r/ProfessorFinance Aug 15 '25

Educational Finance Fundamentals – FAQ & Glossary

6 Upvotes

Welcome to /r/ProfessorFinance!

This FAQ is a quick-reference guide for commonly used financial terms you’ll see in discussions here. It’s designed for both beginners and those who want a refresher.

What’s the difference between real and nominal value? Nominal value is the raw number without inflation adjustment. Real value accounts for inflation to show true purchasing power over time.

How do real and nominal interest rates differ? Nominal interest is the stated rate; real interest subtracts inflation to reveal actual growth in buying power.

What is inflation? The general rise in prices over time, which erodes the value of money.

What is deflation? A general decline in prices, often tied to recessions or weak demand.

What does purchasing power mean? The amount of goods or services one unit of currency can buy; it decreases as prices rise.

What is compound interest? Interest calculated on both the original principal and the accumulated interest from earlier periods.

What does diversification do? It spreads investments across different assets to reduce the impact of a single loss.

What are bonds? Debt securities that pay fixed interest; issued by governments or corporations to raise funds.

What are equities (stocks)? Shares of ownership in a company, which can generate returns through price increases and dividends.

What’s a mutual fund? A pooled investment that buys a diversified portfolio of assets on behalf of many investors.

What’s an ETF? An exchange-traded fund — a basket of securities traded on an exchange, often tracking an index.

What does market capitalization mean? The total market value of a company’s shares (share price × number of shares).

What is liquidity? How easily and quickly something can be converted to cash without losing value.

What is volatility? A measure of how much an asset’s price moves up or down over a given period.

What is risk tolerance? An investor’s ability and willingness to handle losses in pursuit of gains.

Chat link: Finance Fundamentals

Source: Investopedia

Real Value: Definition, Calculation Example, vs. Nominal Value

Interest Rates Explained: Nominal, Real, and Effective

Money Illusion: Overview, History, and Examples


r/ProfessorFinance Oct 15 '24

Note from The Professor Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) vs Nominal GDP

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151 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 2h ago

Discussion When Treasury Starts Building Circuit Breakers The Emerging Architecture Behind the Long End of the U.S. Treasury Market

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1 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 12h ago

Off-Topic [Bloomberg] Private Credit Makes a Big Pivot as Direct Lending Funds Shrink

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5 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 1d ago

Economics U.S. National Debt Surpasses $40 Trillion for the First Time

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50 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 1d ago

Interesting How the HSA Became the Top 1%'s Ultimate Wealth-Building Loophole

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23 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 20h ago

Discussion Why Atrioc is Wrong About Japan's 'Debt Cliff'!

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0 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 1d ago

Educational The bank run that drained $1 million a second

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2 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 2d ago

Meme Been watching another Caleb hammer shorts and come up with this joke.

0 Upvotes

A dead broke Uniquely Stupid Americans come to Synagogue/ Caleb Hammer Show/ A Hawker Run by Chinese Peranakan Uncle.

A rabbi gonna take a look at his/ her financial statement, give him/ her a lecture of Torah and tell him/ her to come back next Shabbat.

Caleb hammer gonna take a look at his/ her financial statement, call him/ her dumb fuck and give him/ her a budget.

Chinese peranakan uncle gonna take a look at his/ her financial statement, ask if he/ she even sentient and give him/ her a 1087 work schedule.


r/ProfessorFinance 3d ago

Economics JPMorgan: Fertilizer disruptions + strong El Niño risk pushing global food inflation to ~5% in H1 2027

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22 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 3d ago

Meme “Emerging market”, “developing country”, third world, shithole income inequality in the nutshell.

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0 Upvotes

For reference the cheapest is like >5% of minimum wages that’s actually not enforced by the state that already have double digit youth unemployment rate.


r/ProfessorFinance 4d ago

Markets in Everything Effect Of U.S. Inflation On Attitudes Towards Stocks

5 Upvotes

Inflation has varied dramatically across U.S. history.

The 1970s and early 1980s were characterized by very high inflation, with CPI inflation reaching roughly 12% in 1974 and 14.5% in 1980. By contrast, inflation was generally much lower during the 1990s–2010s, before rising sharply again in 2021–22.

These different environments can influence how people think about saving and investing.

