Municipal bonds are general obligation bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the municipality issuing the bond. These are usually issued to finance community capital improvements and are sometimes tax-free....

Risk that cannot be eliminated, such as risk inherent in the investment market....

Discount rate -  the rate at which commercial member banks can borrow funds from the Federal Reserve to meet reserve requirements. This rate is used to control the money supply....

Hedging is a method of reducing risk associated with fluctuating commodity prices. This is done by entering into a futures contract opposite of the position currently held....

An index fund is a type of mutual fund made up of individual securities which are meant to match or track a market index....

Volatility is a statistical measure of the fluctuation of returns for a given security or market index. In other words, it refers to the expected size of increase or decrease in a securities value. A security with a high volatility would be considered more risky....