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Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics focuses on the performance of the economy as a whole. It looks at the broader picture and to the challenges facing society as a result of the limited amounts of natural resources, human effort and skills, and technology.

Major Trend
Underlying price trend prevailing in a market despite temporary declines or rallies.

Managed Account
An account whereby a licensed portfolio manager has the discretion to decide and execute suitable investment decisions on behalf of clients.

Managed Product
A pool of capital gathered to buy securities according to a specific investment mandate. The pool seeds a fund managed by an investment professional that is paid a management fee to carry out the mandate.

Management Expense Ratio
The total expense of operating a mutual fund expressed as a percentage of the fund's net asset value. It includes the management fee as well as other expenses charged directly to the fund such as administrative, audit, legal fees etc., but excludes brokerage fees. Published rates of return are calculated after the management expense ratio has been deducted.

Management Fee
The fee that the manager of a mutual fund or a segregated fund charges the fund for managing the portfolio and operating the fund. The fee is usually set as fixed percentage of the fund's net asset value.

Managers' Discussion and Analysis (MD&A)
A document that requires management of an issuer to discuss the dynamics of its business and to analyze its financial statements with the focus being on information about the issuer's financial condition and operations with emphasis on liquidity and capital resources.

Margin
The amount of money paid by a client when he or she uses credit to buy a security. It is the difference between the market value of a security and the amount loaned by an investment dealer.

Margin Agreement
A contract that must be completed and signed by a client and approved by the firm in order to open a margin account. This sets out the terms and conditions of the account.

Margin Call
When an investor purchases an account on margin in the expectation that the share value will rise, or shorts a security on the expectation that share price will decline, and share prices go against the investor, the brokerage firm will send out a margin call requiring that the investor add additional funds or marketable securities to the account to protect the broker's loan.

Marginal Tax Rate
The tax rate that would have to be paid on any additional dollars of taxable income earned

Market
Any arrangement whereby products and services are bought and sold, either directly or through intermediaries.

Market Capitalization
The dollar value of a company based on the market price of its issued and outstanding common shares. It is calculated by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by the current market price of a share.

Market Correction
A price reversal that typically occurs when a security has been overbought or oversold in the market.

Market Maker
A trader employed by a securities firm who is authorized and required, by applicable self-regulatory organizations (SROs), to maintain reasonable liquidity in securities markets by making firm bids or offers for one or more designated securities.

Market Order
An order placed to buy or sell a security immediately at the best current price.

Market Risk
The non-controllable or systematic risk associated with equities.

Market Segmentation Theory
A theory on the structure of the yield curve. It is believed that large institutions shape the yield curve. The banks prefer to borrow short term while the insurance industry, with a longer horizon, prefers long-term money. The supply and demand of the large institutions shapes the curve.

Market Timing
Decisions on when to buy or sell securities based on economic factors, such as the strength of the economy and the direction of interest rates, or based on stock price movements and the volume of trading through the use of technical analysis.

Marketability
A measure of the ability to buy and sell a security. A security has good marketability if there is an active secondary market in which it can be easily bought and sold at a fair price.

Marketable Bonds
Bonds for which there is a ready market (i.e., clients will buy them because the prices and features are attractive).

Marking-to-Market
The process in the futures market in which the daily price changes are paid by the parties incurring losses to the parties earning profits.

Married Put or a Put Hedge
The purchase of an underlying asset and the purchase of a put option on that underlying asset.

Material Change
A change in the affairs of a company that is expected to have a significant effect on the market value of its securities.

Mature Industry
An industry that experiences slower, more stable growth rates in earnings and sales than growth or emerging industries, for example.

Maturity
The date on which a loan or a bond or debenture comes due and is to be paid off.

Maturity Date
The date at which the contract expires, and the time at which any maturity guarantees are based. Segregated fund contracts normally mature in 10 years, although companies are allowed to set longer periods. Maturities of less than 10 years are permitted only for funds such as protected mutual funds, which are regulated as securities and are not segregated funds.

Maturity Guarantee
The minimum dollar value of the contract after the guarantee period, usually 10 years. This amount is also known as the annuity benefit.

Medium-Term Bond
A bond with 5 to 10 years remaining to maturity.

Microeconomics
Analyzes the market behaviour of individual consumers and firms, how prices are determined, and how prices determine the production, distribution, and use of goods and services.

Monetarists
School of economic theory which states that the level of prices as well as economic output is determined by an economy's money supply. This school of thought believes that control of the money supply is more vital to economic prosperity than the level of government spending, for example. See also Keynesian Policy.

Monetary Aggregates
An aggregate that measures the quantity of money held by a country's households, firms and governments. It includes various forms of money or payment instruments grouped according to their degree of liquidity, such as M1, M2 or M3.

Monetary Policy
Economic policy designed to improve the performance of the economy by regulating money supply and credit. The Bank of Canada achieves this through its influence over short-term interest rates.

Money Market
That part of the capital market in which short-term financial obligations are bought and sold. These include treasury bills and other federal government securities, and commercial paper, and bankers' acceptances and other instruments with one year or less left to maturity. Longer term securities, when their term shortens to the limits mentioned, are also traded in the money market.

Money Purchase Plan (MPP)
A type of Registered Pension Plan; also called a Defined Contribution Plan. In this type of plan, the annual payout is based on the contributions to the plan and the amounts those contributions have earned over the years preceding retirement. In other words, the benefits are not known but the contributions are.

Montréal Exchange (ME)
See Bourse de Montréal.

Mortgage
A contract specifying that certain property is pledged as security for a loan.

Mortgage-Backed Securities
Bonds that claim ownership to a portion of the cash flows from a group or pool of mortgages. They are also known as mortgage pass-through securities. A servicing intermediary collects the monthly payments from the issuers and, after deducting a fee, passes them through (i.e., remits them) to the holders of the security. The MBS provides liquidity in an otherwise illiquid market. Every month, holders receive a proportional share of the interest and principal payments associated with those mortgages.

Mortgage Bond
A bond issue secured by a mortgage on the issuer's property.

Moving Average
The average of security or commodity prices calculated by adding the closing prices for the underlying security over a pre-determined period and dividing the total by the time period selected.

Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD)
A technical analysis tool that takes the difference between two moving averages and then generates a smoothed moving average on the difference (the divergence) between the two moving averages.

Multi-Disciplinary Accounts
Fee-based accounts that are an evolution of separately managed accounts. With multi-disciplinary accounts, separate models are combined into one overall portfolio model in a single account.

Multi-Manager Accounts
A type of fee-based account that offers clients and their advisors more choice in terms of product and services. Often, clients are aligned with two or more portfolio models and each portfolio model is a component of the client's greater diversified holdings.

Multiple
A colloquial term for the Price/Earnings ratio of a company's common shares.

Mutual Fund
An investment fund operated by a company that uses the proceeds from shares and units sold to investors to invest in stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial securities. Mutual funds offer investors the advantages of diversification and professional management and are sold on a load or no load basis. Mutual fund shares/units are redeemable on demand at the fund's current net asset value per share (NAVPS).

Mutual Fund Dealers Association (MFDA)
The Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) that regulates the distribution (dealer) side of the mutual fund industry in Canada.

Mutual Fund Wraps
Are established with a selection of individual funds managed within a client's account. Mutual fund wraps differ from funds of funds. The client holds the actual funds within their account, as opposed to a fund that simply invests in other funds. In most cases, a separate account is established for the client and the selected funds are held inside that dedicated account.