Banking/Investing/Financial terms 3

💵 Did you know? Finance edition
"In the red" and "in the black" come from the traditional practice of writing losses in red ink and profits in black ink in account books. "We finished the quarter in the black" means profitable; "in the red" means operating at a loss. Both expressions are widely used in everyday business English.
The word "leverage" in finance means using borrowed money to increase potential returns. Outside finance, it's used as a verb in business meetings everywhere: "We can leverage our existing relationships to enter the new market." It's one of the most overused words in corporate English.
"Hedge" in finance means reducing risk by taking an offsetting position. In everyday English it survives in "hedging your bets" — covering multiple options to avoid total loss. The connection to financial hedging is direct.