Earnings are the amount of profit that a company makes in a specific period – like a quarter or a year.

Earnings are the amount of profit that a company makes in a specific period – like a quarter or a year.

EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It’s used to eliminate the impact of financing and accounting decisions so businesses can be compared against one another effectively.

The best way to think about emerging markets is to think about all the “developed markets” – like the US, Japan, Europe and some others. These tend to be the largest economies in the world and the most advanced. Emerging markets are, essentially, less economically advanced.

An ETF is an investment fund that explicitly tracks the value of an asset like the price of oil or the value of US stocks (as determined by the S&P 500 or another large index). Investors can buy and sell ETFs just like normal stocks – which makes them easy to invest in.

Fiat money is pretty much money as you know it – like the US dollar and the euro. Fiat money has no intrinsic value – it’s only worth something because a government has said so, and consumers and institutions alike continue to make it so.

A fiduciary is a person (or group of people, like an investment fund) who has a legal responsibility to take care of another person or group’s money or assets. For example, in the US, non-fiduciary financial advisors have no legal obligation to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.

All public companies have to report their financial results, including things like how much revenue and profit the company generated. US companies report results four times per year (which is why you hear terms like “second-quarter results”) while non-US companies often report only twice per year. Investors usually measure the reported results versus expectations that the company itself and independent analysts held prior.

Fiscal policy refers to how a government sets its spending and tax policies and (by doing so) exerts influence on its economy. Governments generally like to spend money – especially in a democracy where spending helps keep voters happy – but a government can’t spend too much above what it generates in tax without risking serious long-term consequences (like its currency collapsing in value).

Fiscal stimulus is when a government either increases its spending or cuts taxes in an effort to boost economic growth. Often, fiscal stimulus (especially the spending part) is meant to be short-term in nature but with benefits that last for decades.