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Web Trader MT5
B
Ben Bernanke
American economist, Federal Reserve Chair from 2006 to 2014. Before joining the Fed he was a Princeton professor whose academic specialty was, of all things, the Great Depression; a piece of biography that turned out to be useful when the 2008 financial crisis arrived two years into his tenure.
Bernanke’s response to the crisis defined modern central banking: emergency lending facilities for non-bank institutions, dollar swap lines with foreign central banks, large-scale asset purchases (which he popularised as “quantitative easing”), and forward guidance about the path of interest rates. Critics argued he bailed out Wall Street while ordinary Americans lost homes. Defenders argued he probably prevented a second Depression. Both can be true.
He shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig for foundational research on banks and financial crises.
Example: Bernanke’s phrase “the courage to act”; also the title of his memoir; captures the spirit of his most aggressive 2008 interventions, including the AIG rescue and the multi-trillion-dollar Fed balance-sheet expansion.
Bermuda Dollar (BMD)
The currency of Bermuda, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar since 1972. Like the Bahamian, Belize, and Cayman dollar regimes, the BMD operates inside an economy that is heavily dollarised already, particularly in the offshore reinsurance industry that anchors Bermuda’s GDP.
The Bermuda Monetary Authority issues the notes and coins, and the peg has held without serious challenge for over five decades. Both currencies circulate side by side. Locals tend to use BMD for everyday spending; tourists and offshore companies often use USD without conversion.
Example: A reinsurance executive in Hamilton paying for lunch with a USD twenty-dollar note receives change in a mix of BMD coins and notes. The transaction completes in seconds, with no calculator and no question about whether the exchange is fair, because the 1:1 peg is so deeply embedded in commercial life that nobody thinks about it.
Beta
A statistical measure of how a stock moves relative to the broader market. The market itself has a beta of 1.0 by definition. A stock with a beta of 1.5 tends to move 1.5 times as much as the market in either direction; a stock with a beta of 0.5 moves half as much. Negative beta; rare but real for assets like gold-mining stocks at certain points; means the stock tends to move opposite the market.
Beta is computed from historical price data, usually using daily or weekly returns over a year or two, and it forms one of the inputs into the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The number is useful but limited. It changes over time. It says nothing about absolute risk, only relative risk. And it assumes the past correlation will hold in the future, which is exactly when you’d want it not to.
Example: Tesla’s beta has often run above 2.0 during periods of high retail trading interest; it amplifies whatever the market does. Procter & Gamble, by contrast, runs around 0.4. A diversified portfolio mixing the two manages overall volatility through beta differences.
Beta Currency
A currency whose movements are highly correlated with global risk sentiment. When markets feel optimistic and money flows into risk assets, beta currencies rally. When fear takes over and capital retreats to safety, they sell off.
The classic beta currencies are the commodity-linked ones: Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar, South African rand, Brazilian real, Mexican peso. They tend to share certain characteristics; exposure to commodity exports, higher domestic interest rates that attract carry-trade flows, and economies that benefit from global growth.
The opposite category is safe-haven currencies, mainly the Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and US dollar, which tend to strengthen when risk appetite collapses. The distinction shapes how FX strategists think about portfolio construction during regime shifts.
Example: During the COVID crash in March 2020, AUD/JPY fell from 73 to under 60 in three weeks. The Aussie was the textbook beta currency selling off; the yen was the textbook safe haven catching the bid. Recovery played out in reverse.
Beveridge Curve
A scatter plot of the unemployment rate against the job vacancy rate, named after British economist William Beveridge. In normal times the two move inversely: when unemployment falls, vacancies rise, and vice versa. The curve traces this inverse relationship and tends to be reasonably stable within a given economic cycle.
What economists watch for is shifts in the curve itself. If the curve moves outward; meaning higher vacancy rates at any given unemployment rate; it suggests the labour market has become less efficient at matching workers to jobs. Skill mismatches, geographic mismatches, or sectoral disruption can all shift the curve.
Example: The post-COVID US labour market produced a clear outward shift in the Beveridge Curve through 2021 and 2022. Vacancies hit record levels even as unemployment stayed moderately elevated, suggesting workers and jobs weren’t connecting; partly because the jobs available weren’t the jobs workers wanted, and partly because pandemic-era retirements and migration changed the underlying pool.
Bhutan Ngultrum (BTN)
The currency of Bhutan, pegged 1:1 to the Indian rupee since 1974. The peg reflects Bhutan’s deep economic integration with India: most of Bhutan’s trade flows through India, hydroelectric exports to India provide a major source of foreign exchange, and the rupee circulates freely alongside the Ngultrum within Bhutan.
Issued by the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan, the BTN splits into 100 chhertum. Notes go from 1 to 1,000 BTN. Because of the peg, Bhutan effectively imports Indian monetary policy, which makes sense given the trade structure but limits independent options during shocks that affect the two economies differently.
Example: A traveller crossing from Phuentsholing into Jaigaon (the border towns connecting Bhutan and West Bengal) can spend either currency on either side without exchange. Indian rupees work in Thimphu hotels; Bhutanese ngultrums are accepted in some shops on the Indian side, though less commonly because the BTN isn’t legal tender in India formally.
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