Margin Account:
An investment account, which allows you to purchase securities with funds, borrowed from the broker at a specified interest rate.

Margin Account Minimum:
A minimum of $2,000 is required in account worth to initiate margin trades in a margin account. Margin account trades include shorting stock, purchasing stock, option spreads and selling uncovered options. To buy on margin refers to borrowing part of the purchase price of a stock or option from the firm. All trades will be treated as cash trades when a margin account has less than $2,000 in account worth.

Margin Balance:
A debit in your account secured with stocks and/or bonds which regulators have authorized for use as collateral.

Margin Call:
A margin call occurs when your margin account worth is not sufficient to cover a margin requirement. A representative from J.B. Oxford & Company will attempt to notify you by phone, e-mail or U.S. Mail. J.B. Oxford & Company requires payment to be made no later than three (3) business days following the trade for any account with insufficient buying power to meet the initial requirements of Regulation T. In some cases JB Oxford & Company may allow up to five (5) business days for payment or may file an extension request with the NASD. Generally, if payment is not received or if you do not present a legitimate request for an extension by the 5th business day, J.B. Oxford & Company will liquidate positions at current market prices and/or move the margin call trade(s) to its house account.

Margin Debt:
A debit in your account that is owed to the broker. The debit is secured with stocks and bonds which regulators have authorized for use as collateral. It excludes funds due which are debits resulting from purchases in a cash account.

Margin Exceptions:
J.B. Oxford & Company may impose higher margin and/or maintenance requirements than those listed for stocks or indices that, in the opinion of our Margin Department, demonstrate a high volatility and/or low liquidity or represent a high degree of risk. The absence of any security from margin exceptions will in no way imply that such stocks do not carry higher risk, higher volatility or lower liquidity. Margin exceptions are subject to change at any time and without notice.

Margin Loan Availability:
The amount of money you may withdraw from your account using margin eligible securities in your margin account as collateral.

Margin Requirement:
The amount of cash or marginable securities required to initiate a trade within a margin account. In general, J.B. Oxford & Company will not allow you to initiate opening trades without sufficient account worth. The Federal Reserve Board sets minimum initial requirements for stock transactions (Regulation T) and the Exchanges set the minimum initial requirements for options transactions (NASD rule 2520). J.B. Oxford & Company may impose higher margin requirements at any time.

Marginal Tax Rate:
The combined federal, state, and local tax rate applied to the next additional dollar of income. For example, if your federal tax bracket is 28%, and your state tax rate is 5%, when you earn another dollar of income, it would be taxed at a 33% tax rate.

Market Order:
An order to buy or sell a security at the next available price.

Market Quote:
A quotation of the current best bid / ask prices for an option or stock in the marketplace (an exchange trading floor). For listed options and stocks, these quotes are widely disseminated and available through various commercial quotation services.

Market Timing:
Attempting to buy and sell securities to ride up trends and avoid down trends in the stock, bond, currency, or commodity markets. In theory, this can dramatically increase your rate of return, but practically, it is extremely difficult or impossible to consistently make the right decisions at the right time over the long term.

Market Value:
The number of outstanding common shares of a given corporation times latest price per share. It is also referred to as market capitalization. Note: ADRs and ADSs do not display Market Value.

Market-not-held Order:
A type of market order, which allows the investor to give discretion regarding the price and/or time at which a trade is executed.

Market-on-close Order (MOC):
A type of order, which requires that an order be executed at or near the close of trading day on the day the order is entered. A MOC order, which can be considered a type of day order, cannot be used as part of a GTC order.

Mark-to-market:
An accounting process by which the price of securities held in an account are valued each day to reflect the closing price, or market quote if the last sale is outside of the market quote. The result of this process is the equity in an account is updated daily to properly reflect current security prices.

Married Put Strategy:
The simultaneous purchase of stock and put options representing an equivalent number of shares. This is a limited risk strategy during the life of the puts because the stock can always be sold for at least the strike price of the purchased puts.

Maturity:
The date a given bond will mature and pay off its principal in full. A bond issued for $1,000 will pay off the $1,000 at maturity. A single company can issue more than one series of bonds. These bond series can be differentiated by their maturity.

Mean Estimate:
The average of analysts' earnings per share estimates for the current fiscal year for a given corporation.

Minimum Deposit:
The minimum deposit accepted by the Institution for the particular CD. Jumbo and MiniJumbo CDs indicate minimum deposits of $100,000 for Jumbos and $25,000 and $50,000 for MiniJumbo.

Minimum Investment:
Indicates the minimum deposit required to open a regular or IRA/SEP/Keogh tax-deferred account with the mutual fund. Minimum subsequent indicates the minimum required deposit in an already opened regular or tax-deferred account with the mutual fund.

Mixed Lot:
The combination of round lot (100 shares) or multiple round lots and an odd lot (99 shares or less), e.g. 163 shares.

Money Market Fund:
A mutual fund that invests in cash and equivalents. Generally, has a stable $1 per share net asset value (NAV) and a variable rate of return. Not federally insured but short-term nature of investments plus private insurance make them quite safe. Dividends are paid periodically and are automatically reinvested in more shares. Available from banks, mutual fund companies, and brokerage firms, these funds are used as a convenient place to park cash and earn "interest" (really dividends, as mentioned above). Most brokerage and mutual accounts have an associated money market fund account. Money market funds can be taxable or tax-exempt. Each day, the balance in the cash/margin account, which comes from the proceeds of trades and distributions, is swept into the money market fund.

Multi-listed / Multi-traded Option:
Any option contract that is listed and traded on more than one national options exchange.

Mutual Fund Cash-to-Asset Ratio:
Measures the average percentage of cash held by managers of mutual funds in their funds. Some believe that when levels are over 11%, managers are holding onto a lot of cash because they are bearish on the market. Levels below 6% means they are bullish as they have spent all their cash; fund managers usually need to keep about 5% cash just to meet daily redemption requirements.