Technical analysis (technicals)

Securities analysis and selection based on analyzing statistics generated by market activity, such as prices and volume. The security's intrinsic value is of no consequence to the technical trader and instead charts and other tools are used to identify patterns that can suggest future activity.

Top-Down investing

An investment approach that involves looking at the "big picture" in the economy and financial world and then breaking those components down into finer details. After looking at the big picture conditions around the world, the different industrial sectors are analyzed in order to select those that are forecasted to outperform the market. From this point, the stocks of specific companies are further analyzed and those that are believed to be successful are chosen as investments.

Total return

When measuring performance, the actual rate of return of an investment or a pool of investments over a given evaluation period. Total return includes interest, capital gains, dividends and distributions realized over a given period of time.

Tracking

A measure of how closely a fund tracks or mirrors its respective benchmark or index.

Transparency

The extent to which investors have ready access to any required financial information about a company such as price levels, market depth and audited financial reports. When transparency relates to information flow from the company to investors, it is also known as "full disclosure".

Treynor ratio

The Treynor ratio calculates the excess return of a portfolio for every unit of market risk (beta). This differs from the Sharpe ratio because it focuses on beta, rather than standard deviation.

Trustee

An individual who holds or manages assets for the benefit of another.