FINANCIAL HOUSEKEEPING | Tune up your knowledge before shopping car loans
If you’re in the market for a new or used car and plan to finance the purchase, you’ll want to examine your finances before applying in order to get the best terms.
One way to make sure you are reviewing the right things is to go through the “tune-up” at autofinancing101.com.
The website – put together by Americans Well-Informed on Automobile Retailing Economics – helps consumers understand the right steps to take to get the best car-financing deals. The tune-up is a four-question quiz that covers the basics in a matter of minutes.
You can get directly to the tune-up by setting your Web browser to autofinancing101.com/roadtrip/tuneup.asp.
SHORT COURSE | Market cap
A company’s market capitalization or “market cap” is the total equity market value of the company, calculated by multiplying the total number of shares outstanding by the current stock price.
A stock trading at $10 per share with 10 million outstanding shares, therefore, would have a value of $100 million.
Generally, the U.S. market recognizes three market-cap divisions: large cap (usually $5 billion and above), midcap (usually $1 billion to $5 billion) and small cap (usually less than $1 billion), although the cutoffs between the categories are not precise or fixed.
In the example above, the company would be considered small cap.
