Markets
40 Stock Market Terms That Every Beginner Should Know
40 Stock Market Terms That Every Beginner Should Know
Understanding the stock market can be a daunting task for any new investor.
Not only are there many concepts and technical terms to decipher, but nearly everybody will try to give you conflicting pieces of advice.
For example, if a stock in your portfolio falls in price, should you be accumulating additional shares at a lower price or should you be strategically cutting your losses?
Some experts will tell you one thing, while others will tell you precisely the opposite.
A Place to Start: Terminology
Before you drift into the many debates that the investing pundits are weighing in on, perhaps the most proactive step for a beginner is to simply learn to talk the same language as the pros.
Today’s infographic comes to us from StocksToTrade.com, and it covers the most important stock market terms that every new investor should know and understand. It’s enough to get any beginner on the same playing field, so they can start toying with the more nuanced or complex concepts in the investing universe.
While we don’t agree with the exact definitions of all of the terms, the list is adequate enough to get any new investor off the ground. It covers basic order terms like “bid”, “ask”, and “volume”, but it also goes into concepts like “authorized shares”, “secondary offerings”, “yield”, and a security’s “moving average”.
What’s Next?
Already got a handle on 40 of the most important stock market terms?
Visual Capitalist has a ton of other powerful visual resources for new investors, or anyone else hungry to learn about how markets work:
- Learn how to read stock charts
- Visualize the power of compound interest
- See this simple introduction to investing we published
- See how elite growth investors pick stocks
- Learn about the basics of ETFs and mutual funds, and even the differences between them
- Learn about the basics of creating a stock portfolio
- See how stock market indices work
- Understand 12 types of technical indicators for investing
- See how Warren Buffett’s brain works
Crush the above resources, and you’ll be market savvy in no time!
Markets
Which Countries Hold the Most U.S. Debt?
Foreign investors hold $7.3 trillion of the national U.S. debt. These holdings declined 6% in 2022 amid a strong U.S. dollar and rising rates.

Which Countries Hold the Most U.S. Debt in 2022?
Today, America owes foreign investors of its national debt $7.3 trillion.
These are in the form of Treasury securities, some of the most liquid assets worldwide. Central banks use them for foreign exchange reserves and private investors flock to them during flights to safety thanks to their perceived low default risk.
Beyond these reasons, foreign investors may buy Treasuries as a store of value. They are often used as collateral during certain international trade transactions, or countries can use them to help manage exchange rate policy. For example, countries may buy Treasuries to protect their currency’s exchange rate from speculation.
In the above graphic, we show the foreign holders of the U.S. national debt using data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Top Foreign Holders of U.S. Debt
With $1.1 trillion in Treasury holdings, Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt.
Japan surpassed China as the top holder in 2019 as China shed over $250 billion, or 30% of its holdings in four years.
This bond offloading by China is the one way the country can manage the yuan’s exchange rate. This is because if it sells dollars, it can buy the yuan when the currency falls. At the same time, China doesn’t solely use the dollar to manage its currency—it now uses a basket of currencies.
Here are the countries that hold the most U.S. debt:
Rank | Country | U.S. Treasury Holdings | Share of Total |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 🇯🇵 Japan | $1,076B | 14.7% |
2 | 🇨🇳 China | $867B | 11.9% |
3 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | $655B | 8.9% |
4 | 🇧🇪 Belgium | $354B | 4.8% |
5 | 🇱🇺 Luxembourg | $329B | 4.5% |
6 | 🇰🇾 Cayman Islands | $284B | 3.9% |
7 | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | $270B | 3.7% |
8 | 🇮🇪 Ireland | $255B | 3.5% |
9 | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $226B | 3.1% |
10 | 🇮🇳 India | $224B | 3.1% |
11 | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong | $221B | 3.0% |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | $217B | 3.0% |
13 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $215B | 2.9% |
14 | 🇫🇷 France | $189B | 2.6% |
15 | 🇸🇬 Singapore | $179B | 2.4% |
16 | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $120B | 1.6% |
17 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $103B | 1.4% |
18 | 🇩🇪 Germany | $101B | 1.4% |
19 | 🇳🇴 Norway | $92B | 1.3% |
20 | 🇧🇲 Bermuda | $82B | 1.1% |
21 | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | $67B | 0.9% |
22 | 🇲🇽 Mexico | $59B | 0.8% |
23 | 🇦🇪 UAE | $59B | 0.8% |
24 | 🇦🇺 Australia | $57B | 0.8% |
25 | 🇰🇼 Kuwait | $49B | 0.7% |
26 | 🇵🇭 Philippines | $48B | 0.7% |
27 | 🇮🇱 Israel | $48B | 0.7% |
28 | 🇧🇸 Bahamas | $46B | 0.6% |
29 | 🇹🇭 Thailand | $46B | 0.6% |
30 | 🇸🇪 Sweden | $42B | 0.6% |
31 | 🇮🇶 Iraq | $41B | 0.6% |
32 | 🇨🇴 Colombia | $40B | 0.5% |
33 | 🇮🇹 Italy | $39B | 0.5% |
34 | 🇵🇱 Poland | $38B | 0.5% |
35 | 🇪🇸 Spain | $37B | 0.5% |
36 | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | $37B | 0.5% |
37 | 🇨🇱 Chile | $34B | 0.5% |
38 | 🇵🇪 Peru | $32B | 0.4% |
All Other | $439B | 6.0% |
As the above table shows, the United Kingdom is the third highest holder, at over $655 billion in Treasuries. Across Europe, 13 countries are notable holders of these securities, the highest in any region, followed by Asia-Pacific at 11 different holders.
A handful of small nations own a surprising amount of U.S. debt. With a population of 70,000, the Cayman Islands own a towering amount of Treasury bonds to the tune of $284 billion. There are more hedge funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands per capita than any other nation worldwide.
In fact, the four smallest nations in the visualization above—Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Luxembourg—have a combined population of just 1.2 million people, but own a staggering $741 billion in Treasuries.
Interest Rates and Treasury Market Dynamics
Over 2022, foreign demand for Treasuries sank 6% as higher interest rates and a strong U.S. dollar made owning these bonds less profitable.
This is because rising interest rates on U.S. debt makes the present value of their future income payments lower. Meanwhile, their prices also fall.
As the chart below shows, this drop in demand is a sharp reversal from 2018-2020, when demand jumped as interest rates hovered at historic lows. A similar trend took place in the decade after the 2008-09 financial crisis when U.S. debt holdings effectively tripled from $2 to $6 trillion.
Driving this trend was China’s rapid purchase of Treasuries, which ballooned from $100 billion in 2002 to a peak of $1.3 trillion in 2013. As the country’s exports and output expanded, it sold yuan and bought dollars to help alleviate exchange rate pressure on its currency.
Fast-forward to today, and global interest-rate uncertainty—which in turn can impact national currency valuations and therefore demand for Treasuries—continues to be a factor impacting the future direction of foreign U.S. debt holdings.
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