1 year forward growth

Average financial analyst estimate of future year's growth in earnings.

12 month yield

Change in price of fund plus dividends received per share over past year divided by price of fund.

12-b1 expenses

Percentage of fund assets that fund manager may withdraw each year to pay for marketing and other non-operating expenses.

3 year earnings growth

Rate of increase of earnings of past three years.

Alpha

A measure of performance in percentage above or below what would have been predicted by risk as suggested by its Beta. Positive alpha means a fund performed greater than its risk would suggest, while negative Alpha means the fund under performed. An ETF of Allpha 1.5 outperformed its index by 1.5% as predicted by its Beta.

Annual turnover

Percentage of a portfolio that is replaced each year.

Ask price

Lowest price any investor is willing to pay for a security at a given time.

Asset class breakdown

Percentage of holdings in different types of investments.

Balanced funds

Funds that invest in both stocks and bonds.

Benchmark index

An index that correlates with a fund, used to measure a fund manager's performance.

Beta

A measure of volatitility. Beta is a fund's volatility measured against the benchmark index, which has a set beta of 1. Therefore, if a fund has a Beta higher than 1, it is moving up and down more than the rest of the market. A fund with a Beta of 2 will move up 20 percent when the market rises 10 percent.

Bid price

Highest price that any investor is willing to pay for a security at any given time.

Capital gains

Profits on the sale of stocks, taxable.

Closet index fund

An active fund with higher fees that simply tracks an index.

Deferred load

Percentage of an investor's assets that fund may charge as a fee at time of redemption.

Dividend yield

A company's declared dividends per share as a percentage of its current share price.

Dollar cost averaging

Investment stragegy of making fixed investments (monthly for example) to a mutual fund.

Enhanced

An index fund that is designed to generally track an index but also to outperform it through the use of futures, trading strategy, capital gains management and other methods.

Exchange-traded fund

An exchange-traded fund is an index fund which is traded on the stock market. Some common ETFs are the Nasdaq-100 Index Tracking Stock (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq-100 and Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPY), which tracks the S & P 500.

Expense ratio

Percentage of fund assets that fund manager may withdraw each year to pay for operating expenses.

Float

The number of company shares actually available for purchase by public on open markets.

Front load

Percentage of an investor's assets that fund may charge as a fee at time of investment.

Index fund

An index fund is a mutual fund that mirrors as closely as possible the performance of a stock market index. For example, many mutual fund companies have since established S&P 500 index funds to mirror that index by purchasing all 500 stocks in the same percentages as the index.

Indexing

Indexing is an investment strategy to match the average performance of a market or group of stocks. Usually this is accomplished by buying a small amount of each stock in a market. An index, such as the S&P 500, is the number that represents the market or group of stocks.

Market capitalization

Total value of a company. Total number of shares multiplied by the price of a share.

Median market capitalization

Market value (capitalization) of the middle stock in a portfolio of stocks if sorted by capitalization.

Minimum initial purchase

Minimum an investor may deposit initially. (*may be lower in some cases for IRA retirement accounts.)

P/B ratio

Ratio of price to book value of a stock, or average of a portfolio of stocks.

P/E ratio

Ratio of price to annualized earnings of a stock, or average of portfolio of stocks.

Price spread

The difference between the "bid" and "ask" price on a stock or ETF.

R squared

A measurement of how closely a fund's performance correlates with an index. It can range between 0.00 and 1.00. An R squared of 1.00 indicates perfect correlation, while an R squared of 0.00 indicates no correlation.

Returns

Indicate the total percentage gain of a fund over that time period.

Sector breakdown

Percentage of a fund's equity holdings in various industries.

Securities & Exchange Commission

Federal agency that regulates U.S. financial markets, also known as SEC.

Sharpe ratio 3 year

A risk-adjusted measurement of fund performance. Sharpe ratio is calculated by dividing the excess return of a fund over the risk-free rate by its standard deviation. The higher the Sharpe ratio, the better a fund's risk-adjusted performance.

Standard deviation 3 year

Measure of fund volatility in percentages. Standard deviation measures the average variability of the fund's returns over a time period. Stable investments like money market funds have standard deviations near zero, while high-risk equity funds often have a much higher one. A standard deviation of 10 means approximately 68% of the time a fund will be within 10% of its mean (average) price.

Style drift

When a fund moves away from its stated investment objective over time.

Ticker

Symbol used by brokerage firms to identify fund.

Total net assets

Indicates the total amount of assets a fund holds as of a certain date.

Tracking error

How much a fund's returns deviate from the benchmark index's return.

YTD

The calendar Year To Date (i.e. January 1 to the end of the last month).