Markets

A black swan is an event that is both extremely rare and hard to predict, but also has extremely large consequences in financial markets. The term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book of The Black Swan

A market maker is a person or firm who helps match buyers and sellers in a financial market by providing price and order size information. Market makers make a profit from the difference between the bid price for an investment, and the asking price, known as the bid-ask spread.

A bubble is a phenomenon in which asset prices rise very rapidly, often unrelated to any change in fundamental factors of the asset. This rise is followed by a similarly rapid decrease in value.

The efficient market hypothesis states that markets can effectively internalize all available information, so security prices always reflect all available information. This means that it is impossible to create a strategy to consistently beat the market. There are different versions of the EMH which argue for greater or lesser market efficiency.

An exchange is a formal, usually regulated, financial market that helps individuals and firms trade investments. Examples of exchanges include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq.

Standard & Poors, currently known as S&P Global, is a financial services company. In addition to being a credit rating agency and source for financial information, the S&P is a provider of market indexes, most famously, the S&P 500.

Market depth is the ability for individuals or firms to buy or sell large amounts of securities without significantly changing the price of the security. The larger amount an investor can trade without significantly impacting the price of the security they are trading, the more depth the market has.