Benchmark
Risk & psychologyThe index or standard against which portfolio performance is measured.
In plain terms
Only meaningful if it reflects what you would otherwise have done. Use total return versions.
1492 terms
Glossary
Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
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External benchmark lending rate
Market basicsAlso called: EBLR
A floating loan rate expressed as a published external benchmark plus a spread fixed at sanction.
In plain terms
The benchmark moves for everybody; your spread was set the day you signed. Lenders compete by cutting the spread on new loans, which is why the bank next door quotes less than your own bank charges you.
Reference point
Risk & psychologyThe benchmark against which a gain or loss is subjectively judged.
In plain terms
Change what you compare against and the same portfolio feels like success or failure. Choose it deliberately.
Relative performance
Risk & psychologyReturn measured against a benchmark rather than in absolute terms.
In plain terms
Your returns are absolute; your feelings about them are relative. Choose the comparison deliberately.
Relative strength
Technical analysisA stock’s performance measured against a benchmark index rather than in absolute terms.
In plain terms
Keeps working in a falling market, where the winner is simply whatever falls least.
Tracking error
Risk & psychologyHow much a portfolio’s returns deviate from its benchmark.
In plain terms
A concentrated portfolio will deviate a lot in both directions. That is the point, and the cost.
Consensus
Fundamental analysisThe average of published analyst estimates for a company’s future earnings or revenue.
In plain terms
Useful as a benchmark for what is already priced in, not as a forecast. Being right with the consensus pays nothing.
Fund categories
Market basicsThe scheme categories SEBI mandates, each specifying what a fund must hold — largecap, midcap, smallcap, flexicap, multicap, ELSS, hybrid and index among them.
In plain terms
The label is a legal constraint on holdings, not marketing, which is what makes thousands of schemes comparable. It also fixes the only valid comparison: same category, against the fund's own declared benchmark.
NSE International Exchange
Market basicsAlso called: NSE IX
NSE’s exchange at GIFT City in Gandhinagar, operating inside an International Financial Services Centre and regulated by the IFSCA rather than by SEBI.
In plain terms
Offshore for regulatory purposes while sitting in Gujarat, which is how a dollar-denominated contract on India’s benchmark index can trade around the clock when the domestic market cannot. It keeps its own holiday calendar, so it sometimes trades when the Nifty does not.
VWAP
Technical analysisVolume Weighted Average Price — the session’s average price weighted by volume traded at each level.
In plain terms
What the average participant paid today. Institutions benchmark their fills against it.