What is an account balance?

The amount of money a user has stored in a financial repository.

Account balance with a bank account

When you check your account balance at your bank, it will show the amount of cash you have stored with the bank.

If you have pending transactions, your account balance might be greater than the amount that is actually available to you. That is because the money needed to make those transactions has not yet been removed from your account.

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Account balance with a stockbroker

An account balance with a brokerage is likely to look different from a bank account balance. That’s because you don’t just keep cash with a broker.

Instead, the account balance that you see when you check your brokerage account will be the sum of any cash you hold and any stocks you have bought.

Because the value of stocks changes all the time, your account balance will also vary more frequently with stockbroker than a bank.

More terms

Securities

Bonds and stocks.
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Net asset value

Mutual funds and investment trusts are priced on their net asset value (NAV).
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Bookbuilding

How banks work out what investors will pay for shares before an IPO, one order at a time.
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Bed & ISA

Understand what Bed and ISA is and how it works
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NASDAQ

A US stock exchange specialising in the shares of technology companies.
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Money weighted rate of return

Learn what Money Weighted Rate of Return or MWRR stands for in finance.
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Wall Street

A street in New York that became a figure of speech for the financial markets of the US.
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Synthetic ETFs

An ETF that that reproduces the return of an index through the use of swaps.
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Maturity value

What's the maturity value of a bond?
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