Duration
Market basicsA bond portfolio’s sensitivity to changes in interest rates.
In plain terms
Longer duration means bigger swings — but those losses reverse with time, unlike credit losses.
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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Growth durability
Fundamental analysisAlso called: Growth duration, Fade period
How many years a company’s above-ordinary growth rate is expected to persist before the business settles into a normal rate.
In plain terms
The part of a high multiple carrying most of its value. A company can beat next year’s estimate and still de-rate, because the beat answers the rate while something has changed the market’s view of the duration.
De-rating
Fundamental analysisAlso called: Multiple compression, Multiple de-rating
A fall in the multiple the market will pay for a rupee of a company’s earnings, usually because expected growth or the expected duration of that growth has been revised down.
In plain terms
Price is earnings multiplied by the multiple, so the two compound. Earnings up 12% with the multiple halved is a 44% fall, in a year when nothing went wrong.
Liquid fund
Market basicsA debt fund holding very short-maturity instruments, with minimal duration risk.
In plain terms
Suitable for an emergency fund. Since the 2023 tax change, roughly equivalent to a sweep-in deposit.
Debt fund
Market basicsA mutual fund investing in bonds and other fixed-income instruments.
In plain terms
Not an FD with better returns. It carries credit risk and duration risk, which behave completely differently.
G-Sec
Market basicsAlso called: Government security
A government security — a bond issued by the central government, carrying effectively no credit risk and the full interest-rate risk of its maturity.
In plain terms
Sovereign does not mean the price cannot fall. A long-duration gilt fund can post a real loss through a rate-hiking cycle while every borrower repays in full.
Quality investing
Fundamental analysisA philosophy that buys durable, high-return businesses at a fair price and holds them, betting that excellence persists longer than the market assumes.
In plain terms
The bet is on duration rather than cheapness. Its failure mode is overpaying — a superb business bought at an extreme multiple can be dead money for a decade while earnings catch up.
Recovery period
Risk & psychologyThe time taken to climb from a drawdown low back to the previous high.
In plain terms
Depth frightens people; duration breaks them. Most investors quit in year four of a long recovery, not at the bottom.