M

Maintenance Call: A demand for the deposit of additional cash or securities due to the account being below the firm's required maintenance levels. See the explanation of margin for more complete information on using margin leverage in your investing.

Margin Account: Brokerage account allowing customers to buy securities with money borrowed from the broker. Sales of margin accounts are governed by REGULATION T of the Federal Reserve Board, the National Association of Securities Dealers (FINRA), and by brokerage firm house rules. A signed MARGIN AGREEMENT is a prerequisite to establishing a margin account.

Market Capitalization: The product of a company's stock price per outstanding share. The market cap can greatly exceed the float, or number of shares in circulation, if many of the outstanding shares are not publicly held.

Market Makers: The FINRA member firms that buy and sell NASDAQ securities, at prices they display in NASDAQ, for their own account. There are currently over 500 firms that act as NASDAQ Market Makers. One of the major differences between the NASDAQ Stock Market and other major markets in the U.S. is NASDAQ's structure of competing Market Makers. Each Market Maker competes for customer order flow by displaying buy and sell quotations for a guaranteed number of shares. Once an order is received, the Market Maker will immediately purchase for or sell from its own inventory, or seek the other side of the trade until it is executed, often in a matter of seconds.

Market Order: An order to buy or sell a stated amount of a security at the best price available at the time the order is received in the trading marketplace.

Market Value: The market value is the current price per share multiplied by the number of shares outstanding.

Material News: News released by a publicly traded company that might possibly be expected to affect the value of a company's securities or influence investor's decisions. Material news includes information regarding corporate events of an unusual and non-recurring nature, news of tender offers, unusually good or bad earnings reports, and a stock split or stock dividend. (See also "Trading Halt".)

Municipal Bond: A debt security issued by a state, a municipality, or another subdivision (such as a school, hospital, sewer or other taxing district), to raise money to finance capital expenditures.