M
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Macroeconomics | Analysis of a nation’s economy as a whole, using such aggregate data as price levels, unemployment, inflation, and industrial production. |
| Management | Combined fields of policy and administration and the people who provide the decisions and supervision necessary to implement the owner’s business objectives and achieve stability and growth. |
| Management accounting | Reporting designed to assist management in decision-making, planning, and control. Also known as managerial accounting. |
| Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) | SEC requirement in financial reporting for an explanation by management of significant changes in operations, assets, and liquidity. |
| Management’s report | Management is required to include in its annual report its assessment of the effectiveness of the company’s internal control over financial reporting in addition to its audited financial statements as of the end of the most recent fiscal year. |
| Managerial accounting | Reporting designed to assist management in decision-making, planning, and control. |
| Manipulation | Buying or selling a security to create a false appearance of active trading and thus influence other investors to buy or sell shares. |
| Manufacture | To make or process (a product), especially by using machines. |
| Manufacturing overhead | Another term for factory overhead costs. |
| Margin | Excess of selling price over the unit cost. |
| Margin of Profit | Relationship of gross profits to net sales. |
| Marginal cost | Increase or decrease in the total costs of a business firm as the result of one more or one less unit of output. |
| Marginal tax rate | Amount of tax imposed on an additional dollar of income. |
| Mark-to-Market | Method of valuing assets that results in the adjustment of an asset’s carrying amount to its market value. |
| Markdown | Amount subtracted from the selling price when a customer sells securities to a dealer in the over-the-counter market. |
| Market | Public place where products or services are bought and sold, directly or through intermediaries. |
| Market capitalization | Value of a corporation as determined by the market price of its issued and outstanding common stock. |
| Market index | Numbers representing weighted values of the components that make up the index. |
| Market interest rate | The rate of interest paid in the market on bonds of similar risk. |
| Market price | The last reported price at which a security was sold on an exchange. |
| Market share | Percentage of industry sales of a particular company or product. |
| Market value | The price investors are willing to pay for a share of stock on the open market. |
| Marketable securities | Stocks and other negotiable instruments which can be easily bought and sold on either listed exchanges or over-the-counter markets. |
| Marketing | Moving goods and services from the provider to the consumer. |
| Mark-up | The amount added to the price of a product by a retailer to arrive at a selling price. |
| Matching principle | A fundamental concept of basic accounting. In any one given accounting period, you should try to match the revenue you are reporting with the expenses it took to generate that revenue in the same time period, or over the periods in which you will be receiving benefits from that expenditure. A simple example is depreciation expense. |
| Material | The substance or substances from which something is made. |
| Material weakness | A significant deficiency or combination of significant deficiencies that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected. |
| Materiality | Magnitude of an omission or misstatements of accounting information that, in the light of surrounding circumstances, makes it probable that the judgment of a reasonable person relying on the information would change or be influenced. |
| Materials inventory account | An inventory account made up of the balances of materials, parts, and supplies on hand at a given time. |
| Maturity | The time at which payment of a loan or bond becomes due. |
| Maturity date | Date on which the principal amount of a note, draft, acceptance, bond, or other debt instrument becomes due and payable. |
| MD&A | SEC requirement in financial reporting for an explanation by management of significant changes in operations, assets, and liquidity. |
| Merchandise | Items that can be bought or sold; commercial goods. |
| Merchandise inventory | The goods on hand at any one time that are available for sale to customers in the regular course of business. |
| Merger | Business combination that occurs when one entity directly acquires the assets and liabilities of one or more entities and no new corporation or entity is created. |
| Microeconomic pricing model | An accounting model that is based on the economic theory that profit will be greater when the difference between total revenue and total cost is the greatest. |
| Microeconomics | Study of the behaviour of basic economic units such as companies, industries, or households. |
| Mixed costs | Costs that result when both variable costs and fixed costs are charged to the same general ledger account. |
| Modelling | Designing and manipulating a mathematical representation of an economic system or corporate financial application so that the effect of changes can be studied and forecast. |
| Modified accelerated cost recovery system | A mandatory system of depreciation for income tax purposes, enacted by congress in 1986. |
| Monetary items | Definite fixed amounts stated in terms of dollars, either by law or by contract agreement. |
| Money laundering | The use of an intermediate agent, such as a bank, to disguise the source of money received from illegal activities. |
| Money market | Market for short-term debt instruments. |
| Monopoly | Control of the production and distribution of a product or service by one firm or a group of firms acting in concert. |
| Mortgage | Legal instrument evidencing a security interest in assets, usually real estate. Mortgages serve as collateral for promissory notes. |
| Moving average | Average of security or commodity prices constructed on a period as short as a few days or as long as several years and showing trends for the latest interval. |
| Moving average method | A modified version of the weighted-average-cost method. It is used to compute the average cost of a perpetual inventory. |
| Municipal bond | Bond issued by a government or public body, the interest on which is typically exempt from federal taxation. |
| Mutual agency | The ability of each partner in a company to act as an agent of the company. |
| Mutual fund | Investment company which generally offers its shares to the general public and invests the proceeds in a diversified portfolio of securities. |