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Definition: Speculation from The AMA Dictionary of Business and Management

Practice of engaging in risky financial transactions, especially in a stock market, in an attempt to profit from short-or medium-term fluctuations in their market value. It absorbs excess risks, which may be offset by larger profits in the future.

speculation

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
practice of engaging in business in order to make quick profits from fluctuations in prices, as opposed to the practice of investing in a productive enterprise in order to share in its earnings. The term is sometimes applied to investment in a venture involving abnormal risks along with the chance to earn unusually large profits, but most speculation consists in the buying and selling of commodities and stocks and bonds with the object of taking advantage of rapid changes in price. While the investor seeks to protect his principal as it yields a moderate return, the speculator sacrifices the safety of his principal in hopes of receiving a large, rapid return. The practice is defended as tending to stabilize prices and guide investment; it is attacked as the mechanism of financial crisis and panic when prices decline rapidly and as an inflationary factor when a commodity is in shortage and speculation drives up its price. Public outcry over speculation has had an important political…
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Full text Article speculation

From Collins Dictionary of Business
the buying and selling of COMMODITIES (tea, tin etc.), FINANCIAL SECURITIES (shares etc.) and FOREIGN CURRENCIES whose market prices are characterized by substantial fluctuations over time, by individuals and firms (speculators) in the hope of making windfall profits. For example, in the STOCK…
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Full text Article SPECULATION

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English gerontologist and author Rash speculation does not bother the physicists – it has got them where they are today. And it is high time that the life sciences looked critically at the solidity of their tribal idols, including stochastic-genetic evolution, morphogenesis and the “mind-body…
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Full text Article speculation

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
practice of engaging in business in order to make quick profits from fluctuations in prices, as opposed to the practice of investing in a productive enterprise in order to share in its earnings. The term is sometimes applied to investment in a venture involving abnormal risks along with the chance…
| 339 words
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Full text Article Speculation

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
“Speculation” is an economic term used to describe financial risk taking. For example, an individual can engage in speculation by investing money in a new business venture where the outcome of profit or loss is unknown. A speculator can use a variety of factors to forecast a possible result for an…
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Full text Article speculation

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy
The economist John Maynard Keynes (1936) defined speculation as the purchase of securities at a price above their fundamental value with a view to sell them at yet a higher price in the subsequent trading periods. Ever since the economist Milton Friedman (1953) argued that such destabilizing…
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Full text Article speculation

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
Buying and selling with a view to profit as a result of changes in price. From the earliest times this practice has been condemned, the idea being that the speculator makes no contribution to the economy, either as producer or distributor, and furthermore that he profits from instabilities and that…
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Full text Article SPECULATE/SPECULATION/SPECTATOR

From Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
From the Latin spectare or speculari , to look at or behold; whence, spectator, spectre (appearances, presences, manifestations). Specula also means a watch-tower, from where we can ‘speculate’, observe from a distance, engage in mental guess-work, entertain an ‘elevated’ train of thought; also…
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Full text Article MATHEMATICAL SPECULATION

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English statesman and philosopher It is from this absolute indifference and tranquility of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. …
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Full text Article speculation

From The Macquarie Dictionary
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Full text Article speculation

From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law
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