What are some common acronyms used on WSO?

If you are confused by all the lingo getting thrown around Wall Street and the WSO forums, you've come to the right place. We know it can be confusing but don't worry, we are here to help! Below you will find a comprehensive list of finance acronyms for words and phrases in finance. This is a great place to start so that you can follow along in forum discussions easily.

-AM (Asset Management): Refers to the industry which manages assets, whether institutional or personal (PWM, PB)

-BB (Bulge Bracket): Generally the largest banks competing for the largest deals, notable BBs include, but are not limited to: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS. Bulge bracket banks don't focus solely on the largest deals and very often venture into the middle market arena to vie for business

-DCF (Discounted Cash Flow):DCF is a method used to value a company or project by determining the present value of future cash flows by discounting them using the appropriate cost of capital

-DCM (Debt Capital Markets): A division within an investment bank which focuses on raising debt capital

-EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization): a measure of a company's operating performance. Essentially, it's a way to evaluate a company's performance without having to factor in financing decisions, accounting decisions or tax environments

-ECM (Equity Capital Markets): A division within an investment bank which focuses on raising equity capital

-FIG (Financial Institutions Group): A group within an IB or IBD, which focuses solely on companies in the general finance services sector

-FT (Full-time Analyst): An analyst working full-time at a financial services firm

-HF (Hedge Fund): HFs are usually an investment fund that is only open to a small number of large investors who pay the fund manager a performance fee

-IB (Investment Bank): This generally refers to a bank that focuses solely on investment banking, however it may also be used as shorthand for saying "investment banking"

-IBD (Investment Banking Division): This is the division of a bank that focuses on investment banking

-IPO (Initial Public Offering): An IPO is a corporation's first sale of common shares to investors on a public stock exchange. It is usually done in order to raise capital for further expansion, growth, and/or development

-LBO (Leveraged Buyout): This is the method PE funds generally use to buy companies. It uses the PE firm's and the target company's assets as collatoral to take on enormous debt, generally 70% of the total value of their assets

-M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions): Refers to the act of two companies merging or one company acquiring another. This is a major part of investment banking and finance

-MBB (McKinsey, Bain, BCG): The three most respected management consulting firms, these firms focus mainly on strategy consulting

-MM (Middle Market): MMs are banks that focus mainly on middle-market deals, that is, deals that involve small- and medium-sized companies. Morgan Joseph and Jeffries are two great examples of superb middle-market banks

-PB (Private Banking): A type of wealth management catering to high net-worth and ultra-high net-worth individuals, the services they offer often go far beyond the services offered in PWM

-PE (Private Equity): This refers to the buy-side finance sector which, in the most general sense, uses a leveraged buyout to purchase a company, improves it, and sells it

-PWM (Private Wealth Management): PWM is the sector of finance that focuses on managing they money of high net-worth individuals

-SA (Summer Analyst): Generally refers to an analyst with a summer internship

-TMT (Technology, Media, & Telecom): Usually refers to a group within an IBD or a boutique IB focusing on that specific sector

-WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital): WACC is used in finance to measure a firm's cost of capital and takes into account the relative weights of each component of the capital structure and presents the expected cost of new capital for a firm

-WSO (Wall Street Oasis): A fantastic community of finance professionals whose goal it is to get you a job on Wall Street!

-VC (Venture Capital): A sub-sector of private equity focusing on companies in their early stages of development

Related: Common terms used on WSO

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