anyone whose job depends directly or indirectly on corporate America should own this book.

Nora Peterson's WALL STREET LINGO: THOUSANDS OF INVESTMENT TERMS EXPLAINED SIMPLY provides a finance dictionary not for the seasoned investor but for the everyday individual. It defines stockbroker terms and explains them easily, adopting a subject-oriented organization for quick and easy reference and pairing of terms and translating Wall Street jargon into easily-understood points. The author holds some thirty years of experience and her background charting futures and trading in securities lends authority to this primer, perfect for business library collections.

If you are looking for definitions of the strange language used on Wall Street. Nora Peterson filled the bill for that nicely.
I used this book in a class on investing that I gave a couple of weeks ago to High School students that knew nothing about the market and they even said now they understand things a bit better when these terms are put into simple english.
I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn some of the terms they come across in researching the Market. Very good for beginners and semi experienced.
Good job. It was just what I was looking for.
Thanks Nora.

If you aren't familiar with a Dead Cat Bounce, Triple Witching Week or Naked Option, you'll learn all about these terms and more after reading this book. While these may sound funny, they all refer to real-life Wall Street concepts that both the seasoned investor and novice will undoubtedly encounter in their financial future. This book is like a travel guide through the Wall Street labyrinth, and it untangles complex ideas in a surprisingly straightforward way. Whether you utilize a broker or manage your money independently, this book will help you take control of your investments and maximize your financial success.

Nora Peterson says her book is designed to "stimulate the reader's curiosity, not overwhelm it," and that is exactly what she does. Many stock market shows are so fast-paced that all of the fancy verbeage is lost on people who aren't familiar with even the most basic stock market terms, and it can be frustrating to attempt to learn anything from them. It is also comforting to note that she herself is an experienced investor and knows what she is talking about. Peterson writes that she had trouble getting over the "intimidation hump," which is a feeling we can all relate to when dealing with the foreign language of Wall Street slang. By the end of the book, you'll be remarking to friends about the tremendous success of your latest Sleeper stock or how a Bear Hug squeezed a deal out of a certain target company.

This book was surprisingly easy to understand and follow. It's fun, and you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want. It doesn't require a huge time commitment but is invaluable for anyone involved in the financial industry. Not only is Peterson informative, but she has a fun and engaging writing style that makes you want to get started learning new terms and putting them to use right away. This is a great book for beginners such as myself, or for people who want to build upon previous market experience. I was expecting a dry read about technical and difficult financial terms, but instead found a jackpot of easily accessible terms and interesting information about how Wall Street works.

In this book, the author takes what seems to be an overwhelming amount of information on the subject of Wall Street and organizes it into easy to locate sections and chapters. This fact, more than anything else, is what I think sets this book apart from many other financial reference books. While many reference books (particularly in the financial realm) that I have read lay out information alphabetically and join them with confusing financial jargon, this book does a good job of defining the many phrases and words associated with Wall Street and putting them into layman's terms. As a result, I would recommend this book to anyone starting out in the world of Wall Street. Since I have had no previous experience at all with investing on Wall Street, I must say that the sheer volume of the text was overwhelming. But the organization of the book really helps and I think it will be even more helpful to those who have already dabbled some in the stock market and are looking for an easy to understand reference tool.

Another aspect of the book I found particularly helpful was the various breakout boxes that accompanied the chapters. These breakout boxes, noted by the title "a closer look," essentially took some of the more complicated or important terms (such as momentum investing and initial public offering) and helped clarify them even more than they were in the initial definition. This style is also helpful because it immediately drew my attention to the most important thing on the page. All in all, I found this book to be full of extremely relevant and helpful information. However, it is important to keep in mind that this book is by no means easy reading. While the terms themselves are simply defined, the sheer complexity and wealth of information about the stock market and Wall Street requires more than one leisurely read. I would recommend that those interested in getting started in Wall Street investing read the book once, then keep it close by as a reference book and search tool.

This book is a great reference piece for those wishing to get into investment, or entering more advanced economic studies. The author, Nora Peterson, goes to great lengths to produce a dictionary of Wall Street jargon in terms understandable to the everyday laymen. I caught myself going to through the Wall Street Journal and getting a kick out of finding terms I often skipped through before. After going through the dictionary I felt more assured that I would be able to use these terms more effectively when using them for business presentations. I don't believe that one would just read the whole book for their entertainment; this is a reference piece, much like any dictionary. But, I do believe that those who want to know more historical information on how the jargon developed would be enthralled to keep this book as a good reference. I'm not always into using big terminology, or using terms that I really don't have a grasp of. But, there are both customers and business associates who do use these terms on a regular basis. Why not have a better grasp and turn that meeting at the water cooler into a learning environment. Best of all, you can be teaching the lesson, giving you the some added respect from that associate or boss. I know that I have had problems filling out those PowerPoint slides... I just hate that. This book can give you some of those value added fillers to better explain your business proposal. I truly believe that I will greatly benefit from this book on my reference shelf. I give this book a good reference thumbs up.

If you have wandered through the maze of the financial and business worlds, amazed at the confusing flow of jargon that everyone else seems to understand, then this is a must have book for you.

It was written for investors who need to constantly increase their knowledge to stay on top of their game. However this book is also a valuable resource for anyone who needs or wants to increase their knowledge of the investment and business world.

The author has taken a unique approach with the way she's organized her material. The material is arranged by subject matter and divided into sections and chapters. It is in alphabetical order within the sections. The acronym list at the back of the book is very extensive and helped develop my understanding of the industry.

The definitions are easy to read and understand. I learned that a circuit breaker has nothing to do with the electrical system in my house, runoff has nothing to do with a spring thaw and noise has nothing to do with the constant clamber from my kids!

Did you know Santa Clause had a rally? I sure didn't at least not until I read the book. I've always been fascinated with language and this book taught me more than I expected to learn. As a reference for the industry it's second to none and has a permanent place on my shelves.

I figured there would be 101 books out there that had definitions on Wall Street Lingo. Not so. If you need to understand the lingo, get the definition. And this book is a gem that fits the bill perfectly.

No one interested in Wall Street should be without this excellent dictionary/reference book. It is especially good for those who are new to investing. Since many companies are no longer offering retirement plans, and with the ease of investing online, there are many do-it-yourself investors who really do not know much about the market. Furthermore, the financial pros use terms that are incomprehensible to the public. This can sometimes create a barrier that turns off the potential investor. This book seeks to dissolve that barrier, explaining in easy to understand language, the definitions of Wall Street jargon.

What is nice about this book is that it you do not have to read the entire book if you do not want to (although it would be a good idea, as it is a great primer on Wall Street.) However, you can easily look up a term in the extensive index and read up on its meaning. Sometimes, a term will appear more than once wherever applicable. This is because the book is not set up like a regular A-Z dictionary. The book is divided into topic specific sections and within those sections, the A-Z terms are listed. Which works twofold because you can: 1) Look up a word to define or 2) Look up a topic and read up on it.

There are extras in the book like: highlighted boxes giving you more information on certain terms; Internet links; sections on initials and symbols and what they stand for; etc. The author, Nora Peterson, is a retired market analyst (30 years in the business) and business writer, so she knows her material. She makes the jargon of Wall Street easy to understand. On an end note, part of the proceeds of the sale of this book go to The Humane Society of America, in memory of Bear, the book publisher's (Atlantic Publishing) beloved dog. So this book is a great investment with a nice return.