Guide to Analysing Companies

Adjustable-rate note
See floating-rate note.
ADR
See american depositary receipt.
Advance/decline ratio
A measure of the difference between the number of stocks
whose price is rising on a market during a given day or trading
session and the number whose price is falling. In the United
States, when this difference or ratio itself starts to decline, it is
often taken as a sign that the market has peaked.
Afloats
commodities that are on board a ship, shipshape and ready
to sail.
A
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After-hours
shares that are bought and sold after an official stock ex-
change has closed. After-hours trades are usually treated by
the exchange as having been executed on the following day.
Such trades not only influence the direction of trading the fol-
lowing day by setting the tone for future trading; they also help
to boost liquidity at the outset of trading.
Agent
An individual or firm authorised to act on behalf of another
(called the principal) in, say, buying a house, selling a secu-
rity or executing any transaction. An important distinction
between agent and principal is that, unlike a dealer, the
former assumes no risk in the transaction.
It is well known what a middle man is: 
he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.
Benjamin Disraeli
AIM
Short for Alternative Investment Market, the junior arm of the
london stock exchange (lse). Launched in June 1995, the
aim of the aim was to offer small companies a cheap and less
onerous path to raising capital. In that it has succeeded better
than its predecessor, the Unlisted Securities Market (usm),
which failed to distinguish itself sufficiently from the main
market of the lse, with the result that it was disbanded because
of a lack of interest. To keep costs to a minimum, companies
listed on the aim are (lightly) regulated by dealers licensed to
trade in their shares, not by the exchange itself. Such compa-
nies do not have to provide nearly as much information to in-
vestors as those listed on the main exchange.