Financial Glossary

API
API stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is a source code interface that a computer system or program library provides in order to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program. The API technology facilitates exchanging messages or data between two or more different software applications and is specified in terms of a programming language that can be compiled when an application is built, as opposed to an application binary interface which is an explicit low level description of how data is laid out in memory.

CIK
CIK is the SEC Central Index Key for the company. It is a unique identifier the SEC uses to track firms. Because the SEC tracks more than just listed securities, they have many more CIK than there are symbols. You can use the XigniteEdgar:LookupCIK operation to find the CIK for a company.

CUSIP
CUSIP is a unique numbering system managed by The CUSIP Service Bureau. They are used to identify securities issued by U.S. and Canadian companies. Every stock, bond and other security has a unique, 9-digit CUSIP number chosen according to this system. The first six digits identify the issuer and are known as the 'base', the next two identify the exact issue - which is dependent on the type of security, and the ninth digit is an automatically generated 'check digit'. This is why CUSIPs are important; because they are the only safe, reliable way to identify a listed security.

EDGAR
The Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system is a computer system that collects, validates, indexes, and forwards submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the SEC.

ECN
Electronic Communication Networks (ECN) are securities exchanges that are completely computerized and do not rely on a specialist (like NYSE) or a market maker (like NASDAQ). As a result of SEC regulatory actions over the past several years, a market maker, exchange or specialist that receives a customer limit order better than its own published quote must generally (1) execute the order, (2) incorporate the limit order price into its published quote, or (3) pass the order on to an ECN for public display and matching.

INET
As a consequence of the progressive regulatory actions by the SEC, quote competition has increased and overall equity volume has grown. In particular, volume has shifted from traditional exchanges to ECNs. At the forefront of these changes, Island has been built for market professionals looking for an alternative to the traditional venues.

ISIN
ISIN stands for the International Securities Identification Number. It is a 12-character alpha-numeric code that uniquely identifies a specific securities issue. This code does not does not contain information characterizing financial instruments, but serves for uniform identification of a security at trading and settlement. The organization that allocates ISIN's in any particular country is the country's respective National Numbering Agency.

LIBOR
Libor stands for London Inter Bank Offer Rate. It is the rate of interest at which banks offer to lend money to one another in the wholesale money markets in the City of London. Money can be borrowed overnight or for a period of in excess of five years. The most often quoted rate is for three month money. '3 month LIBOR' tends to be used as a yardstick for lenders involved in high value transactions.

London Fixings
The London Gold and Silver Fixings are the internationally published benchmarks for precious metals. They are fully transparent and are therefore used to deal in large amounts, or to achieve the accepted average price of the metal. As a benchmark, many other financial instruments are priced off the fixing, including cash-settled swaps and options. The silver fixing started in 1897 and the gold fixing in 1919.

Monte Carlo Simulation
Named after the famous casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco where games of chance exhibit variable values at random. This simulation uses a set of random inputs to generate values for uncertain variables over and over simulating a model.

NSIN
A National Securities Identification Number is a generic 9 digit number used to identify a fungible security. This number is issued by the NNA, National Numbering Agency, for each designated country. In the United States, the NNA is the CUSIP Services Bureau, and the NSIN is the CUSIP. In the United Kingdom, the NNA is the London Stock Exchange, and the NSIN is the SEDOL.

OFAC
The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the U.S. Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under U.S. jurisdiction. Many of the sanctions are based on United Nations and other international mandates, are multilateral in scope, and involve close cooperation with allied governments.

RIC
Reuters, uses a system to identify instruments worldwide. Within this system they've created a code, RIC, the Reuters Identification Code. This code contains an X character market specific code followed by '.YY' where 'YY' stands for the two digit country code.

SEC
The SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission, a United States government organization. Its main purpose is to protect investors and maintain the integrity of the securities markets.

SEDOL
SEDOL stands for Stock Exchange Daily Official List. SEDOL numbers are a method of identification for The London Stock Exchange, and are assigned to securities for trading and pricing purposes. These id numbers are made up of 7 alphanumeric digits. The SEDOL serves as an NSIN for all securities issued in the United Kingdom.

SIC Codes
Standard Industrial Classification Codes appear in a company's disseminated EDGAR filings and indicate the company's type of business. These codes are also used in the Division of Corporation Finance as a basis for assigning review responsibility for the company's filings.

SOAP
Simple Object Access Protocol is a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages and represents the expected end state of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) vision.

SOBA
Service Oriented Business Applications represent the expected end state of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) vision. That is, SOBA's are business applications that function in a service-oriented environment to provide discrete unites of business-level functionality through well defined service contracts (keeping the services encapsulated and self-contained. Within the SOA model these services can be dynamically combined as needed by the business.

Valoren
A Valoren is an identification number used by Telekurs assigned to Swiss financial instruments. These numbers are similar to CUSIP numbers that are used in Canada and the United States. A typical valoren (also known as a valorem) number is between six and nine digits long.

VWAP
Volume Weighted Average Price is a measure of the average price at which a stock is traded over the trading horizon. The VWAP is the ratio of the value traded to total volume traded over a particular time period, usually one day.

Web Service
A Web Service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. This term refers to those services that use SOAP-formatted XML envelopes and have their interfaces described by WSDL. Web services were enabled by the introduction and broad adoption of three related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards: XML, SOAP and WSDL.

WSDL
Web Services Description Language is an XML-formatted language used to describe a web service capability as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages. It is an integral part of UDDI as it is the language UDDI uses. WSDL was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM.

XML
Extensible Markup Language is a W3C recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. XML is formatted in a tree based structure where each node may have its own property list. This structure is text based. The primary purpose of XML is to facilitate easy sharing of data across different information systems.

XSLT
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations is a Turing complete XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. XSLT is a specific kind of template processor primarily designed to 'transform' XML documents into other XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather a new one is created based on the content of the existing one.