Glossary

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Venture capital: Capital invested, with a substantial risk of loss, usually in recently incorporated companies with high growth potential.

Volatility or standard deviation: The measure of the range of price fluctuation for a given security or market. The greater the fluctuation range, the higher the risk exposure of the security/market (e.g. the average volatility of Swiss bond funds amounts to 3% whereas that of Swiss equity funds is about 16%).

Volume : The number of securities traded on an exchange or in a given stock.

Wall Street: New York street where the NYSE is located; the term ‘Wall Street’ also designates the New York financial market-place as a whole.

Weighting: Attributing a weighting to a specific market (or market segment) signifies giving it a relative weight that is greater or lesser than its weighting in the benchmark (i.e. to overweight/underweight).

Zero coupon: A long-term bond with no annual interest payments.