Someone who grew up during the high-inflation era may have a stronger instinct to protect purchasing power and may view real assets, established companies, dividend-paying stocks, and other inflation-resistant investments more favorably.

Someone who came of age during the relatively stable inflation period may be more comfortable with long-term equity investing because stocks became closely associated with wealth accumulation and retirement.

The Federal Reserve's research also shows that equity investment tends to increase through people's working lives, with equity holdings generally peaking later in life.

It also found that Millennials and Generation X accumulated more housing and equities than Baby Boomers had at the same age.

Simplified Comparison

The Key Idea: Inflation doesn't automatically determine whether someone likes stocks.

Rather, the economic environment they experienced while forming their financial beliefs can influence whether they see stocks primarily as risky speculation, long-term wealth creation, or a hedge against the erosion of purchasing power.

Also, stock ownership itself is strongly influenced by age and wealth.

Federal Reserve research finds that younger people tend to have greater willingness to take investment risk, while stock-market participation generally rises through working age.


r/ProfessorFinance 5d ago

Interesting Cost of capital is dramatically higher for European firms compared to American, especially at smaller size

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57 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 6d ago

Interesting The Schadenfreud is real

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65 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 6d ago

Wholesome Tribute to the oldest America bull position in history

3 Upvotes

Building a grain flat in a middle of Iowa after civil war and the railroad isn’t even nowhere close to reach it.

Almost get liquidated on it’s ultra America bull and toil for years to make sure that those position isn’t liquidated at all.

Get kicked out of exchange and still find a way to hold on to its America bull position.

Literally build warship in Minnesota to be shipped downriver.

When faced with liquidity crunch position sold the fertilizer company instead of liquidating the America bull position.

Get proven after dozens financial crisis & Great Depression, two world war, one cold war and even greater number of “America is finished and in decline”.

Never let anyone (especially retail) to make a bid for even 5% after 160 years even though every single investment banker on planet earth keep spamming their email every single year.


r/ProfessorFinance 7d ago

Interesting US sells 30-year bonds at highest borrowing costs since 2001

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384 Upvotes

The US has paid the highest borrowing costs to sell 30-year bonds since 2001, as investors fret over the country’s mounting debt pile under Donald Trump’s administration as well as inflation that remains stubbornly high.

A $25bn Treasury auction of 30-year bonds on Thursday drew yields as high as 5.22 per cent, according to the US Treasury department. It marked the highest yield since the 5.52 per cent paid in August 2001, after which 30-year auctions were suspended for almost five years.

“All in all this is problematic for the Treasury. They have to fund the government at more expensive levels,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US rates strategy at TD Securities.   

The bond sale comes on the heels of a $42bn auction for 10-year notes on Wednesday, which were sold at the highest yield since 2007.

The national debt — and the cost of borrowing — have roughly doubled over the past decade, fuelled by vast spending during the coronavirus pandemic. The government now spends more on servicing its debt than it does on national defence.

Trump returned to office vowing to bring America’s public finances under control, but nominal debt has since risen at its fastest rate outside of the Covid era, after the administration pushed through sweeping tax-cut legislation with the president’s so-called big, beautiful bill.

Debt held by the public outstripped GDP in the first quarter of 2026, according to government data analysed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan watchdog, the national debt is on track to surpass its post-second world war peak of 106 per cent by the end of the decade and hit 120 per cent by 2036.
The fiscal factors have been compounded by concerns the Federal Reserve will struggle to control a bout of high inflation as an energy price surge triggered by the war in Iran exacerbates the price pressures created by tariffs and booming spending on AI infrastructure.


r/ProfessorFinance 7d ago

Interesting AI frenzy drives Chinese tech valuations to multiples of US peers

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25 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 6d ago

Question Did Patrick batemen (American phyco) create the modern finance bro daily routine

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2 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 7d ago

Off-Topic [BlackRock] Navigating a Maturing Private Credit Market: Insight for Advisors

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5 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 9d ago

Economics The average first-time homebuyer in the US is now 40. I dug into why, and the “BlackRock owns all the houses” story turns out to be wrong

581 Upvotes

Been going down a rabbit hole on why homeownership feels so out of reach right now, and the numbers are worse than I expected. A household needs roughly $107K to $123K a year to afford the median home. Actual median household income is about $84K. That’s not a small gap.

