The financial world has developed a special investment-oriented language to help describe the stock market, investments, securities for the stock market, stock market analysis, and its conditions. At times you may be confronted with a term which is totally alien or has a completely different meaning from what you thought. Misunderstanding these terms can sometimes lead to the wrong conclusion, and that can cost you money!

What you don't know can hurt you.

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Sale of Property, Plant, Equipment Includes proceeds from selling any fixed assets such as property, plant, and equipment. Usually this section also includes any retirement of equipment.   Sale of Short-Term Investments Includes profit received from selling short-term marketable securities.   Sales This represents all net sales of the corporation plus any other revenues associated with the main operations of the business (or those labeled as operating revenues). It does not include dividends, interest income, or non-operating income. Sales are an important item in assessing the prospects of any public company. Although subject to some finagling, sales typically are not as iffy as net income, and tell you just how much of its goods and services the company is selling. Thus, the rate of sales increase is an important indicator of how fast a company is growing. Sales can be analyzed in different ways for different industries. In retailing, for instance, analysts like to look at the sales-per-square-foot ratio as well as ""same-store sales."" Investors are sometimes wary of firms that increase profits without increasing sales, as was the case with IBM for awhile during its turnaround, because cost-cutting cannot go on forever. In recent years, analysts have paid increasing attention to sales, particularly by calculating the Price/Sales ratio.   Sales/Share The latest twelve months' sales divided by the latest shares outstanding. Net income is subject to various circumstances and accounting decisions, but sales are (generally) sales. Investment theorists have in recent years paid more attention to sales as an indicator of a company's prospects.   Sector A sector is a part of the economy. Stocks in the same sector tend to be in the same industry, or one very closely related. Mutual funds focused on specific sectors, such as semiconductors, airlines, utilities, retailing, etc., make it relatively easy to invest in any given sector. Sector investing can pay big returns -- semiconductor stocks, for example, have roared ahead of the overall market during the past decade -- but they involve big risks as well. The main problem is a lack of diversification; investing in any one sector means investing in a group of stocks that tend to rise and fall in unison.