Glossary and Acronyms "M"

Mortgage Rate

The rate of interest charged by a mortgage lender.

Multi-family residence (2 to 4 units)

A residential property with 2 to 4 individual housing units (duplex, triplex or quadplex).  

Multi-family Mortgage

A Residential Mortgage on a dwelling that is designed to house more than four families, such as an apartment complex.

Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

A listing stating the agent will allow other agents to try to sell the property. Under this agreement, the original agent gives the selling agent a percentage of the commission or some other stipulated amount.

Management fee

A service fee or charge paid to an investment manager.

Market capitalization (Cap)

The market value of a company. Market capitalization can be determined by multiplying the number of outstanding shares of a company’s stock by the stock’s current market price per share.

Market risk

The possibility that the value of an investment will fall because of a general decline in the financial markets.

Markit CDX Emerging Markets 5-year Total Return Index

An index comprising credit default swaps (CDS) on sovereign debt from three regions: 1) Latin America; 2) Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and 3) Asia. The index measures the performance of and replicates the behavior of a fictitious portfolio that buys one CDX Emerging Markets 5-year Index contract and invests the remaining notional principal amount in money market instruments. The portfolio is always invested in the most recently published (on-the-run) CDX Emerging Markets 5-year series that it tracks. (Whenever a new CDX Emerging Markets 5-year series is issued, due to a regular index roll [every March and September] or due to a credit event in the current series, the CDS position in the reference portfolio is rolled into the on-the-run/reduced index position.)

Markit CDX North American High Yield 5-year Total Return Index (CDX NA HY)

An equally weighted index that measures the performance of 100 liquid non-investment-grade reference entities (those given a long-term credit rating by Fitch, Moody’s and/or S&P that is lower than BBB-/Baa3) domiciled in North America that trade in the credit default swaps (CDS) market. The index measures the performance of and replicates the behavior of a fictitious portfolio that buys one CDX NA HY 5-year Index contract and invests the remaining notional principal amount in money market instruments. The portfolio is always invested in the most recently published (on-the-run) CDX NA HY 5-year series that it tracks. (Whenever a new CDX NA HY 5-year series is issued, due to a regular index roll [every March and September] or due to a credit event in the current series, the CDS position in the reference portfolio is rolled into the on-the-run/reduced index position.)

Maturity date

The date when the principal amount of a loan, bond or any other debt becomes due and is to be paid in full.

Mid capitalization (Cap)

A reference to either a medium-sized company stock or an investment fund that invests in the stocks of medium-sized companies.

Mid-cap fund

A fund that invests primarily in mid-cap stocks.

Mid-cap stocks

Stocks of companies with a medium market capitalization. Mid caps are often considered to offer more growth potential than larger caps, but less than small caps. They also are considered to offer less risk than small caps, but more than large caps.

Money market fund

A mutual fund that invests in short-term, high-grade fixed-income securities. Money market funds seek the highest level of income consistent with preserving capital. In other words, they try to maintain a stable share price.

Morningstar

A leading mutual fund research and tracking firm that categorizes funds by objective and size, then ranks fund performance within those categories.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Allocation Indexes

A series of unmanaged, multi-asset-class indexes designed to benchmark target-date investment products. Each index is available in three risk profiles: aggressive, moderate and conservative. The index asset allocations adjust over time, reducing equity exposure and shifting toward traditional income-producing investments. The strategic asset allocation of the indexes is based on the Lifetime Asset Allocation methodology developed by Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar company.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Moderate Indexes

Each of the Nationwide Target Destination Funds has an individual Morningstar index to go with it that matches the year number in the fund name. The Nationwide Destination 2010 Fund uses the Morningstar® (Mstar) Lifetime Moderate 2010 Index. The other Target Destination Funds follow suit, changing only the number in the index name (2015, 2020, 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2055, 2060). The Morningstar Lifetime Allocation Indexes definition is used as an overarching benchmark index description; an individual market index definition is not used for each fund.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Target Risk Index

One of a series of unmanaged indexes that cover a global set of stocks, bonds, and commodities and are designed to benchmark asset allocation products across a risk spectrum ranging from conservative to aggressive. Asset-class weights are adjusted annually and rebalanced quarterly, based on an asset allocation methodology from Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar company.

MPT Statistics (Modern Portfolio Theory)

Alpha, beta, and R-squared are modern-portfolio-theory measures of a fund's relative risk, based on a least-squares regression of a fund's excess returns on the excess returns of a market index. Standard deviation is not considered an MPT statistic because it is not generated through the same formula or mathematical analysis as the other three statistics.

MSCI ACWI

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI ACWI ex USA Index

An unmanaged, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of global stocks in developed and emerging markets, excluding U.S.-based companies.

MSCI ACWI

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI ACWI ex USA Growth

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap growth stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI; excludes the United States.

MSCI EAFE Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index. The index is designed to measure the performance of the stocks in developed markets outside the United States and Canada.

MSCI EAFE Value Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in developed markets as determined by MSCI; excludes the United States and Canada.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in emerging-country markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI Emerging Markets Net Total Return Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in emerging-country markets as determined by MSCI. The net total return component measures whole market performance, including price performance and income from dividend payments, after the deduction of withholding taxes.

MSCI World IndexSM

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI World IndexSM Free

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of global developed-market equities. The “Free” suffix denotes an index with a somewhat different history but the same constituents and performance in relation to its counterpart without the suffix.

Mutual funds

An investment company registered with the SEC that buys a portfolio of securities selected by a professional investment adviser. Mutual funds can have actively-managed portfolios, where a professional investment adviser creates a unique mix of investments to meet a particular investment objective. They can also have passively-managed portfolios, in which the adviser tries to match the performance of a selected benchmark or index.