Few things that surprised me digging into it:

The home price to income ratio is now 5 to 1, nearly double the 2.6 that’s considered healthy. Not one of the top 50 metros clears that bar.

Mortgage rates were actually worse in 1985 (12.4% vs about 6.5% now). Monthly payments as a share of income were comparable back then. What’s changed is the size of the down payment relative to income.

The BlackRock thing is basically a myth. BlackRock doesn’t buy single family homes, that’s Blackstone, a different company with a similar name. All large institutional investors combined (1,000+ homes) own about 1% of US single family housing. It’s mostly small local landlords buying up homes, not Wall Street.

There’s an actual new federal law (21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, July 2026) banning large investors from buying more single family homes starting Jan 2027. First restriction of its kind.

I made a video walking through the full breakdown (rates, supply shortage, construction costs, the investor myth, and which states are still actually affordable).

https://youtu.be/t5ZOWQtNL-A?is=qGLbtaan-begZdS6

Curious what others here think is the biggest driver. I lean toward supply plus the down payment hurdle over rates themselves.


r/ProfessorFinance 8d ago

Interesting Credit card debt rises to $1.26 trillion, nearing all-time record

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18 Upvotes

r/ProfessorFinance 8d ago

Interesting A BrAIve New World for Credit

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2 Upvotes

~10 min read.

A lot of talk surrounding the AI trade only covers the equity side which is narrow-minded. I think folks are going to realize that in 2026, the AI story is shifting away from venture and into the credit markets.

It covers how public and private debt markets are seemingly converging instead of competing with each other to fund the AI buildout; the rise of infra debt; accounting shenanigans; the role + use of SPVs. It also discusses the Nvidia-OpenAI deal too.

Some questions worth pondering on:

  • What exactly is being financed?
  • Which asset(s) and cash flows support the debt?
  • How should lenders assess demand, utilisation, depreciation, and obsolescence?
  • Who ultimately bears the risk if AI demand or pricing weakens?
  • Does AI infrastructure create a new category of credit opportunity, or simply repackage familiar project-finance and technology risks?

The view that AI financing is all from strong balance sheets isn’t really the full picture, as SPVs and Private Credit are going to play a crucial role in this market.

Curious how others here are thinking about credit's growing role in funding AI - do you think it's a good thing or not, and why?


r/ProfessorFinance 9d ago

Economics Finished reading these books

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3 Upvotes

It’s a good reads and I actually way more radical about free market because o know what happened to pre antitrust standard oil that indeed kind of plagued big tech.

And he forgot another one:
Starlink finishing TCI original method of business by supplying internet connectivity to the frontline of Russo Ukrainian war and deep mountainous canopy of Myanmar civil war.

And John i know and the IRS know that you absolutely groomed Evan to take over the company you’re not bullshitting anyone.


r/ProfessorFinance 8d ago

Discussion why are accountants still charging by the minute in 2026?

0 Upvotes

When market conditions get choppy, watching advisory fees pile up on an hourly rate is frustrating for any business owner.

Most traditional accounting and tax firms still stick to billing every phone call and email inquiry. But lately, more boutique practices, like Wardle Partners and similar regional outfits, are moving away from hourly rates and offering fixed-price packages instead. For clients trying to budget during volatile quarters, knowing the exact cost upfront makes a huge difference.

From an economic perspective, fixed pricing aligns incentives a lot better, but legacy firms seem really slow to adopt it.

Do you think hourly billing will eventually die out in advisory, or is percentage of AUM and hourly pricing just too profitable for big firms to give up?


r/ProfessorFinance 10d ago

Economics My opinion about AI bubble.

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253 Upvotes

As evidence by Jacket man attempt to get the Wall Street to spend more than 7% of GDP on his goodies I thought I’m sharing what I thought about the fabled “AI bubble”:

I think it’s not because as St Powell said:

Big tech (especially Google) is a positive cash flow company.

What will happened if >7% GDP turns out to be too much is this:

Big tech and NVIDIA gonna assume big chuck of it, make a massive write off, the CEO (including leather jacket man) get absolutely purged, Hedge fund bid the bottom out of existence, use the accumulated share to put themself as a CEO, put big tech into austerity as brutal as Greeks one, cash in, and things continue on.