Start with the ABCs...

Asset: Anything with value, such as a house, stock or bond.

Basis point: One one-hundreth of one percentage point. Changes in interest rates are measured in basis points. If the Bank of Canada's interest rate is 3% and it raises it by 50 basis points, then the new rate would be 3.5%.

BOC: Bank of Canada.

Cap: Short for capitalization. How much the stock is worth on the stock market. You will often hear analysts referring to companies as: Small Cap (less than $3 billion); Mid-Cap (between $3 and $10 billion); or Large Cap (over $10 billion).
Commercial paper: Short-term loans, issued primarily by corporations, to finance their daily needs, such as making payroll.

Dividends: The payout from shares. Dividends are taxed at a lower rate than interest, which is why many investors like them.

Equity: A share of ownership in a company, home or other asset. Companies issue shares of ownership through stock. With a home, equity equals its current market value minus the amount of the mortgage.

Fixed Income: Receiving a fixed amount of income, on a certain amount of money, for a certain period of time. Bonds and Preferred Shares are forms of Fixed Income.

Home-equity line of credit (HELOC): A line of credit secured by a home.

IPO: Initial Public Offering. The process of taking a business public (rather than keeping it private).
Index: A way of measuring the performance, or price movement, of just about anything. Indices (plural for index) are created to track items such as stocks, bonds, or consumer prices on common goods and services. Popular stock indices are: S&P/TSX, the DOW, and Nasdaq Composite.

Leverage: Using borrowed money to invest or finance a business. The more leveraged companies or investors are, the more risk they take on.

Liquidity: A measure of how quickly an asset or investment can be sold or redeemed. The faster it can be sold, the more liquid it is.

Mutual Fund: An investment that pools money from many individuals and invests it into stocks, bonds, or other asset classes.

Portfolio: A collection of all your investments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cash and any other things of value including real estate. (Sorry, it does not refer to a large black case to carry your money.)

Recession: A period of economic decline - specifically, a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters.

RRSP / RRIF: Registered Retirement Savings Plan / Registered Retirement Income Fund. An RRSP must be converted to a RRIF plan at age 71. 

RESP: Registered Education Savings Plan. The most widely used savings vehicle for parents to put money aside for their children's' post secondary education. The government matches 20% of parents' contributions (up to a maximum of $500 per child, per year). RDSP: Registered Disability Savings Plan (for children with disabilities).

Short selling: A technique in which investors borrow shares in a company from a broker and sell them, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price. Short selling is a bet that a stock's price will fall.

Solvency: The ability to pay expenses and debt on time and to continue operating. An insolvent company typically has to seek bankruptcy protection from creditors.

TFSA: Tax Free Savings Account. Introduced in 2009, the TFSA allows investors to save $5,000 per year and pay NO tax on the earnings, even upon withdrawal.

Volume - This tells you how many of the company's shares are being bought and sold in the market. If volume suddenly picks up, this is usually accompanied by a sharp rise or fall in the stock price.

52-week high/low - These figures tell you the highest and lowest prices the shares have reached over a rolling 52-week period. It gives you a good indication of how the share price is performing.

Unique Expressions from the Trading Floor (as explained by Golden Girl Financial)

Catch a Falling Knife: This refers to investors who try to time the bottom of a stock and buy it while it is going down. Buying at a bottom can be a good thing (if you think prices will then go up), but you have to time it right. It's like catching a falling knife: if you're lucky, you grab the handle. If not, you're heading to the ER.

The Trend is Your Friend: This taps into the idea that it's more lucrative to invest with a market trend than against it. So a stock (or stock market) that is heading higher will generally continue to do so in the near future. It's a popular tenet with so-called "momentum investors" who ride these trends. Beware : the trend can turn out to be a very fickle friend.

Dead Cat Bounce: Dark humour alert: this phrase refers to the idea that even a dead cat will bounce if it's thrown from something high enough. Traders use it when a long-decline suddenly sees a small uptick. The idea is that this uptick is temporary and it will fall back down again.

Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket: Don't buy just one investment, but many different kinds, in order to diversify and reduce your risk. Eggs are precious and delicate, so if the basket falls, you don't want them all to break at once.

Final Words
You would visit Paris even though you don't speak French, right? So, even though you don't know the entire financial lingo, don't let it stop you from visiting your advisor to get a guided tour of the stock markets, anytime you want. Just ask.